The Rocky Horror Picture Show

Jim Sharman had directed Richard O’Brien’s stage show at the Royal Court in 1973 and brought most of that cast over; Fox insisted Brad and Janet be Americans, hence Barry Bostwick and Susan Sarandon. Shooting ran through the autumn of 1974 at Bray Studios, Hammer’s old home, and at a run down Oakley Court; Sarandon caught pneumonia on set. The tank Rocky is born from had already served in The Revenge of Frankenstein in 1958, so the laboratory is literally built from the horror cinema it mocks. It failed in cinemas: pulled from all eight of its opening American cities in 1975, its New York date cancelled. Fox executive Tim Deegan pushed it into midnight screenings at the Waverly from April 1976, and the first line shouted back came in the fifth month of that run, from Louis Farese Jr. The ritual is not in the film; it was added on top. It appears nowhere in the Academy Awards, took a Saturn Awards nomination for best horror film, which Young Frankenstein won, and joined the National Film Registry in 2005. A good fit if you want an evening carried by O’Brien’s songs and Tim Curry’s extravagantly posh delivery, ritual included. Not for anyone hoping to find the same thing alone at home; without a room shouting back, the story sags.