Dom Robinson reviews

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Cert:

Cat.no: 1424 DVD

Running time: 96 minutes

Year: 1975

Pressing: 2001

Region(s): 2, PAL

Chapters: 36 plus extras

Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1

Languages: English

Subtitles: English (for the hard of hearing)

Widescreen: 1.66:1

16:9-Enhanced: Yes

Macrovision: Yes

Disc Format: 2 * DVD 9

Price: £24.99

Extras: Audio Commentary, Multi-View Theatre Experience, Audience Participation, Participation Prompter, Deleted Scene, Interview excerpts from 'Behind the Music' and 'Where are They Now?', VH1 Pop-Up Video of 'Hot Patootie!', Outtakes and Alternate Credits Ending, Rocky Horror Double Feature Video Show Documentary (37 min), 2 Trailers, Sing-A-Longs 'Toucha Toucha Touch Me' and 'Sweet Transvestite', Photo Gallery, Reconstruction of how the "misprint" ending appeared on first release.

Director:

Jim Sharman (The Night Prowler, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Shirley Thompson vs. The Aliens, Shock Treatment, Summer of Secrets)

Producer:

Michael White

Screenplay:

Jim Sharman and Richard O'Brien

Music:

Richard O'Brien and Richard Hartley

Cast:

Doctor Frank-N-Furter: Tim Curry
Janet Weiss: Susan Sarandon
Brad Majors: Barry Bostwick
Riff Raff: Richard O'Brien
Magenta: Patricia Quinn
Columbia: Little Nell
Dr. Everett Scott: Jonathan Adams
Eddie: Meat Loaf
The Criminologist: Charles Gray

Beginning innocently enough with the wedding of the best friends to Brad Majors (Spin City's Barry Bostwick) and Janet Weiss (Susan Sarandon), on the way home their car breaks down close to the house owned by the clearly-mad transvestite Doctor Frank-N-Furter (Tim Curry, in easily his best-ever performance to date).

Sadly they've chosen the wrong night to drop in since Frank's just about to unleash his brand new muscle-bound male creation onto an unsuspecting world. Couple this with handyman Riff Raff (The Crystal Maze's Richard O'Brien, who also wrote the music for the original stage play and co-wrote the screenplay), the domestic Magenta (Patricia Quinn) and groupie Columbia (Little Nell) and they leave Brad and Janet about as out-of-sorts as you can possibly imagine.

Narrated by "The Criminologist" Charles Gray and featuring cameos from Meat Loaf as ex-delivery boy Eddie, Christopher Biggins as one of the Transylvians and an uncredited Koo Stark as a bridesmaid, not to mention the range of accompanying tunes, I'm Just a Sweet Transvestite, Hot Patootie Bless My Soul, Dammit Janet and, of course, the classic Timewarp and you have a film in a league of its own. There's never been anything quite like it and I doubt there will ever be again.

I was also lucky enough to see the stage show itself at the now-defunct Davenport Theatre, near Stockport, in the mid-80s.

The original ratio for the film was 1.66:1 so wouldn't normally be quite wide enough from which to strike a 16:9 anamorphic widescreen transfer. However, this is certainly possible by placing the 1.66:1 image within the 16:9 frame, the only slight downside meaning there are miniscule black bars down each side. This is to be expected though and I would far rather have it presented as it is here than as a non-anamorphic image which I'd zoom in anyway and would lose 33% of the original resolution. There are a few artifacts and print scratches on minor occasions and the picture inexpicably shakes for about a minute, 71 mins in, but no complaints at other times. The average bitrate is 6.33Mb/s, starting off by regularly peaking over 9Mb/s for the first 20 minutes and then dropping to its average for the rest of the movie.

The sound is first-rate with a remastered Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack that makes the endless show-tunes shine and sound just as fresh as they were when you first heard them.

Released over two discs, the first one offers no less than five ways to enjoy the Rocky Horror Experience. There's the film as it stands and a feature-length audio commentary from Richard O'Brien and Patricia Quinn, plus ways to make you feel surrounded by those who also found it intensely entertaining.

• Multi-View Theatre Experience: See both the film and the crowd. This version lasts around twice as long as the film because you see what happens in the movie first before going back to experience what the crowd went through in an American cinema.

• Audience Par-tic-i-pa-tion: Hear the crowd roar along while you're watching just as if you're in the theatre. Probably the one time when you won't mind this sort of canned laughter and reaction.

• Participation Prompter: No script subtitles are available during this option, but at certain points throughout the film direction prompts will be given in keeping with the spirit of the film.

I'm still waiting on the second disc for this set which contains stacks more extras: Deleted Scene - musical sequence 'Once in a While', Interview excerpts from 'Behind the Music' and 'Where are They Now?', VH1 Pop-Up Video of 'Hot Patootie!', Outtakes and Alternate Credits Ending (11 min), Rocky Horror Double Feature Video Show Documentary (37 min), 2 Trailers, Sing-A-Longs 'Toucha Toucha Touch Me' and 'Sweet Transvestite', Photo Gallery and a Reconstruction of how the "misprint" ending appeared on first release.

There are 36 chapters over the 96 minute film which is excellent, plus subtitles in English (plus an option for the hard of hearing), Czech, Danish, Finnish, Hebrew, Hungarian, Icelandic, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese and Swedish. The menus are brilliantly animated with instructions and comments from the moving mouth shortly followed after by a pair of legs in fishnet stockings...

FILM CONTENT PICTURE QUALITY SOUND QUALITY EXTRAS
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Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2001.