It was great when it all began, I was a regular Frankie fan.
“The Rocky Horror Picture Show” is one of those things that just gets forced on you in High School. Well, that’s if you don’t wear Ed Hardy or live in really rural communities. Most of the film’s iconography clues you into what is to come. Whether it’s those lips singing about Science Fiction movies of yesteryear or Tim Curry in full drag. This is a movie with a reputation, but so many feel burned out on it. I wonder why.
Well, 40 years of fan expectation behind a movie can scare off outsiders. It also warms up the material to such tepid takes as the Glee episode where they couldn’t even muster the guts to say heavy petting on Network TV. Do kids even know what heavy petting means anymore? While the film is a landmark in sexual politics on film, everything it does is a superficial queer appeal to the glam of the fading RKO. Outside of that, it’s just a lovely musical that you can’t shake.
But, the issue with films like this are the fact that people weight emotional relevance to the material. It’s hard to tell someone that their movie has pacing problems and adaptation issues when they want to talk about how this movie saved their life when they were 14. You smile and nod, while covering yet another release for this cult classic. Does it still count as cult or camp? Cult implies that it hasn’t breached the mainstream, but it has done so like gangbusters.
The Blu-Ray comes with both cuts of the movie, the picture-in-picture audience take, a vintage callback track, trivia track and a ton of featurettes. If that wasn’t enough you get the original DVD commentary, deleted musical scenes, outtakes, the alternate B&W opening, the misprint ending, music video and everything else ever made for the movie. This Blu-Ray re-release is a giant step up from the 2010 release. You get way more special features and all of the DTS-HD 7.1 master audio track errors seem to have been corrected. The 1080p transfer remains flawless. In the end, I’d recommend a purchase.
RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW!
