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Showing posts with the label Rocky Horror

Blu-ray Review: Strange Journey Captures the Soul of Rocky Horror

To look at the cultural landscape today is to see the fingerprints of Dr. Frank-N-Furter everywhere. Gender fluidity is a mainstream topic, camp aesthetics govern high-fashion red carpets, and the concept of interactive, communal cinema is a celebrated art form. Yet fifty years ago, the vessel that carried these ideas into the global consciousness was a destitute, bizarre British rock musical that bombed spectacularly during its initial American theatrical release. Directed by Linus O’Brien, the documentary Strange Journey: The Story of Rocky Horror arrives as both a celebration and an interrogation of this survival story. Crucially, the filmmaker happens to be the son of Richard O’Brien, the eccentric genius who wrote the original stage show and played the cadaverous butler Riff Raff. This familial connection gives the film an emotional baseline that elevates it far above standard, talking-head nostalgia. Rather than settling for a standard chronological list of production trivia, Str...