and not obese, degenerate sex clowns reading to children at the library.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show is 50 years old, and I’m not sure how to feel about that.

It doesn’t make me feel old.  I am old, and so far, I like it.  Being 65 is like being 13 years old, but with resources.  Nobody is relying on me, there is plenty of free time, there are no big decisions to make and I am flying under the radar.

I’m not nostalgic for the time when I first saw Rocky Horror.  There was too much other stuff going on for this movie to make a dent in my life.  I had the Rocky Horror experience at the right time.  That’s lucky, because there is no explaining it.

The details are hazy, but probably saw Rocky Horror with my roommate at Ohio State.  I do recall that we were pissed that we couldn’t hear the dialogue and didn’t understand the plot.  This was pre-internet, when it was possible to see a movie without knowing anything about it.

I still don’t completely understand the movie, but by the second viewing, understood it is an audience participation event. After that, it was dumb fun.

The 70’s was a good decade for cult movies, but The Rocky Horror Picture Show stands out.  The music actually catchy.  The lead actors are excellent.  Tim Curry is always interesting and Susan Sarandon has a formidable career.  The movie is confident about what it’s doing.  The action stops while a boring guy explains stuff, but that gives the audience a chance to yell at the screen.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show has to be seen at a theater, preferably for a midnight show.  Don’t watch it at home unless you have already seen it a dozen times.  Audience participation is what makes the movie.

I have the movie playing as I write this, and one scene doesn’t go the way it does in the theater.  I even wonder if there was a re-release that changed this scene.  It’s a revelation scene.

The camera pans to a person as that character’s name is exclaimed in surprise.  The dialogue goes like this:

“Janet!”

“Dr. Scott!”

“Janet!”

“Brad!”

“Rocky!”

When the camera pans to Rocky, shown above, there is no exclamation.  I was a 100% certain that Rocky says, “Uhh!”, as a dumb grunt.  There is not reason that would be edited out, so I conclude that the audience supplied that grunt.  It was never part of the movie, but was part of the experience.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show is nearly a perfect movie as there is nothing that could be changed to improve the experience.  As a movie, standing on it’s own, without the audience, it’s maybe a 5 or 6 out of 10.  With an audience, there is nothing like it.

It is a kind of genius.  Did they know what they were making when this movie was produced?

In October, a documentary is coming out.

I am looking forward to this.

Jack Black is in the documentary.  That’s not a good sign.