So I recently saw the Rocky Horror Picture Show, and I loved it. Granted, I had expected to love it, so it wasn’t much of a shock, but still: one rockin’ movie. I can’t get that “Time Warp” song out of my head.
Of course, the movie gets lifted to a whole other dimension of Greatness by Tim Curry, who may well be the greatest movie-transvestite ever (at least in a close tie with Hugo Weaving in Priscilla: QotD - yep, that’s two transvestite movies I absolutely love; I hope this stuff doesn’t scar me for life ). He was… great. No, scratch that. He was amazing. I liked him before, but now I’m a full fledged fan.
So has anyone ever seen the live show? Does it really draw a complete freakshow for an audience? And is “Shock Treatment” any good?
I will always remember it for the first, most explicit male homosexual sex scene I have ever seen in a widely released comedy. When ole Frankenfurter flipped Brads legs up over his shoulders. . . well!
We never wait for Halloween to do the Time Warp at my house.
I saw it for the first time about 4 years ago at my ex-gf’s house on Halloween. She said I could only come and watch if I wore a dress. So I wore one of hers, and damned if she didn’t get pissed off at me because I looked better in the dress than she did!
And after seeing that you never quite look at Tim Curry the same again. Ever.
How do you do I…see you’ve met my…faithful handymaaaaaaaaan.
I saw it in 1978, with some friends. I dragged my friends to it because it was part of a double feature, and I wanted to see the 2nd movie, “Phantom of the Paradise”. We had NO IDEA what RHPC was about at all, and the audience was not dressed up, or even rowdy, until the lights went down, and some people started chanting “lips, lips”.
Oh, joy! Rocky Horror!
I have seen the live show twice- once in Britain and once in Hungary. The time in Hungary was… interesting. see, there not so relaxed un groovy about homosexuality over there as they should be (IMO), and the gay sex scene was met with stony silenec. Oh, and nobody sang along to the songs
The time in Britain was great! a bunch of uni freinds and i travlled to the next city on the train IN FULL COSTUME to see it. Unfortuantely we had to go to the matinee performance to be in time for the train home, so the audience was quite as die-hard as the one that came to see the evening performance, but we had great seats in the second row, and got to do the time warp and shout at the narrator and everything. My friend steve had a great costume- stocking, garters, a corset etc, and a green doctor’s smock like the one frankunfurter wears when he unveils rocky to his guests. so, a couple of the extra did a little skit before the show started where they humilated a few people who hadn’t dressed up by stealing an item of clothing and then making them protrate themselves in front of them and beg to get it back. then the male extra came and admired our groups costumes. he was especially impressed with steve’s and started rubbing his leg. he then reached under steve’s smock and grabbed a handful- all this under the extremely bemused eyes of steve’s g.f. who was sitting right next to him, and who had never seen rocky horror before, and had NO idea what she’d let herself in for.
I first got pulled into RH at the innocent age of 15,( I ain’t sayin’ how long ago that was) by my much older and admitedly perverted older brother. I’ve since corrupted at least half a dozen others. I’m so proud. I’ve even had the opportunity, in a pinch to play a part. (No one else there was as experienced or fit the costume) You’ve got to love any movie at which you can not only throw stuff at your fellow audience members, but yelling at the screen is encouraged.
He’s just a little brought down because, when you knocked he thought…
I was introduced to RHPS when I was in high school, and I’ve gone to see it on Halloween every year since. Even though my first time watching it was on video at a friend’s house, I fell in love (or maybe lust) at the first tantalizing glimpse of Frank-n-Furter in the elevator. A few months later a big group of my friends and I all lost our virginity together, and we didn’t feel bad about our lack of experience because the couple next to us seemed to have wandered in completely by mistake, they looked so lost/horrified. TelcontarStorm, I now also take pride in corrupting others.
When I was in high school I was suicidal. I was involved in a school production and had decided that after the show was closed I would kill myself. For whatever reason I went to see RHPS during the run of the show. Closing night came and the decision was made to hold over for another week, so my death timetable got pushed back. By the time the show actually closed, I was into Rocky Horror and found that I could make it through the week as long as I had Rocky to live for on the weekends (we had Friday and Saturday shows so I sometimes wonder if Saturday-only would have been enough). I once wrote Richard O’Brien a letter telling him this. He sent me back a very nice card thanking me for letting him know. An ex-roommate stole the card and if I ever locate him he will be injured severely. I have since seen the movie in Forth Worth, Kansas City, Grand Rapids, Chicago, Bloomington/Normal IL and Madison. Once perfrmed the entire floor show by myself because the so-called cast I was with at the time were a bunch of fucking slackers who decided they didn’t feel like performing that night despite their deal to perform every show in exchange for free admission. I don’t go to the Madison show because I fuckng loathe the cast. They used to perform only every other week so I’d sometimes go on the off-week but they now are there every weekend and they suck.
As for Shock Treatment…
IMHO it’s not a very good movie even when not compared to RHPS. The music is fantastic, in many ways superior to the music for RHPS, and the themes of the movie (media manipulation of the masses, instant TV stars, etc.) presage by a couple of decades the emergence of reality TV and its sundry “stars,” so the movie is definitely worth seeing. I taped it off cable several years ago to have but have only had the desire to watch it once. OTOH, I listen to the soundtrack every few weeks. So my advice is to watch the movie and then buy the soundtrack.
I first got into the movie late in my junior year of high school (around '01) but I didn’t get to see it in a theater until last year. Great experience. It was a midnight showing, the house was completely packed, and there was a group acting everything out on stage. Lots of fun.
A couple of years ago the theater at Washburn University of Topeka, here in Topeka, Kansas, performed the Rocky Horror Show. I’d seen the movie several times but not the live show. It was so much fun. There’s just something better about live performances.
Just to make the evening perfect, we had to walk past picketers on the sidewalk, on the way to the university theater. Not just any picketers, you know, it was the Phelps clan, who live here in Topeka. God, I love irritating those people by doing something they hate.
I once had a cassette of the audience participation version of RHPS. I loaned it to my nephew, who now claims he has no idea where it might be. :mad:
I still manage to see it once a year, though on video because the local theaters have stopped the showings from what I’ve heard. I have this ‘thing’ for Richard O’Brien’s voice; it gives me chills. In a good way.
God I love this movie. I was introduced to it at 13 by a teacher(!). He he, she was a great teacher. Of course, when I told her my niece was dressing up as Magenta for Halloween, she got a horrified look on her face. I had to quickly explain there was, in fact, a dog on Blue’s Clues with the same name.
-Lil
(Sweet Transvestite on now)
I lost my “virginity” in New York City at some theatre downtown. I went to see it with a friend who lives there. We took our seats, then he got up to go to the bathroom or something like that… he said.
He came back and before the movie started, they had the initiation for all the virgins in the audience, who were called up by name one by one. And they called my name. I had to fake an orgasm in front of the entire audience.
When I was in college, a bunch of us theatre people wanted to either do the musical play the movie was based on or do an audience participation screening of the movie. But one of our instructors was bound and determined to prevent it. It seems when he was in college, someone took him to a mignight showing of the movie. He was singled out as a virgin and had a… bad experience. No one knew the details. We never did get to do the show or show the movie.
“There’s a li-i-i-i-i-i-i-ight…
(Where do you keep your babies, Janet?)
Burning in the fireplace!”
“A weakling, weighing ninety-eight pounds…
(That’s two Calista Flockharts!)”
). He was… great. No, scratch that. He was amazing. I liked him before, but now I’m a full fledged fan.
I’ve even had the opportunity, in a pinch to play a part. (No one else there was as experienced or fit the costume) You’ve got to love any movie at which you can not only throw stuff at your fellow audience members, but yelling at the screen is encouraged.