The Glam, Rocky Horror Picture Show Halloween Anniversary Playlist!

Halloween, 2021 will be the 46th anniversary of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Though a stopped counting sometime around my 200th viewing, I’ve personally seen the cult classic film around 350 times.

When the movie was released in 1975, the initial reaction from the public was not particularly kind. The campy, gender-bending twist on B-movies and science fiction was confusing for many, and savaged in reviews. Admittedly, the first time I saw Rocky, my reaction was similar. I was fifteen years old, and the film had been out for a decade. The college town twenty miles from where I grew up offered $2 midnight movies on Friday and Saturday nights. The featured films never changed, and late-night moviegoers had their choice of Rocky Horror Picture Show or Pink Floyd’s The Wall.

The first show I attended was after a cast party for a musical that my high school had staged. Several cars full of my loud, weird, theater friends decided to go to RHPS, and I can’t recall if I had even heard of it at the time. Someone possibly mentioned that it was that movie that you hear about where people throw rice and toast, but I didn’t know what I was in for.

It was late autumn, so there were lots of college students in attendance as well as my high school pals. The 200-seat theater was so full that three of us shared two seats – swapping turns sitting on laps.

It was loud, crazy, smutty, and a complete blast. I was a virgin literally and figuratively the first time I went, and I experienced the ritual hazing where RHPS “virgins” are harassed in some lewd and playful fashion in order to “pop their cherry.” In my case, I think I had to repeat some silly limerick and was “knighted” by a giant, pink dildo.

I remember wondering what the hell I was watching, and being completely confused by the audience participation. There was catchy music, but there were people running around in the theater, lots of folks in costume, and I had no idea what was happening with the audience participation. It was easy to figure out that you threw rice at the end of the wedding, but all the call and response was confusing, but I started to catch on.

We shouted “asshole” whenever the guy with the glasses said his name. (Brad Majors.) Got it.

I started to get into it, and halfway in, made a quip that elicited laughs and cheers. Oh boy, I was hooked!

I started going often. It was a place where weirdos weren’t only welcomed, we were celebrated.

Gay, straight, trans, questioning? Represented and welcome.

Goth, glam, nerdy, prudish, straight-edge, greaser, cross-dresser, vintage, scholarly? Represented and welcome.

Rocky Horror showed us non-monogamous, non-straight, alternative relationships, and we didn’t judge.

Rocky Horror invented cosplay and gave theater nerds and musical performance geeks a place to call home.

During the frightening years surrounding my mom’s death, Rocky gave me a place to let loose and be free of responsibility. I often joke that I used to pay my “good friends” to babysit my little brothers so that I could go out with my “bad friends,” but it’s entirely true. For a time, I was going to the midnight movies twice a week and driving our family’s 12-passenger van. I would “take reservations” during the week and drive groups of my high school pals to and from the midnight shows. For $5 I promised a movie ticket and sober ride. Those were the days!

I have spent countless hours doing hair, makeup, and costumes for people of all genders.

I have taught many male friends how to walk in heels.

Since my first showing in the mid-80s, I have helped to “deflower” many RHPS virgins as a shadow cast member. I played Columbia for two years. I loved her bold lip, vintage tap shoes, feisty attitude, and sparkles! Plus, it was the 80’s and I owned a shiny lamé jacket!

It’s in honor of Rocky Horror Picture Show, and the space that it created for unconventional conventionalists like me, that I dedicate the ultimate vintage, glam, funky, spooky, Rocky-funky Halloween playlist. I have included androgynous, fabulous, and weird, as well as spooky and over-the-top.

Have fun doing the Time Warp again!

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