Tag Archives: mantinee

Report Card: The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1976)

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A graphic design of a report card for 'The Rocky Horror Picture Show' (1976), featuring a portrait of a character with dramatic makeup. The card includes ratings for sci-fi, fantasy, and interfaces, along with the word 'MATINÉE' prominently displayed.

Read all the Rocky Horror Picture Show posts in chronological order.

Rocky Horror is something special.

It’s not because it’s a send-up of B-movies. The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra, Hardware Wars, and Kung Fury are all send-ups of B-movies and they haven’t become cultural forces. Plus, while it might have begun life in O’Brien’s head as a send-up, parody is secondary to its centering of sexuality and queerness and flouting of every taboo it thought it could get away with. Those themes were absolutely not part of 1950s creature features or sci-fi, so it’s a parody of B-films in the way Everything, Everywhere, All at Once is about laundromats, which is to say, not really at all.

It’s not the ensemble. Sarandon, Bostwick, and Adams are all overearnest parody. O’Brien and Quinn are doing niche performance art. The rest of the cast plays their roles “straight”, except for Curry, who didn’t adopt a stance as much as conjure Frank-N-Furter from the cosmos into being as some camp primal trickster god, like a Loki in punk drag and magical fishnets. All the actors are all on screen together, but they’re almost in different movies.

I wouldn’t even say it’s the audience participation, because that was more of an effect it had on people (and Louis Farese) after having become a cult hit, rather than the other way around. The counterpoint dialogue just transubstantiated it.

It’s also…not the interfaces.

Sci: F (0 of 4) How believable are the interfaces?

The interfaces could not work the way they do without some serious apologetics and backworlding that would make it the most technologically prescient film in all of history. To a one, they are narrative, and mostly serve design discussions through the illustration of terrible patterns and gee-whiz retrofuturism.

A pale-faced character with long, slicked-back hair, wearing a dark coat, is joyfully operating a device that emits vapor, set against a brightly lit background with a glass-brick wall.

Maybe the handwheel is the closest thing to being believable, and…you know what…it’s still not.

But—and this is important—the film does not care. It never did. It’s not trying to depict some internally consistent, believable diegesis. It is exuberant queer art, and trying to harness it in a framework of believability is foolish. It’s 无. It’s the reason I ordinarily wouldn’t have even tried to review this film before Curry’s passing.

Fi: A (4 of 4) How well do the interfaces inform the narrative of the story?

The vivification interfaces do this the best. We have no idea what either the sonic oscillator or the reactor power input does, but they help convey that things are intensifying. The handwheel sells the misdirection of Riff as a domestic servant.

The rest are little more than crayon-marked cardboard boxes: things that change the rules of the story by narrative fiat.

A scene from a movie featuring a male character in a blue robe dancing while saying, 'YOU'RE A HOTDOG!' in bold red dripping letters, with a group of people watching in a colorful, surreal environment.
Ha ha, I flipped the switch and now you’re frozen in place! Moooooooom! Tell Magenta to unfreeeeze meee!

Yes, to pull the wheelchair through a wall the triple contact electromagnet would have melted the castle, but to fret about that is to miss the point entirely. So it is absolutely ridiculous and as such informs the narrative perfectly.

Interfaces: D (0 of 4) How well do the interfaces equip the characters to achieve their goals?

We’re not sure what either the sonic oscillator or reactor power input do, but we can infer some things, and they are not fit for the task.

A performer in dramatic makeup and a black costume passionately singing and gesturing, with a futuristic backdrop featuring red panels and control elements.
A close-up of a person interacting with a futuristic control panel featuring a green lightning bolt symbol against a dark background.
A hand in a pink glove touches a black device with a green zigzag pattern on it, placed on a textured surface, alongside markings that indicate a direction labeled 'DE-MEDUSA'.

The sonic transducer, medusa, and de-medusa are error-prone and ill-suited controls to their purpose.

A scene featuring two characters in a stylized setting. One character is wearing a leather jacket and shorts with striking makeup, while the other is dressed in a formal outfit. The background is decorated with red panels and abstract designs.

The monitor, sonic transducer, medusa, and triple contact electro magnet are all clearly missing controls to do what it is they do on screen.

The handwheel does, in fact, allow Riff to lower the condiment chandelier, but it cannot, alas, make up for the rest.

No, the film is not about these interfaces. It’s something else. I’m a little saddened to have it be categorized “matinée” alongside the likes of Barbarella and Logan’s Run, but then again, given a choice, that’s exactly what I think it would want to be.

R.I.P., Tim, and thanks to everyone who brought this funky magical…thing…into the world.

IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073629/Currently streaming on:

Oh, if you’re the GitHub & Adobe Illustrator type and enjoy the “blood drip” effect on the overlay text that pepper these posts, you’re welcome to it.