Wild and untamed things: Why ‘Rocky Horror’ crowds are the best in the world
If all you’ve done is sit down on your couch by yourself and watch The Rocky Horror Picture Show quietly, you haven’t seen The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
The Jim Sharman-directed adaptation of Richard O’Brien’s barmy delight of a campy, rock ‘n’ roll musical, The Rocky Horror Show, is, fittingly enough, a rare breed of film. One that actually has more in common with mega-budget, crowd-pleasing blockbusters than other independent productions like it. You see, The Rocky Horror Picture Show gets better the more people you see it with. What’s more, the film knows it. This is a film that leaves gaps for cheering, jeering and masses of corseted misfits yelling “ASSHOLE!” at Barry Bostwick.
This changes the whole film from a fairly strange B-movie parody with some killer songs to a life-affirming spectacle with some of the best musical numbers in the entire genre. It sounds like an overstatement, but it’s true; not for nothing are people who haven’t seen a proper screening of Rocky Horror called virgins by the fan community, whether or not they’ve seen the film otherwise. Now, the story goes that the electric atmosphere that surrounds Rocky Horror screenings came from its theatrical run. More specifically, it’s the failure of a theatrical run.
After tanking in its original release in 1975, Rocky Horror picked up a cult following as a midnight movie in fairly seedy indie theatres. Already, the atmosphere in these shows was a lot looser than in your normal theatre screenings. People sang along to the songs, snarked about the onscreen happenings and occasionally lobbed a bucket of popcorn if they were particularly unimpressed.
However, one audience member in New York City changed everything in 1976.
What gave ‘Rocky Horror’ its atmosphere?
Mild-mannered teacher Louis Farese Jr took in a screening of Rocky Horror late one Friday night before something came over him in one particular scene. Bostwick’s Brad and Susan Sarandon’s Janet have their car break down in the middle of a heavy rainstorm. While they’re making their way over to Dr Frank-N-Furter’s castle, Janet holds a newspaper over her head to shield herself from the rain. In the middle of a half-empty theatre, Farese found himself yelling, “Buy an umbrella, you cheap bitch!”
From then on, all bets were off. That entire screening became an extended Mystery Science Theatre 3000 episode, with everyone trying to make everyone else laugh. Fast forward a few decades, and now there are multiple full scripts of what a Rocky Horror audience should say at any given screening.
However, the very first time that someone talked back to Rocky Horror came long before the movie was even put into production. In fact, it was when the show was still on stage at London‘s Royal Court Theatre.
One fateful night, during the show’s climactic moment when (Spoilers) Riff-Raff and Magenta turn on Dr Frank-N-Furter, advancing on him with blasters in hand, a lone voice in the audience cried out, “No, no, don’t do it!” That voice belonged to Angie Bowie, who’d brought a huge entourage to see the show along with her husband, David. A match made… Probably not in heaven, but somewhere a hell of a lot more fun.