The Rocky Horror Picture Show

You still get Tim Curry in drag, young Susan Sarandon in her skimpies and an enthusiastic score. [16 Nov 1990, p.3D]

For a movie that's mostly a plotless mix of old sci-fi flicks and Bowie-esque gender-bending, Rocky Horror continues to charm. That's due in part to the honest delight we take in the freedoms this movie so cheerfully flaunts. Read full review

The material inspires affection, given its knowing pastiche of everything from Universal horrors to '50s grade-Z sci-fi, and a shamelessly hedonistic, fiercely independent sensibility that must have seemed a welcome relief from the mainstream bombast of other '70s musicals. Read full review

The film itself is filled with great tunes and a slightly loopy plot. So it's just like your common-or-garden musical in that way. Where the film really takes off is in its subversion of sexual mores as Brad and Janet break free from their normality. Read full review

If you've never been to a midnight screening of Rocky Horror, please go. It's a delight. And if you can't make it, this Blu-ray attempts to bring that experience home. Just don't watch the film without, at least, some form of audience participation. It's just not much fun without it. Read full review

The powerhouse of the film is Tim Curry's cross-dressing alien, Frank N. Furter, who would never reach these kinds of gloriously demented heights again. Read full review

The film itself is a lot of fun--but the audience-participation phenomenon has turned it into a one-of-a-kind cinematic experience. Read full review

Susan Sarandon and Barry Bostwick are perfectly caste as two naive waifs who stumble upon the castle of Dr. Frank-N-Furter after car trouble on a rainy night. The supporting cast is appropriately, well, let's say idiosyncratic, but for my money it's Tim Curry as the mad doctor who steals the show. Surely he stands as the most charismatic transsexual Transylvanian ever. [1 Dec 1990]

The plot is only semi-comprehensible, but the nearly non-stop musical numbers-brilliant conflations of glam-rock and showtunes-and transgressive sexual energy keep things moving. Read full review

Dr. Furter is played by a British actor named Tim Curry, who bears a certain resemblance to Loretta Young in drag. He's the best thing in the movie, maybe because he seems to be having the most fun. Read full review

Most of the jokes that might have seemed jolly fun on stage now appear obvious and even flat. The sparkle's gone. Read full review

The wit is too weak to sustain a film, and the songs all sound the same. Read full review