DAVID BIANCULLI

Founder / Editor

ERIC GOULD

Associate Editor

LINDA DONOVAN

Assistant Editor

Contributors

ALEX STRACHAN

MIKE HUGHES

KIM AKASS

MONIQUE NAZARETH

ROGER CATLIN

GARY EDGERTON

TOM BRINKMOELLER

GERALD JORDAN

NOEL HOLSTON

 
 
 
 
 
Fox is Hoping Time Has Not Warped 'Rocky Horror'
October 20, 2016  | By David Hinckley  | 4 comments
 

One-shot musicals have had a modest renaissance on TV lately, but the real bet for Fox with its new version of The Rocky Horror Picture Show is that a campy cult movie can win over a third generation.

With a distinctly contemporary cast that includes Laverne Cox (top center), Ryan McCartan (top left), Adam Lambert (below), and Victoria Justice (top right), this new Rocky Horror – a two-hour movie that airs at 8 p.m. ET Thursday – features a lot of catchy, flashy, and high-energy music.

What it’s still mostly selling, though, is off-center characters prancing and dancing through a goofy story about weird romance, elusive aliens and, well, the truth is that there’s very little point in trying to tidily synopsize the plot of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, because if you could, it would deflate the whole thing.

The plot, such as it is, starts with newly engaged Brad Majors (McCartan) and Janet Weiss (Justice) getting stranded when their car breaks down in the rain.

Trying to find a telephone – this Rocky Horror isn’t so contemporary that anyone has a cell phone – they walk back to a creepy castle whose primary host turns out to be Dr. Frank-N-Furter, played hugely and delightfully by Cox.

Tim Curry, who played Frank-N-Furter in the original 1975 movie, becomes a sort of generational bridge here by playing the criminologist narrator.

In any case, Brad and Janet get yanked right into the bizarre world of the castle. Eventually they are both seduced by Frank-N-Furter, during the interludes among the half-dozen musical numbers imaginatively staged by veteran Kenny Ortega.

Janet also falls for the studly Rocky (Staz Nair), who was created by Frank-N-Furter and rises out of an ice bath. That doesn’t particularly please Brad, but then, Brad is as short on morality as he is on brains.   

It’s all part of the show’s omnipresent running gag, of course. Rocky Horror didn’t enter American culture, first as a stage show and then as a movie, because it has profound Shakespearian elegance.

Its sheer goofiness, combined with the fact it never takes anything except the music seriously, teed it up to become a cult fave and it did.

For many years, Rocky Horror was a weekend midnight staple at theaters around the country. Patrons would dress up as characters and recite specific phrases back to the screen at certain precise moments. It became a communal event for a generation of cult movie fans, and that endurance gave it the impetus for, among other things, a three-year Broadway revival that helped it reached a second generation.

For today’s younger movie fans, though, meaning early 20s and younger, Rocky Horror is just as likely to be something their parents or even grandparents talked about. It’s another generation’s fad, like Pac-Man.

But the producers are convinced that the music is strong enough, and the concept of a horror movie sendup is engaging enough, that a new generation could adopt it as their own.

At the same time, this new version wants to keep the older fans as well. It’s largely faithful to the original script, and it inserts a half-dozen “callback” scenes, in which we see an audience in a movie theater perform some of the old rituals and recite some of the old lines.

When Janet and Brad leave the car in the rain, for instance, and Janet holds a newspaper over her head, everyone in the audience does the same.

These audience-reaction scenes may be valuable some day to cultural historians. They don’t add much to the movie on television now.

Nor is television an ideal medium for Rocky Horror anyhow. It eliminates communal audience reaction, of course, and it also reminds us that this is a picture, a la Gone With the Wind, where size matters.

Like Cox’s Frank-N-Furter, the whole show gets better as it gets bigger. It’s loud and splashy and in a theater, it could envelop you. Even on a large TV screen, there’s a degree of removal.

On the hopeful side for the producers, that elusive younger generation has grown up watching shows like High School Musical, so screen size may not matter so much to them.

However you slice it, it looks like meatloaf again.

 
 
 
 
 
Leave a Comment: (No HTML, 1000 chars max)
 
 Name (required)
 
 Email (required) (will not be published)
 
QKYDU
Type in the verification word shown on the image.
 
 
 Page: 1 of 1  | Go to page: 
4 Comments
 
 
We Cutting Tools Co. Ltd specializes in developing and manufacturing high-quality machining inserts. We have a full capacity machining insert sales, research, and production. We also produce cemented carbide cutting inserts, grooving inserts, customized inserts, and cermet inserts., welcome to our website to learn more about carbide inserts:https://www.estoolcarbide.com
Mar 7, 2024   |  Reply
 
 
With over 10 years of experience and knowledge, we provide total cutting tool solutions. Complying to international standards, we design and develop the best quality and cost-effective cermet inserts solutions for our customers. Estool cermet inserts are produced based on extensive knowledge and competencies., welcome to our website to learn more about carbide inserts:https://www.estoolcarbide.com
Feb 28, 2024   |  Reply
 
 
We have the capability to produce affordable lathe inserts for you. Welcome to wholesale our products. We welcome wholesalers and end-users, new and old customers., welcome to our website to learn more about carbide inserts:https://www.estoolcarbide.com
Jan 29, 2024   |  Reply
 
 
Michael Fernbach
Hey David. This is your old pen pal formerly of the Bronx. Just wanted to say hi. It's good to read your columns again. I just wonder with so much tv to watch, how are you finding time to listen to these 30 cd Dylan sets that keep coming out. ; ) glnys
Oct 20, 2016   |  Reply
 
David Bianculli
Dear Michael, Hi! Great question -- but even with all my down time and recuperative viewing and listening, I've gotten used to being perennially behind. My "To Do" stack just keeps getting taller, as the days keep getting shorter...
Oct 21, 2016
 
 
 
 
 Page: 1 of 1  | Go to page: