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r\L«L. i a » ^ * 1IS-M May 8, 1976 The Arizona Republic/.Rocky Horror? is ridiculous•I-“The Rocky Horror Picture Show”: (R), with Tim Curry, Susan Sarandon, and Barry Bostwick, directed by Jflm Sherman, at the UA Oiris-Town theater.* By MIKE PETRYNI} m “The Rocky Horror picture Show,” D r. Frankenstein is renamed Dr. Frank’n’furter and recast as a sado-masochistic transvestite who creates a : blond, muscled, pretty-boy .'monster, clad in gold ’■ JaUn briefs.' It manages to he a spoof of movie musicals, since it’s set to words and , music; monster . movies,- since it's Mary Shelley crossed with the Marquisde Sadie; and science fiction thrillers, since its boys in the band are all beamed to earth Star Trek-style. Director Jim. (Sharman and Richard O’Brien, who contributed the music and lyrics as Well as playing a Marty Feldman-type valet with a hunchback and demurely knocked feminine knees, appear to have wanted to concoct a decadent musical In the way that Kan Russell’s musicals — The Music Lovers,” “Tommy,” and “Liszt-omania” — are decadent.But “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” despite its black satin and high heel trappings, comes off tame compared to Russell's imaginative explorations into the decline and fall of Western Civilization. So what can you say? — it appears as if a bunch of homosexuals got together, played their giddy games and had a failure of imagination. Anyone can have that happen.As a result, “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” is an offensive little foray into glittering gaydont that fails to be offensive, unlike Russell, for any recognizable purpose. Instead, its become simply foul.The story, scripted by Sharman and O’Brien, concerns a straightlaced1 couple (Susan Sarandon and Barry Bostwick) who have a flat tire on a lonely road and must seek help at a nearby castle where they end up in the middle of a messy transexual convention whose events include monstermaking, dismemberment of a brutish biker-rock star (played by someone called “Meat-Ioaf”), cannibalism and some of the cruddiest song and dance numbers ever to come from the human brain. The whole affair has JVank’n’ftoter (Tim Curry from “Jesus Christ, Superstar”) as a master of ceremonies in black lipstick who alternately seduces both the girl and the guy and- en-gates in several rrmrder-ousiy petty jealousies over the inclinations of his beach-boy monster.Sharman tries to make O’Brien’s foul lyrics — “since the day he was born, all he wanted was rock and roll porn” — amusing in context but the sound is so doctored with over-produced electronics, it is as artificial as the silly thinking behind this freak show.About the only amusing moment in- this movie came when two teenage girls, obviously on their way to one of the UAChris-Town’s other theaters, wandered in, munched their popcorn for a couple of minutes and'then fled-, squealing “this is REALLY WEIRD.” They were wrong, it’s onlyridiculous.now twoGREAT IQIHTIOnSI
Newspaper Details
Phoenix Arizona Republic
Phoenix, Arizona, US
Sat, May 08, 1976
Page 119
Full Page
Clipped by
Rotten T.
USA 23 Sep 2020
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