Sunday, June 10, 2012

The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) review


(10/10)

Give yourself over to absolute pleasure...my favorite film.

PLOT:Newly engaged Brad Majors (Barry Bostwick) and Janet Weiss (Susan Sarandon) leave off to see their friend Dr. Scott (Jonathan Adams) to tell him the news when their tire goes flat on their car in the pouring rain. They walk to a castle where they meet crazed, transvestite scienteist, Frank N. Furter (Tim Curry) and are forced to stay the night with him and his "creation", Rocky Horror (Peter Hinwood). While there, they each fall into seduction, mischief, murder, and "an erotic nightmare beyond any measure". The plot is a very cool twist on the classic Frankenstein/sci-fi genre and helps to express individualty, sexual freedom, and campiness, all in a clever mind-freak.



ACTING:The acting is somewhat timed and precise as a stage show, but that was the goal writer Richard O'Brien and the director were trying to get at. Wooden, yet precise to exhibit the ultimate campiness. I believe everyone did a pretty good job with their parts. The shiners to me are Tim Curry as Frank Furter, Richard O'Brien as Riff Raff, Susan Sarandon as Janet Weiss, Meat Loaf as Eddie, and Charles Gray as the criminologist. This had to be Curry's best performance in a film; he does his job with such a fury that it seemed he was born for the role. I also liked the fact that they cast the writer as one of the characters. Good idea. In my opinion, my least favorite performance was Little Nell a.k.a. Nell Campbell as Columbia. Everyone at one point had to admit she was annoying.

SCORE:The soundtrack is without a doubt the best thing about this movie, next to its message. The soundtrack exhibits a different feel in every song, from seduction in "Touch-A Touch-A Touch Me", to nostalgia in "What Ever Happened to Saturday Night?" and even to a good time in "Time Warp". Beautiful guitar + rockin' sax + sci-fi piano + definitive feelings and moods = a perfect campy musical soundtrack.

EFFECTS:The effects were all pretty low-budget looking, but they all worked to enhance the campy feeling of the film. It ranged from stage props to cheap computer cutouts, but it all worked.

CAMERAWORK:The camerawork in this film is very well done. It's forboding, creative, and captures every aspect of the film's emotions.



OTHER CONTENT:The movie was meant to be so bad, that it came out good in a glossy layer of campiness. The sexual akwardness, zombie-horror feel, rockin' music, pretty ladies, uneven wrongness, and overloaded campiness sends shivers down my spine and sends me into an "orgasmic rush of lust". The whole film gives me a pleasurable, shivery feeling like I can sense and feel everything the characters do. I'm a Frankie fan, or a Rocky Horror buff if you will.

OVERALL,an epic campy film with a cooly-adapted plot with great hidden messages, timed acting that comes off as that of a stage show, a rockin' soundtrack, campy effects, well done camerawork, overloaded campiness, and a feeling that all Rocky Horror fans should end up getting.

No comments:

Post a Comment