The Rocky Horror Picture Show
1975 · Directed by Jim Sharman
The original participation cult. The movie is fine. The experience is the point. See it live before you see it alone.
Why It's Cult
Rocky Horror Picture Show is the ur-participation cult. The midnight screening tradition, the shadow casts, the rice and water and toast — that's the real movie. Watching it at home alone is like listening to a bootleg of a concert. Fine. Not the point. Find a local shadow cast. Thank me later.
The Plot, Officially
On a wild and rain-swept late-November evening, somewhere at an empty stretch of road outside Ohio's merry Denton, blissfully-affianced, prudish, boringly-innocent young pair Brad Majors (Barry Bostwick) and Janet Weiss (Susan Sarandon) find themselves stranded on their way to visit an ex-tutor. Instead, the couple will inadvertently unearth the cross-dressing Dr. Frank-N-Furter's (Tim Curry's) spooky lair of inexhaustible oddities, just in time to partake in the out-of-this-world mad scientist's proud unveiling of his latest, delightfully extravagant, most daring creation: the ultimate male and the perfect sex symbol: the flaxen-haired Rocky Horror (Peter Hinwood). But, little by little, as the effervescent transgressive force gobbles up whole the unsuspecting visitors of the night, Brad and Janet slowly begin to embrace the potent fascinations of seduction, while an idolized Rocky roams free in the mansion. Who can interrupt man's union with the absolute pleasure?
Gateway Scenes
Midnight screening
Do not pre-watch. The first viewing has to be in a theater with a shadow cast. Accept no substitutes.
The movie is a delivery mechanism for the live experience.
Starring
Tim Curry, Susan Sarandon, Barry Bostwick
Where to Watch
via JustWatch →
