The Rocky Horror Picture Show

Reviewed by Darryl · 8 min read · Rated November 2026

So, where do you actually start with a movie like Rocky Horror? It’s a musical. It’s a comedy. It’s science fiction. It’s horror. It’s a parody. It’s completely over the top, and somehow all of those things seem to work together. This is a film quite unlike anything else you’re ever likely to see, and honestly, that’s half the fun of talking about it.

Directed by Jim Sharman, the film is based on Richard O’Brien’s stage musical, The Rocky Horror Show, which Sharman had also directed when it first opened in June 1973, in a tiny upstairs space at the Royal Court Theatre in London. The two of them wrote the screenplay together, and O’Brien wrote the songs as well, so this really is his creation from top to bottom, an affectionate send-up of all those science fiction and B-grade horror movies from the 1930s through to the 1960s. Most of the London stage cast came across with it, though the studio, Twentieth Century Fox, wanted American actors in the two leading roles, which is how Susan Sarandon and Barry Bostwick came to join the party. And if you’ve never seen it before, well, you’re in for a rather unusual experience.

A Flat Tyre and a Castle

The story starts with Brad Majors and Janet Weiss, played by Bostwick and Sarandon. They’re a young couple who have just become engaged, and they’re driving along one night when they get a flat tyre. Now, normally you might expect the two of them to find a telephone, call for help and eventually get back on their way, but this is Rocky Horror, so that’s not what’s going to happen. Instead, Brad and Janet walk through the rain and come across a strange old castle. And here’s a lovely little detail for you. That castle is Oakley Court, a Victorian Gothic house in Berkshire, England, that Hammer had already used in a number of its horror films. So before a single character has even opened the front door, the film is already winking at the entire genre it’s about to turn upside down.

They knock on that door and are greeted by Riff Raff, played by Richard O’Brien himself, and before long they’re introduced to the owner of the castle, Dr Frank-N-Furter. And this is where Tim Curry comes into his own. Frank-N-Furter is one of those characters where, the moment he appears on screen, you know you’re watching something completely different. Curry is absolutely fantastic in the role. He’s funny, he’s outrageous, he’s theatrical, and he seems to be having an enormous amount of fun playing this character. Let’s be honest, you can’t really imagine Rocky Horror without Tim Curry. This was his first film, and he’d already played Frank-N-Furter on stage in London before bringing him to the screen, and you can feel that stage experience in every scene. He owns every inch of that castle. And of course, Curry went on to have a wonderful career playing larger-than-life characters: the butler Wadsworth in Clue, the Lord of Darkness in Legend, and Pennywise the clown in the original television version of It. If you only know him from one of those, going back to see where it all started is a real treat.

Frank introduces Brad and Janet to his rather unusual household, and eventually reveals that he’s been working on an experiment. He’s created a man. And that man is Rocky. Played by Peter Hinwood, Rocky is Frank’s attempt to build what he considers to be the perfect man, and there’s a fun bit of movie trivia here too. Hinwood barely speaks in the role, and when Rocky sings, the voice actually belongs to Australian singer Trevor White, who was dubbed in afterwards. So at this point, Brad and Janet have gone from having a flat tyre to finding themselves in a castle with a mad scientist who has just created a human being, and somehow things are still going to get stranger.

The Time Warp and the Midnight Crowd

One of the things that makes this movie work so well is the music. The songs aren’t simply stuck into the story because it’s a musical; they drive the whole movie along. You’ve got Science Fiction Double Feature, Dammit Janet, Sweet Transvestite, Touch-a Touch-a Touch-a Touch Me, and, of course, the song everybody knows: The Time Warp. And if you’ve ever been to a Rocky Horror screening, you’ll know that The Time Warp isn’t just a song, it’s an event. You’ve got the dancing, the audience joining in, and everybody knows exactly what they’re supposed to do. It’s one of those moments where you can understand why this movie developed such a huge cult following.

And that’s the really interesting thing about Rocky Horror. When it was released in 1975, it wasn’t an enormous success straight away. In fact, in America it did so poorly that it was withdrawn from the eight cities it first opened in. But then something happened. In April 1976, it began screening at midnight at the Waverly cinema in New York’s Greenwich Village, and people started coming back. And they didn’t just sit there quietly watching the film. They dressed up as the characters. They shouted things at the screen. They danced. They sang along. The audience becomes part of the movie, and that’s what has kept Rocky Horror going for decades. It has never actually been pulled from its original release, which makes it the longest-running theatrical release in film history. Think about that for a second: a film that flopped on arrival has been playing in cinemas continuously for over 50 years. There aren’t many films where going to see it can almost become a performance in itself.

Another thing I really like about the film is the way it takes all those old horror and science-fiction movies and basically has a bit of fun with them. You’ve got the castle, the laboratory, the mysterious servants, the lightning, the mad scientist and the whole idea of creating life. It’s Frankenstein filtered through glam rock and fishnets. Even the tank Rocky is brought to life in was reused from an earlier Hammer film, The Revenge of Frankenstein, from 1958. It’s almost as though somebody took every old B-grade horror and science-fiction movie they could find, put them in a blender, added a lot of music, some outrageous costumes and Tim Curry, and came up with Rocky Horror. That’s why you can’t take the movie too seriously. You’re not supposed to. It’s exaggerated from beginning to end. The performances are exaggerated. The costumes are exaggerated. The dialogue is exaggerated, and that’s part of the fun.

The Cast Around the Curry

Now, Curry may be the headline act, but the rest of this cast deserves a mention too. Susan Sarandon is very good as Janet. When we first meet her, she’s fairly innocent and conventional, but as the night goes on, Janet changes considerably, and it’s fascinating watching this early performance knowing she’d go on to become one of the great American actresses, with Thelma and Louise and her Oscar for Dead Man Walking still years ahead of her. Brad is going through much the same sort of journey, and Barry Bostwick plays him perfectly as this rather bewildered young man who seems to spend most of the movie wondering what on earth is going on. To be fair, I think most of us would be doing exactly the same thing. Then you’ve got Meat Loaf as Eddie, who came across from the Los Angeles stage production, and this is a couple of years before Bat Out of Hell made him one of the biggest-selling recording artists on the planet. He crashes into the film on a motorcycle, tears the place up for one glorious musical number, and meets a rather grisly end. There’s also Patricia Quinn as Magenta, Little Nell as Columbia, and Charles Gray as the Criminologist who narrates the story. And yes, that’s the same Charles Gray who played Blofeld in the Bond film Diamonds Are Forever, here soberly explaining the steps to The Time Warp with complete conviction. Every one of them adds something different to this bizarre little world.

I have to say, the story itself isn’t really the reason you watch Rocky Horror. If you’re looking for a tightly constructed plot with everything neatly explained, this probably isn’t the movie for you. But if you’re prepared to just sit back and enjoy the ride, there’s a lot to like, and I think that’s the secret to this movie. It doesn’t really matter whether you’re comfortable with it. It doesn’t matter whether you think it’s normal. It simply says, this is what we’re doing, come along for the ride, and that’s probably why it has remained so popular for so long. I should also be honest and say that not every part of the film has aged equally well. Some of the humour and attitudes are very much products of the ’70s, and modern audiences may look at certain things differently. But even after all these years, the energy of the movie is still there.

As the story moves towards its conclusion, everything begins to fall apart. Frank’s little world starts collapsing, Riff Raff and Magenta have their own plans, and Brad and Janet have certainly come a long way from that innocent young couple who simply wanted help with a flat tyre. I won’t go too deep into the details, because it’s much better discovered on screen. Then, before you know it, the whole thing is over, and you’re probably sitting there thinking, what on earth did I just watch? And that’s The Rocky Horror Picture Show. That’s exactly what makes it so much fun.

It’s certainly not going to be everybody’s cup of tea. It’s strange. It’s outrageous. It’s camp. It’s funny. It’s deliberately provocative. But most importantly, it’s entertaining. And I think that’s why, more than 50 years after it first came out, people are still watching it. It’s not just a movie anymore, it’s become an experience. It’s a movie that people dress up for, sing along to and take part in, and there aren’t too many films you can say that about.

One last thought: if you can, see this one with a crowd. A midnight screening with a full audience is a completely different animal to watching it alone on your sofa, and it’s the closest thing cinema has to a party that’s been running for 50 years. Either way, take the time, find the movie and watch it.