This Classic Tim Curry Movie Had Test Audiences Leaving The Theater Early

50 years after its release, "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" is still going strong. For several generations, now, "Rocky Horror" has consistently been presented at weekly midnight shows, usually accompanied by devoted shadowcasts, reenacting the events of the film live on stage. The film is somewhat raucous, but the audiences were encouraged to be downright rowdy. Its queerness and sexuality is also presented very frankly, and with a celebratory tone. Young queer and trans teens could attend midnight screenings of "Rocky Horror" and feel at home, encouraged to express themselves to the fullest extent that their hearts would allow. Depending on the vibe in the room, you could even find someone to make out with. "Rocky Horror" was a party that has been raging, changing tone, and adapting to the times for five decades. 

The film was based on a stage musical, "The Rocky Horror Show," written by Richard O'Brien during an idle moment in his life. The musical took its cues from glam rock iconography, and remixed them with "The Old Dark House," and multiple weird sci-fi movies that O'Brien loved as a kid. The main characters were the clean-cut Brad Majors and Janet Weiss who take shelter in a Gothic castle during a rainstorm. The denizens of the castle, as it happens, are bisexual transvestite space aliens who while away the days dancing, conducting Frankensteinian experiments, and committing acts of cannibalism. It's a good, good time. 

Of course, the film's many enthusiasts will be able to tell you that "Rocky Horror" opened in 1975 to poor notices and very low box office receipts. Indeed, some of the film's early test audiences walked out. In the stage musical, Tim Curry played the flamboyant Dr. Frank-N-Furter, a role he reprised for the film adaptation. It's one of Curry's most recognizable performances. It's hard to resist. And yet, those early test audiences resisted it well. Curry recalled the walk-out all too well, which he spoke of in a recent interview with the Los Angeles Times. 

The film was shot on a shoestring budget of only $1.4 million. Star Susan Sarandon has spoken repeatedly about how cold and damp filming conditions were, as the movie was shot at a real castle ... without heating. She and Barry Bostwick played Janet and Brad, O'Brien played the spindly assistant Riff-Raff, Patricia Quinn played his sister Magenta, and Little Nell played the groupie Columbia. The titular twink-monster was played by bodybuilder Peter Hinwood. Meat Loaf played the undead biker, Eddie.

Curry recalls watching the completed film at 20th Century Fox, and how the executives gave no reaction whatsoever. In his words: "You could touch the silence at the end. [...] It wasn't a very alive audience. There was really no reaction at all." That's not a good sign. The sign got even worse when it came time to test out "Rocky Horror" for a public audience. In their finite wisdom, Fox elected to host a screening of this wild, queer rock musical at an out-of-the-way theater in Santa Barbara, California. This was a theater full of older people and a smattering of hapless college kids. The college kids watched until the end. The older people didn't bother. "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" seemed doomed. 

The film was eventually released in the United States on September 26, 1975. It started at the UA theater in Westwood, California, and a few other theaters around L.A., with the intention of expanding it to eight additional cities around the country. Westwood, it should be explained, is immediately adjacent to UCLA, and college students flocked to the theater to see this new bonkers flick. It was a hit ... but only at that one location. Because it failed everywhere else, its wider release was curtailed. 

Fox didn't know what to do with their peculiar failure. They tried running is as a double feature with Brian De Palma's equally bonkers "The Phantom of the Paradise," but that didn't move the needle, financially. In 1975, however, a new scene was emerging. Many theaters had found that they could screen weirder, edgier movies beginning at midnight, and rake in huge amounts of dough from the weed-smoking night dwellers. Films like "El Topo," "Pink Flamingos," and "Night of the Living Dead" were making huge amounts of money on the midnight circuit, and one of the execs at Fox figured "Rocky Horror" might be a perfect fit. 

It was. "Rocky Horror" opened at the Waverly Theaters in New York City on April 1, 1976, and people began turning up in droves. Tim Curry just happened to live very close to the Waverly at the time, and trekked down to see what audiences were like. He was positively chuffed. The theater was fully of sexy, party-ready people. "It was a sort of guaranteed party," Curry said. "And if he didn't bring a date, he could perhaps find one." Word quickly spread, and "Rocky Horror" began getting booked at other New York theaters. Then it spread to other cities. By the early 1980s, it was playing at midnight, on a weekly basis, from coast to coast. The Nuart theater in Los Angeles still runs it to this day, playing the film every Saturday night with the live shadowcast Sins o' the Flesh. Indeed, Fox never pulled "Rocky Horror" from general release, so it's technically the longest-running movie in cinema history. 

The documentary "Strange Journey," all about the rise and rise of "Rocky Horror" was released in limited theaters on September 26, 2025.