The Rocky Horror Picture Show

Even in an ordinary screening, without high heels, rattles and rubber gloves, The Rocky Horror Picture Show is endlessly entertaining and, during the existential songs, it is a touching defence of eccentricity and a tribute to the sci-fi and horror B-movies of Val Lewton and William Castle. Thanks to the tastelessness, affectedness and consciousness of its own decadence, every gesture, every prop and every deviant costume screams “camp”. The film dares us to despise it and dance with it. Both surprisingly happen at the same time, inviting us to experience it again and again, just like repeatedly listening to the soundtrack (I’ve had “Touch-a, touch-a, touch-a, touch me” stuck in my head for a few weeks). 90% (01/01/2012)

Susan Sarandon almost constantly in lingerie, a free-spirited transvestite, a castle of freaks, a fat biker, a reversal of puritanism, and good taste getting one slap in the face after another. This trip to the strangest castle in the area simply turned out as contradictory as expected. The songs are mostly fine and catchy, but the plot they are attached to is unbearably bizarre and always completely unrelated to any hint of a storyline. And of course, the best song is "Touch-a, Touch-a, Touch-a, Touch Me". (24/10/2010)

I didn't expect to enjoy the film very much. It's talked about too much as a cult classic, but in its case, it's absolutely deserved. Great performances in a brilliantly twisted script, dominated by Tim Curry, and of course, the songs that easily get under the viewer's skin. This is alternative beauty. (12/10/2015)

OK, another film whose cult status I can’t understand. The ear-shattering, awful 1970s music does highlight the depravity on screen, but it also made the film almost unwatchable. The Rocky Horror Picture Show is perverted in the exact awfully perverted fashion that I can’t understand, let alone like. On top of that, Tim Curry is almost unpleasantly convincing in the role of a sweet transvestite from the transsexual planet Transylvania… Overall, it was one of the least imitable film experiences I’ve ever had, and I’m giving it two stars for that, but my tastes are elsewhere. (15/02/2009)

A musical whose plot is merely an ingenious backdrop for an enormous cinematic legacy and a celebration of artistic and life's incoherence and extravagance. It gets a bit slow in the end, but otherwise it’s an absolutely unprecedented and deservedly iconic whirlwind of funny musical sketches, cleverly written, wittily staged and, above all, incredibly acted! Tim Curry is phenomenal as a transsexual caricature of a mad horror scientist, as if he was born for this insane and unique role in film history, and it's all embellished and spiced up with two more cherries than the adorable Susan Sarandon, whose feminine assets I want to see at home every day.... just want! 85% (16/02/2017)