The Horror

Twenty-five years after The Rocky Horror Picture Show's American release, the live spectacle that accompanies it still draws crowds. Does the stage show simply pay homage to the movie's transgressive spirit, or does it go too far?

by Camille Dodero

IT'S THE PELVIC THRUSTS THAT REALLY DRIVE US INSANE: Rocky Horror "virgins" are initiated by the Full Body Cast.

Even by movie-theater standards, there are copious amounts of coupling here. Ten minutes ago, two females from the audience -- one crowned by fat braids and a sparkling halo -- sucked face under the spotlights, rubbing their bodies together. Five minutes later, two fully dressed guys feigned anal sex , one pecking the other so voraciously that somebody yelled, "SOMEBODY GET THE HOSE -- THEY'RE STILL FUCKING!" Now, nearly half-past midnight, it's time for this week's "virgin sacrifice" -- a ritualized initiation for first-timers to The Rocky Horror Picture Show's live "pre-show" at the Loews Harvard Square theater. Unbeknownst to the virgins in question, this initiation will include grinding, orgasm-faking, and the ceremonious popping of a cherry-red balloon.

I'm one of the Rocky Horror virgins in question, so I'm unaware of what I'm getting myself into when I join three other newcomers at the front of the theater. Tonight's garter-belted hostess is a 19-year-old named Bianca who's playing the role of Dr. Frank N. Furter, the movie's transvestite master of ceremonies. Bianca introduces us to the audience. The nymphet to my left is 17. The baby-faced guy to my right calls himself Brad. As Frank presents me, she takes one look at my ribbed sweater and whispers, "Do you have anything on underneath that?"

Uh, nope.

I never find out what specifically Frank had on her mind, because before my undergarments become a public issue, we virgins are goaded into doing "pelvic thrusts." The 17-year-old jerks her shoulders more spastically than her hips. Baby-faced Brad pumps his groin rapidly, like a jackrabbit on speed. Me? Well, I'm still wondering why Frank wants to know what I'm wearing, so my performance lacks vigor: if Brad's a hare on amphetamines, I'm a tortoise soused on NyQuil.

When we finish humping the air, Frank pushes the crowd to pick a winner. Apparently, my lackluster thrusts didn't go unnoticed, because when Frank points at me and calls out, "Virgin #3?" a charitable set of palms clap. Then a voice from the back booms, "SHE'S GOT HERPES."

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Cracks about STDs, shameless virgin-hazing, cherries being popped by teeth -- The Rocky Horror Picture Show is big on sex. The film itself clumsily broaches the subject of sexual liberation by grabbing from '50s B-movie character paradigms -- an unsuspecting young couple, a megalomaniacal mad scientist, a naive monster creation -- and turning them into crude sexual beings. In the twisted world of Rocky Horror writer Richard O'Brien, the mad doctor is a "sweet transvestite from Transsexual, Transylvania," the betrothed young couple is easily lured into bed by this strange being, and the monster creation wears gold lamè; skivvies and sleeps with the engaged woman. Released 25 years ago in a culture that deemed Three's Company relatively racy, the film was, to say the least, subversive.

THE ODD COUPLE: Frank N. Furter lures both the naive Janet, played by Crystal Noll, and her fiancÈ into bed.

Yet Rocky Horror flopped when it opened in the fall of 1975. Its subversiveness wasn't what discredited it. O'Brien might have been condemning repression and suggesting that sexual liberation can permeate even our most static cultural relics, but his point was lost in the sloppily made, tragically kitschy film. Rocky Horror attempted to spoof '50s sci-fi, but it ended up spoofing itself.

Probably, it would've been forgotten -- merely a job bumped off Susan Sarandon's rèsumè; -- if its potential for cult status hadn't been channeled into NYC's Waverly Theater, a late-'70s sanctum for midnight movie viewing. The Rocky Horror Picture Show began running at the Waverly in the spring of 1976, and it wasn't long before the schlocky flick inspired coarse call-and-response rituals, edible props, and lingerie-clad character impersonations.

As Rocky Horror became an outlet for freakiness and prurience, midnight showings of the film spread to theaters around the country. According to former Rocky Horror pre-show director Sarah Wendell, The Rocky Horror Picture Show paraded into Boston sometime in 1978, setting up camp at the now-defunct Exeter Theater in the Back Bay. When the Exeter shut its doors in the early '80s, Rocky Horror floated across the river to its current Harvard Square location. The show's cast was known as the Harvard Square Revue until it adopted the name Full Body Cast in 1993.

Wendell joined Rocky Horror in 1990 and became a co-director in 1994. "When I started, the cast and the crew was about 60 people," she recalls. "We performed both Friday and Saturday nights every weekend. We used to have an audience requirement of 12 people or we couldn't cover the cost of the theater staying open for us. But in the mid '90s, [when] the theater started running other midnight showings, that stopped being an issue."

These days, although Wendell has abdicated her directorship, Full Body Cast (FBC) still works to preserve Rocky Horror's 25-year-old spirit of subversion. The troupe graphically simulates sex, humiliates neophytes, and ruthlessly spits on convention. By all accounts, FBC pushes the envelope. And sometimes you have to wonder whether it pushes too far.

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