DAILY FILM DOSE: A Daily Film Appreciation and Review Blog: Rocky Horror Picture Show

Sunday 31 October 2010

Rocky Horror Picture Show

Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) dir. Jim Sharman
Starring: Tim Curry Susan Sarandan, Brian Brian Bostwick, Richard O’Brien, Meatloaf

***

By Alan Bacchus

I like musicals, but don’t much care for rock operas, that is, the brand of song and dance motion picture which emerged in the 70’s and featured reworked pop rock tunes instead of traditional broadway style numbers. So this is not really my cup of tea, but if there was one film I could appreciate in this subgenre it would this gleeful, irresponsible and audacious cultish schlockfest.

Susan Sarandan is Janet Weiss, a virginal small town girl betroathed to the equally nerdy and virginal Brad Majors (Bostwick). The night of their engagement they find themselves with a flat tire and stranded in heavy rain. Their nearest respite is an old haunted castle-like mansion off the beaten path. They are quickly welcomed to a group of Transylvanians singing the Timewarp song.

The leader of this cooky gang of strange and swinging group of men, women and trannies is the ultimate tranny Dr. Frank N Furter (Tim Curry), who has just finished creating his own gay version of Frankenstein’s monster, an Apollo-like beefcake figure named Rocky, who will serve as his own personal sex slave. After Frank, in disguise, beds both Janet and Brad, Janet discovers her own repressed carnality and goes sexual haywire. Then Janet and Brad’s old high school teacher Dr. Everett Scott shows up only to get killed and served for dinner to Frank’s guests. Then it turns out the Transylvanians are actually aliens from another galaxy and eventually blast off into space in the castle-cum-spaceship.

Predictable is not the word to describe the effect of watching Rocky Horror Picture, fucked up quaalude trip or ecstasy bomb might be more appropriate. The plot seemingly gets made up as the film goes along, but mostly it’s a parody of classic b-movie sci-fi of the 50’s, with a lot of gay sex.

I forgot how gay the film was actually. And I forgot how liberal the 70’s were, in comparison to the decades of the 80’s and 90’s when material like this would have been scared off by the AIDS epidemic. Few commercial or even remotely mainstream films are as graphic and shamelessly explicit.

For straight dudes, we get to at least marvel at the stunning beauty of Susan Sarandan, her saucercup eyes and ample bosum which is featured prominently in that white cross-your-heart bra she wears through most of the film.

Stylistically, Jim Sharman’s direction and camerawork embrace all the shlockiness it’s trying to parody. There’s little aesthetic continuity going on. Sharman moves between extreme camera lenses, to rough handheld work, to traditional locked off photography. As with the story, anything goes.

Though the Blu-Ray looks sharp on my 42 inches, the small screen is just too small, and insular to really capture the magic of this film. Rocky Horror should be a shared experience, preferably at midnight, in a dingy old rep theatre on Halloween night in ful regalia and chemically enhanced. Happy Halloween!

Rocky Horror Picture Show is available on Blu-Ray from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment

4 comments :

Richard Bressler said...

FYI, Frank's creation was named Rocky, not Eddie. Eddie was played by Meat Loaf and served for dinner. Love the website, BTW. Keep up the great work!

Alan Bacchus said...

Oops. Thanks for the clarification. I'll make the change

Eva Moos said...

Great review - except... Eddie was Dr. Scott's nephew and he the one who got served for dinner (Dr. Scott was sitting at the dinner table himself) (Oh and by Diane you probably meant Janet?)
No hard feelings - awesome film, not only on Halloween!

Alan Bacchus said...

Thanks Eva. Yeah, plotting doesn't really matter in Rocky Horror, but gotta get it right for these reviews I guess.
Thanks for reading.