I thoroughly enjoyed learning about “midnight movies” and “cult classics” this week, and Wednesday’s screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show was exactly the mid-week pick-me-up that I didn’t know I needed.
Midnight movies took off in the early 1970s, when urban centers began screening films at midnight. What can arguably be pinpointed as the start of this era are the midnight screening of El Topo (1970) at the Elgin Theater in New York City. Eventually, midnight movies spread across the United States, attracting a cult film audience.
Cult films are films with a cult following. This entails a dedicated audience that watches the films repeatedly, quotes the dialogue, and actively participates. A prime example of this, is this week’s screening, The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975). The Rocky Horror Picture Show has been called “the very definition of the term cult picture” by American film critic Danny Peary, as well as the “queen of the midnight movie circuit”.
The Rocky Horror Picture Show gained such a cult following, that it would seem obscene to speak about it without mentioning the fans—and I write this with Dr. Gagne’s Wednesday night audience participation in mind. What started as merely dialogue quoting and commenting soon became a culture. Fans from all over would repeatedly go watch The Rocky Horror Picture Show every Friday and Saturday night. They would bring props, dress up as characters, and soon became part of The Rocky Horror Picture Show experience. I was dumbfounded to find out that people had seen The Rocky Horror Picture Show over a thousand times.
The Rocky Horror Picture Show is a wild trip, from beginning to end. The plot takes off when newly-engaged couple Janet (Susan Sarandon) and Brad (Barry Bostwick) encounter car troubles in a thunderstorm. They venture out to look for a telephone and stumble across a castle. Inside the castle, they are met by weird and whacky characters—namely the gorgeous transvestite scientist Dr. Frank-N-Furter, played by Tim Curry.
This musical horror comedy satisfies every aspect of it’s title. Whenever the characters break out into songs, it’s difficult to keep still and not bust out moves and sing along—which I guess further explains the cult following the film had. Susan Sarandon’s Touch-A, Touch-A, Touch Me would unwind even nuns, and I haven’t stopped singing it since Wednesday’s screening. The setting of the film—and eerie castle—gives the dash of horror, and sci-fi (when it is revealed that the characters are, in fact, aliens from planet Transsexual and that the castle was merely a spaceship).
The Rocky Horror Picture Show, directed by Jim Sharman, is everything anyone could ever ask for in a film. First of all, the film is hilarious. Next, the costumes, makeup, sets, and overall aesthetic is to die for. Lastly, The Rocky Horror Picture Show is fun and weird, and it is no wonder that The Rocky Horror Picture Show captured an audience and left such a legacy.
History of the Motion Picture 