How To Watch The Rocky Horror Picture Show At Home
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If a curious viewer would like to see Jim Sharman's 1975 cult classic "The Rocky Horror Picture Show," it should be stressed in the strongest possible terms that it should be seen in a theater with a live shadowcast. If you live near one of the few theaters that exhibits midnight shows of "Rocky Horror" on a regular basis, by all means, see it there. If it's your first time going, many "Rocky Horror" troupes will still put you through a "virgin sacrifice," the details of which are meant to be kept secret. You are meant to sing along with Richard O'Brien's songs, hoot and holler to the sight of Tim Curry, Susan Sarandon, and Barry Bostwick in their charming underclothes, and shout obscenities at the top of your lungs. "Rocky Horror" is an experience, a rite of passage for all good happy mutants.
But I acknowledge that the full-bore midnight movie experience is not available to all comers. Be sure to check a handy online database of operational "Rocky Horror" shadowcasts to make sure one of them is performing near you. If they aren't, then home video is the way to go. Seeing the film on home video won't impress the shadowcast performers and long-term "Rocky" regulars, but it will at the very least be a vital part of your cinematic education. Everyone should see "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" at least twice.
You'd like to know where "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" is available to see on streaming? Well, I can tell you. I have that knowledge. I see you shiver with antici...
Where to rent 'The Rocky Horror Picture Show'
...pation.
Sadly, none of the major streaming services currently offer "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" as part of their subscriptions. When Disney acquired the Fox library in 2019, O'Bien's oddball musical was one of the many pop figures pulled in under Mickey's umbrella. Knowing that "Rocky Horror" is owned by the same people who put out "The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh" may cause some cognitive dissonance, although it is amusing to think that Dr. Frank-N-Furter (Tim Curry) is now technically a Disney Princess. Sadly, no executive has yet possessed the moxie to put "Rocky Horror" onto Disney+.
"The Rocky Horror Picture Show," then, is only available for rent or purchase. An HD version of the film can be rented for $3.99 on AppleTV, Amazon, Vudu, YouTube, the Google Play store, and the Microsoft store. All of those same stores also offer the film for digital purchase for $14.99.
Blu-rays, DVDs, and even VHS copies are also still available on the second-hand market. Starting in 2000, and every five years thereafter, Fox put out a new anniversary edition, each one with new special features. The 25th anniversary DVD is very good if you have been unable to let go of your cathode ray tube TV, although the best Blu-ray of "Rocky Horror" is probably the 35th anniversary edition which came with the crunchiest features and the tastiest booklet. The 40th-anniversary edition isn't bad either (that's the edition that looks like Tim Curry's chest), as it offers an audio guide of the most popular audience callbacks. The 45th-anniversary edition, however, is pretty stripped down.
Be sure to get the right Rocky
When it was first released in 1975, and all throughout the '80s, "Rocky Horror" was considered dangerous and subversive. Older "Rocky" regulars will likely tell you stories of how there used to be a lot more nudity and copulation in most theaters. "Rocky Horror" was a safe place for queer people, as cross-dressing, gender diversity, queerness, kink, and general outsider freakiness were celebrated. In the decades since, queerness has become mercifully less "subversive," and "Rocky Horror" has become a lot more mainstream as a result. The mean age for live "Rocky Horror" audiences now hovers somewhere around 16 and public sex is no longer smiled upon. The film is, however, still rated R.
The mainstreaming of "Rocky Horror" led to the production of a few additional "family-friendly" options. In 2010, the hit TV series "Glee" put on a special called, natch, "The Rocky Horror Glee Show." That episode, along with all six seasons of "Glee" is available to stream on both Disney+ and Hulu. The plot of the "Glee" special followed the show's central high school students as they aimed to stage "The Rocky Horror Show," the original stage production that the film was based on. The characters, however, were required to tone down the language (they couldn't say "transsexual"), making the special more G-rated as a result.
In 2016, Fox staged a live TV revival of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" bearing the subtitle "Let's Do the Time Warp Again." That live event starred Laverne Cox as Dr. Frank-N-Furter, and featured a retuning Tim Curry as the Criminologist, the film's narrator. That version can be purchased on Amazon for $9.99, and is sadly not available to stream or rent.
The 1981 "Rocky Horror" sequel "Shock Treatment," meanwhile, is not available anywhere.