‘Our church’: How The Rocky Horror Picture Show went from abysmal failure to cult triumph

When Australian director Jim Sharman was preparing to shoot The Rocky Horror Picture Show in 1974, there was so much about the film that was promising.

It was based on a rock ’n roll stage musical that, after opening in a tiny experimental theatre, had become a triumphant hit in London and Los Angeles.

It had an infectious dance number in Time Warp and a catchy – if sexually provocative – soundtrack that included Sweet Transvestite and Touch-a, Touch-a, Touch-a, Touch Me.

Hollywood studio 20th Century Fox was backing the film and there were rumours that Mick Jagger and David Bowie were both keen to play Dr Frank-N-Furter, the transsexual alien scientist who changes the lives of newly engaged Brad and Janet when they arrive at his castle one rainy night.

“We could have a budget of $US10 million if we filled it with rock stars, many of whom were very eager to be part of it,” Sharman says in a new documentary, Sane Inside Insanity.

But when he pushed to include key cast from the stage show, including Tim Curry as Frank-N-Furter and Richard O’Brien, who wrote the stage version and co-wrote the film, as Riff Raff, the studio’s executives said “you can do that but the budget will be $US3 million”.

Sharman’s loyalty to his stage show cast did not pay off.

Without the pulling power of a star and with studio executives so baffled by what they had financed that they walked out of a set visit and skipped a planned lunch, Rocky Horror opened to box office that was both rocky and a horror in September 1975 – 50 years ago this weekend.

“It opened and shut like a door,” Sharman says.

Longtime American fan Daniel DeMeyere, who watched it in a family theatre, says in the documentary that the audience was angry about what Frank-N-Furter got up to. “People were pretty upset, screaming things at the movie,” he says.

Three months after Jaws became the first Hollywood blockbuster, mainstream America was clearly not interested in a high camp musical that had a transsexual lead character in fishnets lusting over a muscle man and sleeping with both a houseguest and her boyfriend.

While the LA stage season became what was described as the coolest party in town, a Broadway season in 1975 was also a dismal failure.

It wasn’t until the Waverly Theatre in New York’s Greenwich Village ran Rocky Horror at midnight screenings in April the following year – a belated attempt by Fox to find an audience – that the film’s fortunes turned around.

“About the third week or fourth week, I said to them, ‘How are we doing?’ ” executive producer Lou Adler says in the documentary. “He said ‘we’re drawing about 45, 50 people [at every screening and] it’s the same 50 people’. That’s when we knew there was something else [going on] with this film.”

English producer Michael White says “gay communication” spread the word and late-night screenings started around the world, including Australia. Packing them out were outsiders of all descriptions, who turned screenings into a party.

Some longtime fans interviewed for the documentary cheerfully describe themselves as freaks and misfits, who found a community as these screenings became “our church”.

Musical director Richard Hartley says in Sane Inside Insanity that he felt something was missing when he watched the film but “the audience, I think, adds the missing ingredient”.

As one of cinema’s great cult films, Rocky Horror has now earned $US112 million ($170 million) in American cinemas alone according to Box Office Mojo.

While there seems some bitterness that O’Brien did not share the profits, it has been a financial windfall for both 20th Century Fox and Adler, who convinced hapless producer White to sign away the rights, which cost him millions.

But O’Brien has benefited from continued seasons of The Rocky Horror Show on stage around the world. On its 50th anniversary in 2023, the BBC reported that it had been watched by 30 million people in 20 languages.

The film based on it has a unique relationship with its audience. It is one of the few releases – The Room and, on a smaller scale, this year’s Minecraft are others – where fans return repeatedly and interact with the action on screen.

From early on, they dressed as their favourite characters, acted out scenes, danced, interjected responses to lines, threw rice in the wedding scene and put newspapers over their heads when it rained on screen. The president of the American fan club, actor Sal Piro, earned a certificate when he watched Rocky Horror for the 1000th time.

Another element added to the experience - so-called “shadow casts”, small performing troupes who cosplay the characters and replicate their actions while the movie plays. One of these troupes appeared in the hit film Fame in 1980.

Sane Inside Insanity includes interviews with contemporary shadow casts, including KAOS (Killer Aliens From Outer Space) from California, Chocolate Covered Rocky Horror from Baltimore and Cards 4 Sorrow from Brisbane.

While O’Brien is a British-New Zealander, Australians played a major role in Rocky Horror’s early history. Sharman as director worked with set designer Brian Thomson, editor and music editor Graeme Clifford, and Nell Campbell aka Little Nell, who plays groupie Columbia.

German director Andreas Zerr, who spent a decade making Sane Inside Insanity, says Rocky Horror screenings have become less regular as independent cinemas have struggled but there are still more than 60 shadow casts performing in the US and others in Europe.

While they are not weekly events any more, die-hard fans are keeping the film alive.

“If you’re very shy, if you have mental problems, if you’re not happy with the shape of your body, if you’re struggling with your sexuality, you can go to Rocky Horror and you’ll be accepted there,” Zerr says. “You’ll find friends.”

Sane Inside Insanity is streaming at saneinsideinsanity.com/watch-now. Cinemas have 50th anniversary screenings of a 4K digital restoration of The Rocky Horror Picture Show next month.

Must-see movies, interviews and all the latest from the world of film delivered to your inbox. Sign up for our Screening Room newsletter.