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The Rocky Horror Picture Show


The Rocky Horror Picture Show
(1975) - Directed by Jim Sharman
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Rock Opera / Parody / Sci-Fi / LGBT
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"Leeet's dooo the Tiiime Waaarp AGAAAIIN!"



I have no idea why I put this off for so many years. I love glam rock, am a big Meat Loaf fan, always liked musicals and slowly adopted a love of cheese and horror overtime. I guess I just had so many different assignments for cinema exploration over the years and Rocky Horror never really fit the bills. So I went into this knowing absolutely nothing about it except that Meat Loaf is in it and essentially becomes meat loaf. I even managed to forget that Tim Curry is in it. Well, now that the MoFo Musical Countdown is happening, I have to rush through a few musicals before it's over this week. Apparently even the Musical Countdown thread can't motivate me to check out this movie until the end.


This is an adaptation of a stage musical about a couple in love who gets caught in a storm and have to make a phone call at nearby castle. But of course, the castle is loaded with eccentrics led by a genius transvestite named Dr. Frank-N-Furter (Tim Curry), who's castle is really a laboratory for a number of freaky experiments, including an artificial muscle man. As the couple get caught up in his experiments, another visitor comes along and the real origins of the mad doctor are revealed.

OK, it's difficult to say that this movie has a plot, because it ambles on throughout the whole damn thing. But this ambling, ironically, is part of the movie's eccentric personality. It's dedicated to the cheese and charm you'd get from classic B-movies ranging from the well-knows works of Roger Corman to the near-intolerable crap by Peter Perry Jr. Every little plot twist or development is rooted entirely in the movie's colorful and stereotypical take on the LGBT side of musical theater.



So with this movie packed with songs from start to finish in the same vein as Mamma Mia, all that's left to see is whether these songs are any good. Well, I'd say most of them are. They're catchy even when they feel a little undercooked, and once again, every note and lyric is dedicated to the movie's flamboyent atmosphere. But does this all work??? Well, as a Frank Zappa fan, if I were to criticize the idea in general, I'd be a hypocrite. So, I'd say this isn't quite comparable to Zappa's works, but it's still fun enough to ride through the whole movie.

And now for the best part: the acting. Most of these people are just cheesy enough to make it all feel proper and alive. You might not give most of these people awards, but you don't want them offstage because they're all part of this cartoon world. It's not like when Uma Thurman blew her performance as Poison Ivy in Batman & Robin; this is all proper. But anyone who's seen this knows hands-down that the best performer is Tim Curry. Not only does he have a legitimately great rock voice, but this straight man's performance as a transvestite is disturbingly on the spot. You can tell he loves being there, and that he put his heart and soul into that performance. I might never look at any past Tim Curry roles the same way again, not even John Silver.

Rocky Horror isn't exactly "fine filmmaking," but rather "fun filmmaking." This is really just a colorful excuse to have a wild time and a few good laughs. Maybe there are too many songs and not enough finely-tuned parody storytelling, but in does a good job recreating the vibes of the subject while never losing its own personality. I don't really know if I'll ever watch it again, maybe if just an excuse to have something enjoyable in the background, but I'm really happy I got it off of my to-do list. Unfortunately, it's not going to make my ballet for the Musical Countdown.

= 72


Jim Sharman needs two more films to qualify for a Directorial Score.