Where to begin...

This is a movie so wretchedly, grotesquely bad that an entire subculture has grown around dressing up as the characters, going to the movie, and shouting at the screen. In fact, it is widely speculated that this process influenced the creation of MST3K. While the creators of this movie likely intended for it to be bad (it being something of a parody of other B movies), I doubt they wanted it to be as bad as it ended up being.

The plot is as follows: a couple of relatively normal, engaged twentysomethings get a flat while driving through an eerie dark woods (why? who knows) and seek out a phone in a nearby castle. The castle is owned by one Frank-N-Furter (Tim Curry in a succession of outfits you just have to see to believe), who creates Peter Hinwood out of spare parts and then does weird lurid things to our heroes (Barry Bostwick and Susan Sarandon, who spend a good deal of time wandering around in their underwear) until the castle flies away.

While the plot is pretty simple, there is no way I could summarize all of the evil that suffuses Richard O'Brian's masterpiece (which is, incidentally, based on his musical "The Rocky Horror Show"). Instead, I'll just hit a few of the high points.

Every character talks like William Shatner. In other words, there is an average of three seconds between each phrase out of any given character's mouth, even during the songs. In fact, if you removed all of these pauses, the movie would probably be about half as long. This is a major factor for audience participation, as the pauses allow for various comments to be yelled at the screen.

As in all musicals, nobody seems to find it odd that people randomly break into song and dance around, acting like total idiots. This isn't a big factor once we're inside the castle, since everyone in there is horribly, horribly insane, but in the whole wedding/funeral scene at the beginning, it looks very strange indeed.

Speaking of that wedding/funeral, almost all the 'castle' characters are visible in it if you're quick enough to spot them. I suspect this to be a tribute to "The Wizard of Oz."

There are completely inexplicable scenes in which the narrator participates in the dance numbers despite the fact that he is alone in his office. Does he have some kind of brain tumor? We aren't told.

Meatloaf (yes, THAT Meatloaf) is killed in a moderately gruesome scene. However, once this has occurred, there's quite a lot of blood where absolutely no blood could have gotten, no matter how vigorously that pick-axe was swung.

Two bedrooms are shot using precisely the same set, except the male one uses a blue filter and the female one has a sort of pinky filter.

All it takes to create life is multicolored goo. The natural shape of surveillance monitors is octogonal. Never eat dinner with transvestites. Turning people to stone removes all their clothes. Virtually everyone gets to wear fishnets. Antimatter laser? What were they thinking? What were they thinking?

All right. I feel better now...and I can't emphasize this last part enough: when you go to see this movie (and you should), don't rent it. Go to the theater at midnight with the other freaks and get the full experience. Remember, though, that this movie is not for the faint of heart or closed of mind.

Rating: 2 turkeys if you see it at home; 5 in the theater.

Scene to watch for: The time-warp.

Best line: I wouldn't know where to start. Virtually everything anyone says at any time. Particularly anything uttered by Riff-Raff or Charles Grey (the narrator with no...er..."frickin" neck).

Things that make you go "Huh?": Who paid to have this thing made, anyway?

Response From RinkWorks:

A few of my co-workers absolutely love this movie. They seem normal in all other respects, which only serves to make me more nervous.