Recently, for the “podcast” Saturday Morning Something or other… in which I’m involved (the
word is in quotes because like many things I’m involved with, it’s a bit
questionable*) my co-host and I went to a midnight screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
For those not in the know about midnight screenings of said
movie, allow me to elucidate you. The Rocky
Horror Picture Show (from hereon out to be referred to as TRHPS to save me
from having to type that shit out every time) is a bad 70s horror-spoof musical
movie based on a bad 70s horror spoof musical stage play. It’s about sweet
transvestite aliens from the planet Transsexual and the wacky sexual hijinks
they get into while on Earth. There are songs, plenty of dancing and even an
orgy in a pool. It’s one of Tim Curry’s best performances.
Unfortunately, when the movie was released in theaters, it
bombed like the Enola Gay.
** A year later it was played in a New York theater around midnight, garnered
(I’ve always wondered about that word, how does one ‘garner’ something?) a cult
following and arguably became the first audience participation movie.
An AP movie is a movie wherein people interact with what
they’re seeing on the screen. Be it responding to things characters are saying
in the flick, yelling at the screen, throwing things at the movie and at each
other, or using props to act scenes out, audience participation movies draw in
the viewers and make them apart of the experience. They’re ever so much fun!
In theory. The reality can be much more…disconcerting…and
saggy.
To watch the movie, my co-host Fred and I went to E Street
Cinema, a theater in DC known for showing movies that aren’t completely
mainstream. You wanna see the latest Jason Statham shoot-em-up? Take your ass
to Regal Megaplex. You want to spend three-and-a-half hours watching the latest
art house film about some little girl in Tibet with no arms who writes
beautiful poetry while you chomp on a $10 artisanal panini, you go to E Street.
Get it?
As soon as we were seated, the first thing we noticed was
that half of the audience was just chillin in their underwear. “Oh, it’s gonna
be that kind of party,” I said to Fred. “Let’s see where this night
takes us!
Once everybody was settled in their seats, (including the
drunk birthday girl) the group who hosted this monthly event decided to play
some games with us to get us loosened up for the movie. They wanted the
audience ready to participate. A half-hour of cringe-worthy games followed.
They were so awkward that I have sealed them off in the forbidden room in my
Memory Palace and couldn’t tell you what the hell we all did even if I could.
Moving on!
And so the movie commenced. Now, I have to be
straightforward here. I really like TRHPS. I got into it at a young age. I find
most of the songs pretty catchy. I even got the soundtrack for Christmas one
year. I’ve seen the movie enough to know most of the audience cues, like saying
“slut” whenever somebody says the name Janet, or putting a newspaper over my
head during a rainy scene. But to make sure we wouldn’t be caught too off foot,
Fred and I had done a little research. It’s crazy how many sites there are
telling you all the stuff you’re supposed to do as an audience member for that
movie.
And then it happened.
At one point, near the end of the movie, Dr. Frank-N-Furter
(don’t ask) chases the protagonists around his mansion while they’re in their
underwear. Suddenly, half the audience jumped up, stripped down to their
underwear (if thy hadn’t done so already) and ran out of the theater and into
the lobby, where they cavorted like maniacs for a few minutes before running
back into the theater.
Fred and I were speechless. I’ve seen some crazy things in
my life, a cat walking on its hind legs, people doing parkour, a pizza that foretold
the future, a Snallyghaster, even a Ginger with a soul. But I’ve never seen
something all get out stupid as what I had just witnessed.
After the movie, Fred and I conducted a few interviews,
including one with a guy who seemed to know all of the audience cues and would
create his own, (not at all annoying, super hilarious, you could tell because
he kept laughing at everything he said.) It turns out he was the boyfriend of
one of the ladies who hosted the monthly viewing, meaning he had to go every
time. He had gone from never seeing that movie in his life, to seeing it at
least once a month for well over a year. I shot him to put him out of his
misery Old Yeller-style and then we left to go drink the memories of what had
just occurred out of our brains.
10/10, would recommend.
*For example, we still
haven’t settled on a name for the damn thing.
**Look it up. That’s
today’s history lesson for ya.
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