50 years after its release, “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” is still going strong. For several generations, now, “Rocky Horror” has always been presented in weekly midnight programs, generally accompanied by dedicated Shadowcasts, reconstructing the events of the film live on stage. The film is somewhat noisy, but the public was encouraged to be downright rowdy. His queerness and his sexuality are also presented very frankly and with a festive tone. Young Queer and Trans teenagers could attend the midnight projections of “Rocky Horror” and feel at home, encouraged to express themselves to the extent that their hearts allowed. Depending on the atmosphere in the room, you can even find someone with whom to manage. “Rocky Horror” has been a festival that had been raging, changing tone and adapting to Times for five decades.
The film was based on a stage musical, “The Rocky Horror Show”, written by Richard O’Brien at an inactive moment of his life. The musical took its bearings of the iconography of Glamor rock and remixed them with “The Old Dark House” and several strange science fiction films that O’Brien loved when he was a child. The main characters were the majors of Brad and Janet Weiss, who refer to a Gothic castle during a rain storm. The inhabitants of the castle, in this case, are bisexual extraterrestrials of space transformed which, during the days, dancing, leading franbialism franbialism experiences. It’s a good time.
Of course, the many enthusiasts of the film will be able to tell you that “Rocky Horror” opened its doors in 1975 in bad reviews and very low box office receipts. Indeed, some of the first audiences of the film tests were released. In the stage musical, Tim Curry played the flamboyant Dr Frank-N-Furter, a role he resumed for the cinematographic adaptation. This is one of Curry’s most recognizable performance. It is difficult to resist. And yet these early test audiences have resisted it. Curry remembers walking too well, which he spoke of in a recent interview with the Los Angeles Times.
The early test audience came out of the rocky horror image show
The film was shot on a busification budget of only $ 1.4 million. Star Susan Sarandon spoke several times how the cold and humid filming conditions were, because the film was shot in a real castle … without heating. She and Barry Bostwick played Janet and Brad, O’Brien played the hail assistant Riff-Raff, Patricia Quinn played her sister Magenta and Little Nell played the Columbia group. The titular ICT-monster was played by the bodybuilder Peter Hinwood. Meat Loaf played the Lor-Devant biker, Eddie.
Curry remembers watching the film finished at 20th Century Fox, and how the leaders gave no reaction. Depending on his words: “You could touch silence at the end. […] It was not a very alive audience. There was really no reaction. “This is not a good sign. The sign was even worse when the time came to test” Rocky Horror “for a public audience. In their finished wisdom, Fox has chosen to organize a projection of this wild rock musical and queer in an elder, the colleges saw the colleges. Rocky Horror Picture Show” seemed condemned.
The film was finally published in the United States on September 26, 1975. It started the AU Theater in Westwood, California, and some other theaters around Los Angeles, with the intention of extending it to eight additional cities across the country. Westwood, you have to explain, is immediately adjacent to the UCLA, and the students flocked to the theater to see this new Bonkers film. It was a success … but only in this place. Because he failed everywhere else, his wider release has been reduced.
Rocky Horror takes control of the midnight film scene
Fox did not know what to do with their particular failure. They tried to run like a double feature with Brian de Palma of “The Phantom of the Paradise”, but that did not move the needle financially. In 1975, however, a new scene emerged. Many theaters had discovered that they could project larger and more stretched films at midnight and repercussions in huge dough from the inhabitants of the night smokers. Films like “El Topo”, “Pink Flamingos” and “Night of the Living Dead” made huge sums of money on the midnight circuit, and one of the leaders of Fox figured “Rocky Horror” could be a perfect adjustment.
It was. “Rocky Horror” opened its doors in New York Waverly rooms on April 1, 1976 and people began to present themselves en masse. Tim Curry had just lived very close to Waverly at the time, and was unleashed to see what the public looked like. He was positively frightened. The theater was entirely sexy and ready for the party. “It was a kind of guaranteed part,” said Curry. “And if he didn’t provide an appointment, he might find one.” The word quickly spread and “Rocky Horror” began to be reserved in other New York theaters. Then he spread to other cities. In the early 1980s, he played at midnight, on a weekly base, from one ocean to another. The Nuart Theater of Los Angeles still directs him to date, playing the film every Saturday evening with the sins of Shadowcast live O ‘The Flesh. Indeed, Fox never pulled “Rocky Horror” from the general release, so it is technically the oldest film in the history of cinema.
The documentary “Strange Journey”, all about the Rise and Rise of “Rocky Horror” was released in limited theaters on September 26, 2025.
