Released: 5th December
Seen: 6th December
The first time I saw The Rocky Horror Picture Show was on a VHS tape while at home sick from school. For a long time I had been aware of the VHS tape that sat in the house, an impossible to miss set of ruby red lips on the cover, hovering wickedly under the words “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” printed in slightly-raised silver writing. Like everyone else on earth, I’d heard of the film before, indeed my school even taught us how to do the Time Warp at one point so elements of the film had entered my consciousness but the film itself hadn’t, so in my sickly state, I watched the film for the first time and was soon transfixed by it. It’s brilliant songs, completely mental performances and strange references that flew over my head just washed over me in that living room. Even on a crappy VHS tape, the magic of Rocky Horror worked on me, as it does for most people who see it. At that moment I joined the cult, the cult that has kept Rocky Horror in theatres and in the public consciousness for 50 years. Now seems like the perfect time to celebrate this truly insane film with a documentary and Strange Journey: The Story Of Rocky Horror is the exact kind of documentary that this classic deserves.
Strange Journey: The Story Of Rocky Horror meticulously details the history of the show, from its beginnings in a tiny little theatre in England to its eventual transfer to the LA and Broadway stages, the making of the film, the failure of the film and its eventual evolution into the cult classic that’s still being shown in cinemas even as you read this. Through talking head interviews with the still-living members of the main cast and several of the major crew members, along with a few famous fans, we get to go deeper into the making of this piece of history than we have in any documentary that we’ve ever had before about this film. Along the way the film investigates the importance of the work that influenced Rocky, the man who wrote the play that captured the world and how this film still matters even today.
One key thing that really helps this film is that it was made by Richard O’Brian’s son, something that you have to know going in since there are several times that the people being interviewed bring it up. This means that there’s a sense of ease with all the interviews, everyone here knows the person talking to them so they seem to be more open about things than they have been in previous interviews. You really feel like this is everyone involved just letting it all out, knowing that there is a good chance we might not have many more chances for most of this cast to talk about the history. They go in depth on so many elements that we haven’t gotten to hear about before and, smartly, skip some stories that we all know. Most Rocky Horror fans know about Susan stepping on Barry’s feet in the final scene or about how the motorbike fell during a take, we don’t need to hear those again so it’s nice that they found new tidbits to throw out to the audience.
The big centrepiece of the film are the interviews with Richard O’Brian who not only does the standard talking head interview, but goes to a few locations to talk about their impact, plays some of the songs (which never stop sounding incredible, these really are some of the best songs written for a musical) and even watches a few clips to talk about in more detail. Everyone else in the film is really relegated to the simple talking head interviews, each one genuinely fascinating and it’s really nice to see how many people they managed to get to be part of this. It really does feel like a celebration, as it should since we’re now at 50 years of Rocky Horror still being a massive deal and getting to share that with these legends is nice.
Where Strange Journey really shines is how it ties Rocky Horror into the political elements that’ve always been there, the discussions of sex and gender that really got supercharged around the time of Rocky’s appearance. In a time when absolute dullards are pretending to be offended by people expressing their gender or sexuality (and yes, I mean pretending because they aren’t actually offended, they’re just assholes) it’s important that a film like Rocky Horror is brought up because of how it helped people. Hearing from shadow cast members how being in Rocky Horror gave them a family during the AID’s crisis is important, hearing how Trixie Mattel basically started her drag journey because of this movie means something. Richard O’Brian really is one of the first major figures in modern cinema who tried to show people how gender is a spectrum and it’s important that this element of Rocky Horror is remembered, which Strange Journey does brilliantly.
At only an hour and a half, the film packs an absolute tonne of stuff in and only leaves out things that really aren’t essential. You will not hear things like Shock Treatment mentioned because, despite the fact that it’d be an interesting thing for them to talk about, it’s not really needed in this discussion. The film would rather hand that time over to the fans and talk about things like the shadow casts or the guy who used to run the Rocky Horror fan club, who is treated with as much reverence as some of the actual cast. The film’s focus is pointed and helpful in letting smaller elements like that shine and even though it would be fun to hear about the aftermath, the film knows to just stick to this one film and manages to mine plenty of material out of it.
Strange Journey: The Story of Rocky Horror is a fantastic monument to the ultimate cult film, something that will be an eternal companion to the musical that everyone with taste knows and loves. If you even slightly enjoy Rocky Horror, this is the documentary you’ve been waiting for in order to really get to know what makes this film as truly special as it is. If you don’t like Rocky Horror… well, I don’t know what to do with you, but you should maybe give this documentary a go anyway and hopefully it’ll make it sink in why everyone else loves this weird sexy little work of art.
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