I thought it would be a good idea to take my kids (19 and 17) to see The Rocky Horror Picture Show. A chance to revisit a cultural icon of my youth and let my kids experience a unique phenomenon.
Bad idea! This was probably the worst movie experience of my life. Don’t get me wrong, the movie was still great, at least I guess it was. We couldn’t hear a line of it. It’s just that the audience participation part had completely taken over everything else and had pissed all over it.
As a veteran RHPS aficionado of the past, I expected audience participation and looked forward to it. That’s what makes the movie so special. I suppose I would even have been OK with the current level of it if it had been the least bit funny. It just wasn’t. There was a memorized audience line for every single line and scene in the movie, and it was shouted with the same comedic style of Dustin Hoffman’s Rainman character doing the “Who’s on First” routine. And the jokes just weren’t funny to begin with. Remember when the criminologist first makes his appearance? The scripted audience line was “Where’s your neck?” Then he says something about Brad and Janet becoming lost, and the audience says, “Lost! Yeah like your neck!” Probably four or five “neck” jokes in that one scene and all of that caliber.
Maybe I’ve just become an old fuddy-duddy who doesn’t get it anymore. But my kids hated it, too. I just had to apologize over and over to them for wasting their evening.
Apparently there are people who like it just the way it is because they come to the show every stinking week, but if you’re like me and are thinking about re-experiencing a moment of your youth, rent the movie and watch it at home.
Even better idea: buy the soundtrack and skip the movie, because the movie sucks*. There were only two really good things about the movie: the old-school audience participation (and that really DOES depend on just WHERE you first experienced it), and the soundtrack.
I’d take this opportunity to apologize to Richard O’Brien, but I really don’t think even he thought he had a Pulitzer-potential play/film.
Interesting take. That was probably my idea of it as well, when I first saw it, although as much as that it was what my cool older sister was into, so I had to be into it too. This was around 1978-79 (and I a freshman/sophomore in HS–yes, sheltered), so several years after its release, but only a couple of years after the punk scene started, and I was just starting to become aware of all this “subversive” pop culture. We lived way out in the exurbs of Chicago (quite a mainstream community, it seemed to me at the time), and made the pilgrimage all the way to the Biograph to see RHPS. It felt like the audience participation thing was born there, with people in full costumes on the stage in front of the screen before and after the show.
After the naughtiness and perversity thing took its course, I think the take-away for me as a very young person was epitomized in the “don’t dream it, be it” section. Problem was, I couldn’t reconcile that message with the murder and meanness otherwise exhibited in the film.
I saw it several times circa 1980-82 at the long gone Tiffany Theater on Sunset Blvd in Hollywood. They had a midnight show every Friday and Saturday. Fun times. I couldn’t bear to watch it again and ruin the memories.
Well, of course. Rocky Horror is Disney by comparison.
I have to agree with JayJay that the soundtrack is the best part of the movie, but the movie itself has some great moments, especially in the beginning.
Perhaps a younger, hipper person will drop by and tell me what the attraction is of being surrounded by people shouting out their scripted lines in a robotic monotone.
I guess I should mention that I saw this in Austin, TX. I know that different venues have their own takes on it.
I had the opposite experience of the OP: my 70-year-old father recently told me he rented it and watched it in his living room with his girlfriend. He’d heard it was a popular movie and knew I used to go see it a lot in college, but he had never seen it.
I was horrified, embarrassed and also somewhat curious: what WOULD it be like to actually hear the dialog and be able to evaluate the movie on its own without the crowd screaming over every line and dodging toast? I suspect the movie would suffer a lot from the change.
Dad said it was “OK”. I could not bring myself to discuss it in detail with him.
I was one of those early maniacs performing in the beginning. I first saw it in the summer of 1978 in NYC at the 8th Street Playhouse where it all started. Then I went back home to Ohio and started it there. Heady days. Good memories.
A decade ago, maybe even two, my father started to watch RHPS on cable TV, while I was visiting. I said “Daddy, I really don’t think you want to watch that movie.” He asked me if I’d seen it. I told him I had a copy of it. Time Warp had just played, and then Sweet Transvestite…
Daddy decided that this was definitely a case when I knew what he would and would not like. Although he was astonished that I’d paid good money for a tape of that movie.
Aside: I have never seen the movie in a theater but I love it. I have a 25th (I think) anniversary release with a great documentary on the filming with Richard O’Brien and everyone but Tim Curry in it. I don’t know whether I would like it live although I did see a small theater stage presentation with simulated audience participation. My favorite: Just before the criminologist makes the declaration ‘heavy, dark and pendulous’ an off stage voice says ‘describe your balls’. No idea what they would say in the theater.
Bob
I di Rocky Horror 2 or 3 times in the mid to late 1980s with friends of mine who were more frequent attendees. Even back then the dialogue of the movie itself was all but unfollowable with the scripted call and response jokes from the audience. It was kind of like one big in-joke for a theater full of teenagers and young adults.
All I really remember at this point was the nubile teenage girl in “the floor show” (people who would dress up as characters in the movie and pantomime scenes as they played on screen) in the role of Janet. “That slut” who got down to her bra and undies at one point.
So, no go on revisiting as a 40+ year old guy, nor with bringing any of my soon to be teenage kids with me either!
I used to catch it in Tampa and one of my favorite parts was actually before the movie when they would play the Tim Curry videos for “i do the rock” and “Paradise Garage.”
I’ve since seen it in other states but that was the only theater that I went to that did that. Did they do that where you saw it?
The soundtrack was great but if you’re going that route
get the soundtrack to the Rocky Horror Show. I had that and it was a lot better.
You probably would have a really hard time finding it though.
I’ve never seen it with audience participation. I don’t especially like the film. I did see a stage version of it in the 1990s which was good, but mostly because it was slightly updated and had a lot of local stars in it. The story still doesn’t really make much sense.
Seriously, that’s why you can’t watch the DVD and expect to like the movie. It’s not a good movie. It’s an experience. It’s the original MST3K and you’re one of the robots.
