Friday, October 18, 2013

It's Not Easy Having a Good Time

The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)
directed by Jim Sharman
rating: 2 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Netflix

I don't want to be the Halloween grinch, and I love Tim Curry as much as the next Gabriel Knight fan, but in spite of that great big RKO backdrop and a song that mentions Dana Andrews, there isn't much of a movie here. It's strictly musical theater in The Band Wagon mold, superficially forward-thinking but tailor-made for the family demographic. The tell is the absence of drugs and alcohol (the exception is a bottle of champagne that no one drinks).

Castle sleepovers and spaceship jams can both be approached reasonably by appropriately inebriated companions, but Brad doesn't even stash a flask in the glove compartment of his hobbled sedan. He's unprepared for the world beyond the drawbridge, just like his wife or any member of Frank's court. Only at the very end, when everyone is forced into a warm pool together--and the effect of that water after a night in the cavernous cold of a Hammer set must be chemical, must go to their heads--do all of the assembled lovers-to-be close in on the orgiastic promise of a life with the neighbors in Eyes Wide Shut.

And Frank is punished for it, poor guy. Will Brad and Janet carry on his legacy as polyamorous adventurers? Will they leave Dr. Scott on the ground to freeze to death with his fear of an "alien invasion" rattling around in his skull? I doubt it! There isn't any horror in Rocky Horror, and the music is gummed-up nostalgia. I said a prayer to Jessica Harper and dreamed of Phantom of the Paradise while cold wind and rain pulled down the leaves.