There’s one film that has been on repeat every Saturday night since 1978, at a small movie house in Portland, USA.
Called The Clinton Street Theatre, the venue even stuck two-fingers up to lockdown in 2020 when most other cinemas swtiched off their screens, and still showed this one movie throughout – even if it was just to one guy and maybe a couple of friends.
The film? The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
Released 50 years ago in August 1975, two years after the stage show debuted in London, Rocky Horror tells the story of innocent young couple Brad and Janet (played by Barry Bostwick and Susan Sarandon) who stumble across a foreboding castle.
Inside they meet Tim Curry’s sex-crazed cross-dressing scientist Dr Frank-N-Furter and a host of other strange characters who ensure that the couple’s night out is one to remember for a very long time.
When the movie was initially released, it’s a fair to say it wasn’t well-received, with many critics panning it. However after the Waverley Theatre in New York started showing it as their ‘midnight movie’ in 1976, and audiences began to particpate, dressing up as characters and reacting to key moments – its popularity skyrocketed.
Today, the Rocky Horror Picture show is the longest-running theatrical release in film history grossing over $166million (£124million) worldwide.
But while virtually everyone has danced a drunken Time Warp somewhere, for some people, it is more than just a fun, campy film with a novelty dance-by-numbers tune.
For them, Rocky Horror is a way of life.
Talking about the decision to show the film week in and week out, even during Covid, Nathan Williams – who turned up every week to host the screening to an empty theatre -explained: ‘Rocky Horror at Clinton Street is a shining beacon that has lit up the lives of countless people who had no other place to go and be themselves.
‘We’re keeping that alive, even if just in spirit, so people know there’s a place that will always exist where they can go, let their hair down, and not worry about being judged.’
It led me to love
Stephanie Freeman could perhaps be considered the ultimate Rocky Horror fan, having started the official UK fanclub, TimeWarp, in 1988.
She first laid eyes on future husband David, dressed as Frank’s dishevelled butler Riff Raff, across a sea of fishnets at Rocky Horror live in the late 1980s.
Brought together by a mutual love of Rocky Horror, the couple got engaged just 16 days after their first date.
They married a year later and spent the first night of their honeymoon at Oakley Court in Windsor – the Victorian gothic country house used as Dr Frank-N-Furter’s castle in the film. When Stephanie and David had their first child in 1996, they even called him Dana after actor Dana Andrews, who is namechecked in the opening song of Rocky Horror.
The couple began hosting huge fan conventions in the 1990s, including one at Marble Arch, which attracted 800 participants and featured intimate appearances from original cast members.
Since then, Stephanie and David have continued to run TimeWarp from their home in Tonbridge, Kent, organising annual Rocky Horror picnic events at Oakley Court, now a luxury hotel, attracting fans from as far afield as Canada and Australia.
‘It’s fun,’ says David. ‘We would stop in a heartbeat if we didn’t enjoy it.’
While the pair used to post out sackfuls of newsletters each quarter to fans across the UK and beyond, with the advance of new technology and social media they now do it online.
‘It’s nice to have grown up with Rocky,’ says David. ‘Things change, but at the heart of the show remains the love of the fans.’
Explaining the show’s continued appeal, he adds: ‘The whole ethos of Rocky is “don’t dream it, be it”. Live it. And it’s very sad that there are still people out there who do not feel they are.
‘Rocky gives people the opportunity to experience something different and be safe in it.’
In 2018, TimeWarp marked its 30th anniversary with a special shadow cast screening at The Rio, East London, with Rocky Horror creator Richard O’Brien joining fans for the celebration.
And nearly 40 years on, Stephanie and David remain as devoted to each other as the phenomenon that brought them together. ‘We were just lucky we found each other as we both feel we were always meant to be together,’ says Stephanie.
‘Rocky Horror taught my kids about inclusivity’
Jo Stanton was a teenager when she first encountered The Rocky Horror Picture Show in the video bargain bin of her local Woolworths in the early 1990s. Today, the movie still flows strongly through the veins of her family.
Jo married her husband Matt at Oakley Court on 4 July 2011 (4711 being the tattoo on the top of Frank-N-Furter’s thigh) and the couple’s two children Chloe, now 26, and Michael, w6, have grown up around Rocky Horror and the family regularly enjoy film screenings and events together.
‘We have met some amazing people through Rocky Horror,’ says Jo, who lives in Uppingham, Rutland. ‘We live in a small, rural, market town and we are still a predominantly white, Christian community. When we took our kids to see Rocky it was a way of introducing him to the different varieties of people, in terms of beliefs, religion, sexuality. It exposed them to more of the ways of the world.
Long-time fans like Jo, are playing a huge role in passing the baton on the next generation, many of whom strive for a sense of belonging, especially during their teenage years.
TV has also done it bit with the 2016 made-for-TV remake, The Rocky Horror Picture Show: Let’s Do the Time Warp Again, and The Rocky Horror Glee Show helping to attract younger fans in recent years.
‘I never tire of seeing it’
Rob Bagnall first saw Rocky Horror at the Theatre Royal Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent in 1985 when he was just 17. He is now an authority on the musical, owns a wide variety of Rocky memorabilia and has even written a book about his passion.
‘Rocky Horror has played an enormous role in my life from the night that I first saw it,’ he tells Metro. ‘It has got me through good times and bad, and has always been that one permanent happy thought in any situation; I never tire of seeing it.
‘For many people in the world of Rocky fandom, I feel that the continued appeal is often largely one of acceptance and community – the chance to dress up, participate, shake off the inhibitions of real life and spend time with like-minded individuals.
‘The show and film boosted my self-esteem,’ adds Rob. ‘It gave me the sense of belonging that a geeky overweight High School kid needed. But for me it is mostly the piece itself; I think it is genuinely a work of perfectly crafted genius.’
‘At work I channel my inner Tim Curry’
Confidence is something that Dr Frank-N-Furter, played by Tim Curry in the film and original stage show, has in spades. Unbridled in his sexuality, his electrifying charisma means the audience either want to be him or sleep with him. Or quite often both.
Marilyn Devonish was a painfully shy student when she was taken by friends to see the film for the very first time at an eye-opening screening in Coventry. When Frank burst onto the screen, she found herself mesmerised.
‘I remember sitting there wishing I had some of that sass, some of that attitude, that “don’t give a damn, it’s my house and you are just all visitors in it”. It was almost aspirational.’ remembers the 56-year-old businesswoman.
‘I thought what must it be like to live your life in that way, to fully inhabit your skin and the body that you are in and just be unapologetic.’
Since then, Marilyn learned to find her voice and now channels what she calls, her ‘inner Tim Curry’ to lead workshops and deliver talks all around the world.
‘I used to always be in the background, she admits. ‘Now, I’m normally the Tim Curry in the room, strutting on stage with the microphone, holding court.’
It is hard to escape the fact that the cast of the original Rocky Horror film isn’t particularly racially diverse – something that the 2016 TV remake improved upon, with Black transgender actor Laverne Cox leading the way in Dr Frank-N-Furter’s stilettos.
Speaking about the original 1975 film, Marilyn – who believes she has seen the film ‘close to 100 times’ – says: ‘The ensemble cast is a group of misfits, so although it wasn’t and isn’t racially diverse, it gives the feeling of inclusion because they are the typical band of outcasts, all of whom would draw attention while out in society.
‘Rocky Horror, when you allow yourself to get into it, is a state changer,’ she adds. ‘You can lose yourself in it and lose yourself in the characters and it takes you off into another place.’
For 50 years Rocky Horror has remained a reassuring constant, and fans around the world are keeping the home fires burning in their own way.
Because during these dark times there is a light… and it’s over at the Frankenstein place.
A version of this story was first published in October 2020.
