‘Rocky Horror’ doc underscores heightened relevancy of a cult classicMany fans say the rock musical saved their lives. Now, a new documentary by creator Richard O’Brien’s son makes an urgent case for this “phenomenon of love.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/movies/2025/03/17/strange-journey-the-story-of-rocky-horror/AUSTIN — “Okay, who in here’s a freak?!” drag entertainer Emerald Van Cartier asked while surveying an eager lunchtime crowd at this city’s legendary gay bar, Oilcan Harry’s, and towering above it all in high heels, a flirty red plaid gown and a bouffant Tracy Turnblad ’60s flip.
Hands with long glittery nails flew into the air as the whole room screamed and jumped up and down. This was, after all, the celebration for the world premiere of “Strange Journey: The Story of Rocky Horror” — a documentary about arguably the most enduring rock musical of all time, directed by Linus O’Brien, son of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” creator Richard O’Brien — in a city whose slogan is about keeping it weird.
It was unanimous: Proud freaks, one and all.
“You would hope that ‘Rocky’ would be obsolete or quaint right now and that we will just be explaining how in the past, like, ‘Oh yeah, people used to be scared of a woman in a suit or a man in a dress, but times have changed, and isn’t that nice?’” Linus O’Brien told The Washington Post.
The documentary, which played at South by Southwest last week, doesn’t have a distributor yet, but it screened for William Morris Endeavor on Thursday, and O’Brien is hopeful that interest is high.
The original film — an adaptation of O’Brien’s hit 1973 London stage musical about a “transvestite” space alien — was a total flop when it opened in 1975.
Then came the midnight screenings, which transformed it into a cult B-movie classic completely by word of mouth, with fans showing up in costume and throwing rice at the wedding scene. Today, “Rocky Horror” is the longest-running theatrical release in film history — 50 years and going strong. Hundreds of theaters around the world still screen it, often with a “shadow cast” that performs elaborate lip-synchs of the entire movie while it plays.
“I don’t know if this is me just being grandiose about everything,” O’Brien said, “but I can’t think of another work of art … that has literally saved lives like ‘Rocky’ has.”
For “virgins,” as “Rocky” regulars call first-time viewers, the film follows a young engaged couple, Brad and Janet (played by Barry Bostwick and Susan Sarandon), who wind up in a mysterious castle after their car breaks down. There, they’re taken on a dizzying journey of sexual liberation led by the castle’s owner/emcee, a “sweet transvestite” named Frank-N-Furter (played by Tim Curry, who originated the stage role), who manages to seduce them both.
“Several people tell me that it helped them understand their sexuality,” Curry says in the documentary. “Perhaps it is more relevant now [that] gender has become a political football, which is really just a kind of global ignorance.”
A poster featuring a young Tim Curry for “Strange Journey,” which premiered at South by Southwest last week. (Linus O'Brien)
“Strange Journey” is in many ways a love letter to watching movies in theaters. But it also feels like a particularly relevant touchstone for the LGBTQ+ community at a time when President Donald Trump has issued executive orders targeting transgender people, as well as ending diversity, equity and inclusion programs and the Department of Homeland Security’s prohibition against surveillance of Americans based solely on gender identity or sexual orientation.
“I identify as queer, and I felt so much validation from watching the movie for the first time. Even as a kid, I just felt like, ‘Oh, it’s okay to be me. And even if I don’t know what that means, it’s still okay,’” Sydney Said, a 24-year-old student and member of the Austin shadow cast, told The Post.
Trump’s actions have prompted discussions among shadow cast members across the country and as far away as Sicily, Said told The Post. But the shows the Austin cast members perform on the first Saturday of every month are meant as a two-hour escape, offering themselves and the audience a sense of normalcy. “You’re in a safe place,” said the cast’s director, Brett M., who spoke to The Post on the condition that his stage name be used for privacy reasons.
People see the film and frequently become devotees for life. In “Strange Journey,” Jack Black recalls how his sister took him to a midnight screening when he was 9 and it inspired him to be a rock star. He loved how crazy the audience got, but, in particular, he loved Meat Loaf, who plays a rejected rockabilly monster in the film. Black thought he looked as if he could be his older brother and later cast Meat Loaf to play his dad in Tenacious D’s “The Pick of Destiny” movie.
For the 2020 election, Black even did a “Rock-y the Vote” video of “Time Warp” featuring Elizabeth Warren, Pete Buttigieg, Sarah Silverman and others singing lyrics about taking a jump to the left and then a step to the right.
Tenacious D - Time Warp
The rowdy midnight screenings that made the movie legendary have often been painted as parties. Just a fun thing to do on a Friday night. But “Strange Journey” demonstrates how the movie became an unexpected nexus for the queer community as well as a way to safely gather when police were raiding gay clubs in the ’70s and to cope with HIV and AIDS in the ’80s.
For LGBTQ youths in suburbia, the screenings became the one place where they could be themselves but didn’t have to be overtly out, because even hetero frat boys could show up dressed as Frank-N-Furter.
Trixie Mattel of “RuPaul’s Drag Race” is interviewed in the film out of drag. He actually reached out to the documentary filmmakers because he wanted to tell his story of finding the “Rocky Horror” DVD in a bargain bin at his local video store in Milwaukee and how it gave him an outlet of expression as a closeted teen. “I knew that this film was very gay, but I was also very much allowed to like it,” he says.
Tim Curry as Frank-N-Furter, Barry Bostwick as Brad and Susan Sarandon as Janet in “Rocky Horror Picture Show.” (Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)
O’Brien told The Post that he’d been inspired to make a documentary celebrating “Rocky” fans after scrolling through hundreds of comments under the YouTube clip of Curry singing the ballad “I’m Going Home.” The song plays at the end of the film, as Frank-N-Furter has made a mess of everything and is begging for just a few more moments of life and mercy and magic. In the comments that O’Brien reads to his father in the documentary, one person talks about playing the song at their husband’s funeral, and another about watching it every Halloween with their late mom.
After the premiere, Linus O’Brien said a man came up to him, in tears, explaining that he’d met his wife at a “Rocky Horror” screening 38 years ago. “He said, ‘She wanted me to tell you directly that if it wasn’t for ‘Rocky Horror,’ she wouldn’t be alive today,’” O’Brien recalled, noting that this is not an infrequent occurrence.
What did the movie do for them? “They felt like [they were] on the outskirts of society. They felt lonely. They felt like there was no one else like them out there,” he told The Post.
Trans people in particular, O’Brien says, see themselves in the film, which his father wrote, without quite being aware, about his own identity struggles. “It took my dad 30 years to come to terms with his own sexuality and gender,” he said at the premiere. “He’s now married to a wonderful person who we love dearly, who accepts him for who he is. He’s found true love after all these years.”
At the after-party at Oilcan Harry’s, members of the Austin shadow cast performed “Time Warp” with Lillias Piro, who’d been a member of the original shadow cast in New York. It had been started in 1977 by her brother Sal, who also founded a fan club that spread the gospel of “Rocky Horror” in small towns across the United States. In the film, Sal is pictured prancing around stage in a bra with his chest hair in full bloom and saying that Rocky “has become a phenomenon of love among ourselves.” He died in 2023 before O’Brien could interview him, and the movie is dedicated to him.
“‘Rocky’ allowed you to live out your dreams. It allowed you to be crazy and wild and sexy,” Lillias says in the film. “Sal ate, drank and slept ‘Rocky.’ In an era where it was dangerous to be gay, he was openly and proudly gay.”
As Austin shadow cast member Said sees it: “There will always be those people out there who don’t necessarily accept 100 percent of who you are, but you always know ‘Rocky’ will.”
“Rocky Horror Picture Show” creator Richard O’Brien in “Strange Journey,” his son’s documentary about the cult classic. (Linus O'Brien)
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