As a young person, my formative awareness of the cultural impact of The Rocky Horror Show came from the Rocky Horror shadow cast performance in Stephen Chbosky’s “The Perks of Being a Wallflower.” It wasn’t a central narrative driver in the coming-of-age film, but it somehow stuck with me for just how striking, wild, and out there it was. It stayed with me, just like it might have with a million other fans who eventually turned it into a cult classic.
Deeply revered as a queer classic and an artistic cornerstone that literally birthed the culture of midnight movie screenings, “Strange Journey: The Story of Rocky Horror” is an insider’s account of the cult musical as it celebrates its 50th anniversary. Seen through the first-person perspective of creator Richard O’Brien, as told to the film’s director and son, Linus O’Brien, the SXSW-premiered documentary feels like the only account or tribute about the iconic rock musical that matters (looking at you, “Sane Inside Insanity: The Phenomenon of Rocky Horror“). Featuring interviews with original cast members of the show and the movie, including Tim Curry, Susan Sarandon, and Barry Bostwick, among many others, the documentary is effective because it understands the phenomenon of Rocky Horror quite so deeply.
Inspired by the shadowplay in German Expressionism and the heart of a B-movie, Richard O’Brien envisioned the show as a cross-sectionality of rock opera having a field day in a quagmire of sexually charged queer expression. The show was defined by its characteristically peculiar characters that denied conventionality – making cross-dressing mainstream and allowing people to have a creative expression that, at the time of its release, was either entirely misunderstood or sequentially repressed.
Fractured into a collective of talking heads, archival footage, and a collection of photos that only enhance the nostalgia associated with the musical, the documentary works because it’s reasons to exist is to pinpoint what it was like to be a part of something so iconic, whilst also jogging up the memory associated with the emotional connection that people have with it. In that accord, and to reflect the general consensus about the show, which was eventually transformed into a movie adaptation, Linus O’Brien offers intimate confessions from superfans Trixie Mattel and Jack Black – both of whom associate Rocky Horror as a formative and essential part of their upbringing as people and artists.
It’s an equal delight listening to the cast members go on about how it was a freeing experience for most of them – allowing them to become part of a community – and a communal experience, despite belonging to different parts of the world. A london-based theatre play finding a very niche and specific slot in the midnight screenings worldview also lets movie and box office pundits toggle with a one-in-a-lifetime marketing choice that producer Lou Adler made when the film did not do well in the states.
In a way, the cult of Rocky Horror lies somewhere between the intersectionality of live theatre and cinema. The time-wrap that the phenomenon was engulfed in, thereby deliberating on the meta nature of the entire production – the movie adaptation and the shadow cast playing together being examples – allows Rocky Horror to stay alive even today. The documentary just allows us to become a part of it.
If you are a superfan of the original musical, the numerous stage plays that were mounted – both by the original cast and others, or the movie that took the heart of the production and turned it mainstream, you will fall in love with just how intimate and emotional “Strange Journey: The Story of Rocky Horror” manages to be. Overall, it’s a delicately told look at the journey that transformed a meagre production into a global sensation, allowed Queer joy to be felt all around the world, and introduced a younger generation that likes to dress up to a world that was later dubbed ‘Cosplay.’ The documentary, in some way, reintroduces the need for the cinema-going experience to be the ultimate way to communal harmony, and for that alone, I’d recommend you to see it.
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