The Rocky Horror Picture Show: Let’s Do the Time Warp Again
Based on The Rocky Horror Picture Show by Jim Sharman & Richard O’Brien
Directed by Kenny Ortega
Starring Laverne Cox, Tim Curry, Victoria Justice, Ryan McCartan, Reeve Carney, Christina Milian, Annaleigh Ashford, Adam Lambert, Staz Nair, Ben Vereen, Ivy Levan
FOX
Air Date: Thursday, October 20, 2016, 8-10pm

Going into FOX’s The Rocky Horror Picture Show: Let’s Do the Time Warp Again, you know that it can never live up to the 1975 cult classic film, but it can do its originator justice. Unfortunately, this new 2-hour TV special doesn’t.

The original The Rocky Horror Picture Show, a horror-comedy musical, became a counter-culture sensation after midnight screenings generated the now-famous audience participations, cosplay, and in-theater act-alongs. The film itself was an homage to classic science fiction-monster movies, complete with camp, meshed with gender-bending and titillations that were still considered taboo at the time, all set to catchy rock and roll tunes. It was unique, it was exciting, and it resonated with people so strongly that the movie and soundtrack are still in play today, and theater productions continue to be staged around Halloween time each year.

FOX has released a few trailers for some of their upcoming series and TV movies based on popular older movies.

First up is a brief preview for The Rocky Horror Picture Show, a two-hour TV movie remake of the cult classic of the same name that starred Tim Curry. Orange is the New Black star Laverne Cox takes on the role Curry played in the original, while Curry himself will be the narrator. After that is trailers for two TV series based on hit movie franchises, The Exorcist, based on William Friedkin’s horror classic of the same name starring Linda Blair, Max von Sydow, and Ellen Burstyn, and Lethal Weapon, based on the action comedy series of the same name starring Mel Gibson and Danny Glover.

You can check all of the trailers and read more about each below.

So now I’m excited. FOX has cast Tim Curry as the criminologist narrator for their 2-hour event remake of the epic musical, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, set to air this fall.

Tim Curry!! He’s “just a sweet transvestite” who will now speak of being “Lost in time, and lost in space… and meaning.”

More below.

The IFC channel has been thrilling viewers all month long with their SCREAM-O-WEEN fright fest with horror movies like Silent Hill, House of 1000 Corpses, and Saw. As part of this programming, the network will be presenting the awesome cult classic horror musical The Rocky Horror Picture Show every night at midnight from October 27 through October 30. There will also be encore presentations on each day, including on Halloween morning and afternoon (October 31).

If you’re a fan of Rocky Horror, then you know that audience partici “¦ pation is half the fun! So, be sure to check out IFC’s Watch-Along guide.

I’ve seen Rocky Horror tons of times at home and at midnight theater screening, I’ve reviewed the reviewed the 35th Anniversary Edition Blu-ray Edition (which I own), and I’m actually going to a stage production of it on Halloween night, yet I’m still excited about it airing every night this week and plan to watch it on IFC, especially because I love the idea that I’ll be watching it along with so many other viewers.

Happy 71st birthday today to Richard O’Brien, the English actor who is best remembered and known for penning the The Rocky Horror Picture Show, the homage to science fiction and B level horror films during Hollywood’s heyday of them back in the late 40s to the late 60s done with an androgynously glammed up delicious twist, spearheaded by the once-in-a-lifetime performance by Tim Curry (in the film adaptation) as the curly haired Tom Jones meets Marc Bolan meets the cheeky personality of Peter O’ Toole main character, Dr. Frank-N-Furter.

The film version of Rocky Horror (which already had experienced a large cult following as the stage original stage play a few years prior) was released in 1975 and without question became one of the largest cult phenomenons in the entire history of celluloid, taking a life unto itself as it pretty much spawned the concept of the Midnight Movie, in which a film is shown and re-shown and re-re-re-shown to ravenous audiences who can’t get enough of it. And it created a pioneering audience participation segment in which fans interact with the film itself, creating their own pointed jokes and jibes which they shout at the screen, or dance along with the film’s many memorable numbers like “Sweet Transvestite” and “Time Warp,” and actually dress in costumes which mirror their favorite characters. It’s one of the earliest forms of social media interaction ever manifested, as well as cosplay, and it all happened because of the play and songbook – leading to one of the most popular Soundtracks ever – created by O’Brien (along with director Jim Sharman), who also played the tall and limber Riff Raff in the film.