For over 35 years, The Rocky Horror Picture Show has been playing in midnight movie theaters. It’s a bonafide cult classic.

For a film that was made 35 years ago, The Rocky Horror Picture Show refuses to die. It is still playing at 75 theaters around the world at least once a month. Many venues show RHPS weekly at midnight.

What is the appeal of this schlocky film that has transvestites and scantily clad characters running around a sinister castle in the middle of the night? Just who is Fran N Furter, and why do so many people continue to do the Time Warp again?

The Rocky Horror Picture Show began as an off off off mainstream musical theater production called the Rocky Horror Show which premiered in London, I  June of 1973. The show was written by Richard O’Brien. The story revolves around Brad and Janet who end up at the home of Mad Scientist Fran N Furter when their car breaks down. Frank is surrounded by his faithful servants, Riff Raff and Magenta, and a groupie, Columbia. Frank has been building a creature, soon to be introduced as Rocky Horror.

In 1975 the stage show was adapted into a motion picture which premiered in London in August 1975, then in the US in September of the same year. The film starred Tim Curry as Frank, Barry Bostwick as Brad, Susan Sarandon as Janet, and writer Richard O’Brien as Riff Raff.

            Within a year the movie began its first showings at the midnight movies, and soon people were talking back to the screen, bringing props to throw, (rice for the wedding scene, toast for a scene in which a toast is proposed, and Bathroom tissue, preferably Scotts Brand when the name Dr. Scott is mentioned) and showing up in costume as one of the film’s characters. The phenomenon had begun.

Frank N Furter is revealed to be a Transvestite from the Transsexual planet of Transylvania, as are his servants Riff Raff and Magenta.

Okay the story is definitely offbeat, but what has kept this going for 35 years? People love to escape into fantasy. The theme of Rocky Horror is “Don’t dream it, be it”. And fans have enjoyed being their favorite characters from the movie for a long time.

But still not every production that has endured has created this degree of fan participation. Certainly people don’t dress up as Tevve or Lasar Wolf to go see “Fiddler on the Roof!”

Rocky Horror allows one to be something they are not. Many of the guys who show up at the midnight movies playing Frank are very likely as straight as an arrow, and do not dress in drag at any other time. Doing so in at a venue that encourages you to be different is fun, and perhaps just a bit naughty. Maybe that is what appeals to the masses of fans who still like to take that jump to the left.