Sadly, the theater couldn’t sustain itself anymore. We had dozens of pre-show entertainment items for the occasion. The film itself didn’t start until around 2:00am. By 3:45am, after we took our final bow in front of our audience, everyone burst into tears. Many had talked about taking the show to another theater in Des Plaines, and they did, but I knew my time with “Rocky Horror” was at an end. I wanted to go out on a positive note. I made some great friends. I managed to avoid the many variations of “Rocky drama.” I went to a party one night and stayed for a few years. I had been doing it, on and off and at different theaters, since 1990. It was time.
Since then, I have often been curious to see how this movie has managed to maintain its popularity as a midnight show over the decades and if anything has changed since I last took to the stage 25 years ago. Do people still throw toast and toilet paper? Are squirt guns still used during the rain scene? I’ve been curious about the callbacks and what the attitude has been, whether or not everyone still calls Janet Weiss (Susan Sarandon) a “slut” or if any of the other lewd remarks have stood the test of time. In this era where every word or expression gets put under a microscope, how does “Rocky Horror” manage to maintain its spirit and audience? The only way to know would be to attend a midnight show, which I did, at the Music Box Theater in Chicago.
I had hoped the experience of walking into a “Rocky Horror” theater after 25 years would directly connect to my past somehow and I was not disappointed. My old friend, Gene Chiovari, famed “Rocky Horror” MC, expert and one of the great Frank n’ Furters, was still a regular attendee. This did not and should not surprise me.
Gene and I caught up and reminisced about our pranks on the audience during the opening ceremonies every week at Mundelein, how the “Rocky Horror” experience has changed over the years and how every home video release continues to dilute the Hammer horror look of the film (so carefully chosen by cinematographer Peter Suschitzky) by completely changing the color palette. The Music Box shows “Rocky Horror” in 35mm, of course, but Gene informed me that it’s the 15th Anniversary print, in which the original song recordings are dubbed over by the album version of the songs. I guess all those original prints that I had seen in the ‘80s and ‘90s had to deteriorate eventually.