Look up at the comically large floating red lips! It’s a bird…It’s a plane…It’s a science fiction double feature!
On October 18, VTSU-Johnson’s SGA partnered with the Campus Activities Board to release their annual screening and costume contest for The Rocky Horror Picture Show. A spectacle-driven and extra bedazzled ode to B-movies from the 1930s to the 1960s, The Rocky Horror Picture Show is a stage and film musical with music and lyrics by Richard O’Brien.
Both the stage musical and film are some of the first musicals to illustrate fluid sexuality, and challenge generational differences that were present throughout most of the early twentieth century, says Wikipedia.
The film was directed by Jim Sharman and produced by Lou Adler and Michael White with profoundly experimental cinematography by Peter Suschitzky.
For a number of years, the CAB and SGA’s screenings of Rocky Horror drew packed crowds into Dibden. This mid-2024 screening saw a smaller crowd, but those who came in still had the antici … (“Say it!”) … pation. Students, and a small trickle of community members, made their way into the theatre with bagged-up props that make up the audience participation part of a Rocky Horror screening, “visual and not abysmal” costumes, and much-needed patience for the tech crew during the unexpected technical difficulties.
Of the eight individuals who showcased an eccentric plethora of looks that slayed the house “boots down” for the costume contest, the three winners who have been selected under the categories of Best Costume, Coolest Costume, and Spookiest Costume include the following: Dressed in an iconic black on black ensemble as Rocky Horror’s Dr. Frank-N-Furter, Wilbur Hayes, Social Media Coordinator and Staff Reporter for Basement Medicine, won under the category of Best Costume. Mickey Frances, a first-year Creative Writing Major, dressed in a pink and black Playboy Bunny inspired outfit, won the category of Spookiest Costume. A young community member who goes by the name Leo took the prize for Coolest Costume.
The musical made its first appearance on the West End Stage on June 19, 1973, at the Royal Court Theatre. With over 3,000 successful performances succeeding, the production became gradually known for its “low-budget theatrical success,” according to Wikipedia, and went on to win the Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best Musical. By 1975, Rocky Horror had made its Broadway debut at the Belasco Theatre, but had surpassed four previews and forty-five performances while receiving one Tony Nomination and three Drama Desk awards.
Despite its box-office flop upon opening, the 1975 film adaptation has had long-running success throughout the last four and a half decades. From the perspectives of many film and theatregoers, Rocky Horror is still being screened in multiple venues with long-standing traditions of character cosplaying and lively audience participation through call-and-response bits. The film has since obtained an international gross of $170 million and holds the record for longest-running theatrical film release of all time. Fun fact? Larushka Ivan-Zadeh of BBC News states that David Bowie’s first wife, Mary Angela Barnett, holds responsibility for creating the current state of Rocky Horror’s audience participation culture that we know today with a simple “No, don’t do it!”
The plot of The Rocky Horror Picture Show tells the story of an engaged young couple, Brad Majors and Janet Weiss, who find themselves caught in an unexpected storm, and seek shelter in the home of everyone’s favorite fishnet-clothed icon, Dr. Frank-N-Furter. The doctor unleashes his new, blonde-haired “muscle man” creation, Rocky, and the two soon-to-be newlyweds are pulled into the experiment with Frank-N-Furter’s insidiously wild cohorts. But not everything is what a transvestite’s ways of living are cracked up to be. For the culturally uninitiated, the remainder of the show invites you to see for yourself!
Rocky Horror is part of the wagonloads upon wagonloads of musicals, and musical films, of which you don’t need to be a “theatre kid” to enjoy them. And of course, justifiably so. Seeking a general thrill of the chase? Call on Rocky Horror. Need to expand your plethora of fictional emotional support characters? Call on Rocky Horror. For those new to Mr. O’Brien’s 1975 film, you may need to consider re-watching another two to three times to better grasp the scope of the plot.
With his thigh-high boots and transatlantic-like accent, Tim Curry’s Dr. Frank-N-Furter rises to the top of a list of characters that audiences would most likely be eager to witness and not forget. Just when you hit the brief interval that comes after the song, “Time Warp,” you may think that the lump of black descending down the castle elevator may be the Evil Queen on a bad hair day. But Mr. Curry’s Dr. Frank-N-Furter slowly unveils himself from that lump, and each step he takes, as he slithers his way to the main hall, is worth springing out of your seat, running up to the front of the screen, getting down on your knees, and bowing down for.
How can we forget about his posse of fifteen Transylvanians, as per a section of the cast roster on IMDB, who were given the freedom to amp up the high animation, and antici-…(“Say it, godd***it!”)…-pation within their acting? Even within the aesthetically pleasing costume designs of Sue Blane, and the makeup designs of Pierre La Roche, the individuality of characters like Patricia Quinn’s Magenta, noted by the opening credits as a “domestic,” and Nell Campbell’s Columbia, additionally noted by said credits as a “groupie,” are fully presented with style and electric insidiousness. But in a previous article from Movie Web, The Rocky Horror Picture Show: Every Major Character, Ranked, Mr. O’Brien’s Riff-Raff has been ranked as second to first best character out of eight with Columbia at seventh place, Rocky at fifth place, and Frank-N-Furter in first place.
Mr. O’Brien’s Riff-Raff is equipped with a strong, extensive vocal range well enough to present the dramaturgically adapted, and parodied, elements of Frankenstein’s Igor. His performance of his solos in “Time Warp” encapsulates a shrill, gravely tenor. But Mr. O’Brien’s “Hyelleoh” peals from his throat upon his first on-screen entrance as Riff-Raff, he is equipped with a bass-baritone-like tremor that nearly sounds close to a British-speaking copy of Lurch from The Addams Family. Either way, gold star for great character acting.
Larushka Ivan-Zadeh, of the BBC, writes that the show is “the ultimate cult movie.” That statement, once one puts their best thought into it, can be proven correct by multitudes of reasons. Who would have thought that after the 1975 film was first disregarded by critics, including renowned film critic Roger Ebert, that it would be the emergence of Rocky Horror’s growing fan base that helped its natural iconic greatness live on? From long lived histories of lively shadow-cast performances playing nationally, to moments involving copies of Eddie the Delivery Boy crashing into movie houses by motorcycle, it’s remarkable to know that generations of true Rocky Horror disciples have lived by the mantra:
“Don’t dream it, be it.”
