How Rocky Conquered the World

3 stars

I didn’t think much of it at the time. I was living in Boston when a friend came to visit from Rhode Island. Looking for something fun to do, I took them to see a midnight screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show at the Exeter Street Theater.

Big mistake. While I wasn’t a fan to the degree of bringing toast, rice, and a water gun to the screening, I’ve always loved the movie and really got a kick out of the energy that more hardcore fans – not to mention a wildly entertaining shadow cast – brought to watching Rocky Horror into the wee hours of the morning. My friend, however, was a monastery-level RHPS virgin. He’d never seen the movie and had no idea what would happen once the lights went down. So when people started throwing rice to celebrate the onscreen wedding of Ralph Hapschatt and Betty Munroe, he was confused, bordering on angry. By the time the water pistols came out, he crossed that border and stormed out of the theater. I spent the next few hours trying to explain what had happened and, the more difficult part, why.

If only Strange Journey: The Story of Rocky Horror had been around back then. Directed by Linus O’Brien, son of Rocky Horror’s creator Richard O’Brien, the documentary takes viewers on a journey tracing the story of Brad and Janet and their night at the Castle of Dr. Frank-N-Furter from its early days on the London stage to the Roxy in LA to Broadway and then to the big screen. While the bulk of the documentary centers around O’Brien’s struggles to get the original show off the ground, there are plenty of interviews with other surviving cast members sharing their memories of bringing their characters to life on stage and screen (most of them were involved in both). It’s hard to imagine, given the way Rocky and his fellow creatures have become part of the cultural zeitgeist, but none of them knew they were making history the first time they did the Time Warp. And it’s fun to know that a few of them still don’t know why it happened. The archival footage of critics, news anchors, and average moviegoers reacting to that “movie about transvestites” and the people who love it is fascinating.

What truly enriches Strange Journey: The Story of Rocky Horror, though, is the way it takes the time to let the people who love The Rocky Horror Picture Show, then and now, tell their story, too. And while Tim Curry crooning that he’s a “sweet transvestite” or Susan Sarandon demanding that the men in the movie “toucha, toucha, toucha, touch” her helped generations of fans embrace their own sexuality, it’s the lines from one of the last songs – “Don’t dream it, Be it.” – that hits a universal chord that’s lasted generations.

And it remains an important work of art to this day. Not only are there still hundreds of midnight screenings of the movie every weekend around the globe, but there is a Tony-nominated revival of the show playing on Broadway at Studio 54 through at least the end of November 2026.