Hello, hello, my lovely, fellow witches.
Today I am having an extremely gorgeous treat for you, since I thought with Halloween coming up, we need something ookey, spooky for our Hidden Gem this week. And that’s why I thought that
The Rocky Horror Picture Show
Would be the perfect movie to recommend. After all, what is better than spending your Halloween with friends watching this movie while throwing toilet paper and party poppers through the living room (try to watch at someone else’s house. You don’t wanna clean the mess later).
I remember my first time watching Rocky Horror and being totally and utterly mesmerised by what I was seeing on screen. I was in my early teens and being from the countryside I had lived a rather sheltered life in regards to alternative relationship forms. Well and then came Rocky Horror…
Summary:
Brad and Janet are two young adults in love. Brad just proposed and everything looks like these two are gonna sail into a rosy future. One day they decide to take a trip to visit one of their college professors Dr Scott. But on the way to his house our two heroes are suddenly running into trouble when their car tire blows up on a dark country road. But with cell phones or anything else not invented yet, they have no choice but to brave the weather and try to look for help at a dark and mysterious hunting lodge. Both kids don’t know that behind these walls, pleasure, death and debauchery is waiting for them. A night begins that none of them could have ever imagined.
Why You Might Like It:
This movie is a freaking classic. It was made in 1975 and you won’t believe that it is this old when you watch it. Because the ideas about love, lust and gender are so incredibly modern and so far beyond what we as humans were used to in the 70ties. You will find everything here. Lesbians, gays, bis, gender conforming people, gender queer people, polyarmousous relationship concepts… you name it and most likely it’s in there. It’s really refreshing to see how these topics are discussed and how they are highlighted. Richard O’Brain who wrote the script and all the songs himself is identifying as genderfluid and has been very outspoken about his views on gender and sex from very early on. So he knows a thing or two about these matters and well, you can clearly see that during the movie.
The cast is so stellar it will make you question your sanity. We have Barry Bostwick (who was pretty much single handedly responsible for every comedy series we had in the 90ties). We have a very young Susan Sarandon who portrays the shy and a little bit frigid Janet to absolute perfection. And the real star of the show is Tim Curry who pretty much destroys you with his role of Frank’N’Furter. He wears the most ugly ass wig in world history but you can still understand why neither women nor men can resist his incredible temptation.
It’s a musical. Wohoooo. Usually I would see this more on the negative side of things, but in this case it’s a definite plus. Because the soundtrack is gorgeous beyond belief. The lyrics to the different songs are SO incredibly awesome. Some are funny and flirty, some are just plain heartbreaking in their openness. It’s just a great range between serious and really funny. Well and a tiny bit of horror sparkled on top of it as well. But believe me, the music in this movie is just totally awesome and in fact I am gonna challenge you to listen to Time Warp and be able to sit still. Because you WONT BE ABLE TOOOOOOOOO!
The deeper meaning of the movie is really something special. I don’t wanna take away too much in case you haven’t seen this gem yet. But let me just say this movie encourages you to not dream about your life, but to just be it. Just do what you want, what you feel like and don’t worry too much about other people. There are a few different topics in there, like what qualifies as love and is sex and love something that needs to go together or can it be separated. How much debauchery is too much? It’s really an interesting movie next to the pure fun side and you can literally spend eons on discussing all these tiny, little details that make this movie so incredibly special and wonderful.
My last reason why you should watch it goes out to all my fellow girls out there. Because this movie talks about female sexuality in a time when people literally taught girls to just endure sex and that it’s nothing for a female to enjoy. Well, I think Susan Sarandon has beg to differ here because her exploration of her own female sexuality in this movie is just a joy to watch. For me this was the first time female sexuality was portrait as something awesome and cool and that we have the same rights to have an enjoyable sex life as our male partners. And for that I shall be eternally grateful.
Why You Might Not Like It:
This movie is old. As mentioned above it’s from the 70ties and while I still think these old productions have proper value and charm, some people might disagree. The movie production also didn’t have any money whatsoever. So there are definitely a few production issues, but I never really felt bothered by it.
It’s a musical. If you don’t like people breaking out into song before being murdered with a pickaxe then maybe this is not for you. But don’t worry too much. We don’t stay with one song, but we stick with one murder.
The topic of this movie was a huge scandal when it came out. I mean, I am sure you can understand from what I told you so far about this movie. We have sex, we have blood and murder and we have even more slightly unpleasant things. So please bear that in mind. There is a lot of talk about sex and gender and lust.
Final Thoughts:
For me this movie is one of the bestest’ movies ever made. Definitely the best musical I know by far. I love the soundtrack so much and I can pretty much speak alongside the movie. I love the final message of this movie so, so much as well and for me it’s really just a perfect piece of movie history that shows that a small production with more enthusiasm and passion than anything else can create something that has such a big cult following that there are cinemas in the world dedicated to play just this movie. Crazy, right?
If you ever have the chance to see a screening of Rocky Horror in a cinema near you, please, please, please, for the love of everything that is holy, please go! Because it’s gonna be the biggest party you have ever attended. There will be dancing, singing, water pistol fights and so much more. It’s pretty much like a huge children’s birthday party for grown ups.
And this is it for this week. I hope I could persuade you to either watch Rocky Horror for the first time or to rewatch it for the fifth million time as I shall do. It’s really a very interesting piece of movie history and I think as a fan of our genre you should maybe give it a try. Have a look from where we all started. It might change your perspective on what we can achieve in a few years’ time if we just put enough effort in it…
Blessed be, my fellow weirdos, creeps and strange people.
First posted on BLDA
Your Heart's Content 