Is a wild and untamed thing better seen in a grainy, timebeaten print, or preserved in 4K? Easy answer. The second one. Yes, a certain charm is accorded to exploitation cinema, B-movies, and regional trash when they’re screened in unvarnished forms. Each imperfection in the film marks the passing of years and the number of go-rounds on the projector. There is something poignant, and even a bit romantic, about such denotations, little reminders that the picture has seen a lot of play and a lot of love in front of crowds. But no, “charm” isn’t preferable to “clean presentation,” even for schlock like The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
Your relationship to Jim Sharman’s 1975 camp-cult-queer masterpiece may depend on where you went to college. Not all of us enjoy such good geographic fortune as to attend a school that’s within driving distance of the sort of disreputable dump willing to exhibit this film for audiences of scantily clad freakazoids who dance in the aisles, hurl toast at the screen, and either yell obscenities at the cast of characters or warble them during the musical numbers.
Granted, not all of us might read the preceding paragraph and think, “that sounds like my scene,” but it is your scene. Because it’s everyone’s scene. Few films better exemplify the experiential power of going to the movies than this one does.
The Rocky Horror Picture Show belongs on the list of movies you absolutely must see with an audience at least once before you die. You may join in on as many or as few of RHPS subculture’s various customs and rituals as you’re comfortable with, and no one will shame you for your boundaries (if they do, they’re bad fans). But whether you accent your outfit with a sleeveless leather jacket, gaudy tailcoat, or fishnets, or show up wearing the usual, the effect of the movie’s cheesy thrills and aggressive “hubba hubba” energy remains the same. And unlike anything else you’ve ever seen in theaters.
That’s justification enough for a 4K touch-up. Apart from the fact that this year marks its 50-year anniversary. Whatever magic is lost in restoring Sharman’s movie is gained doubly by the security of its preservation. The Rocky Horror Picture Show is a film to be protected at all costs. Its influence on culture gave us punk (the music and the fashion), and in 2025 it remains the exemplar of all audience participation movies. The Rock Horror Picture Show endures in large part because of the organically grown tradition of interaction between the viewers and the film itself.
via getyarn.io
In short, it’s a gonzo kink-fest made for pennies and fueled by bad taste, and it’s also a beacon of moviegoing fun. Today, it’s a wonderful trip down memory lane, too. Seeing baby Susan Sarandon, Tim Curry, and Barry Bostwick is a hoot, especially in the many wonderful compromised positions each winds up in together and separately. Sarandon and Bostwick play the prudes, the newly engaged Janet and Brad, while Curry plays the scientist, Dr. Frank-N-Furter, who is spending his time on Earth “making a man,” Rocky (Peter Hinwood). (It’s the titular role!) Frank’s underlings, Magenta (Patricia Quinn) and Riff Raff (Richard O’Brien, author of the original London Rocky Horror Show stage musical, which Sharman also directed) are weary of him; antiauthority is in the air, plus post-coital pH odors. You’ll know right away if the film is for you based on the logline.
Then again, will you? We all know think we know what we like, but we actually don’t until we try it. As I did when I saw The Rocky Horror Picture Show in a theater for the first time at an anonymous derelict outfit in Maryland back in the early 2000s. And if you haven’t seen the movie yet, now’s as good a time as any, with the Rocky Horror Picture Show Spectacular Tour coming to a town near you (once again, if you’re lucky). There’s no more appropriate way to see it than on a screen, with a like-minded audience, and in 4K, so you can fully appreciate how damn hot Curry looks in a corset and fully immerse yourself in the bawdy abandon of absolute pleasure.
