Originally published at: The Rocky Horror Picture Show is now a video game - Boing Boing
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It was a video game in 1986
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They’re really Time Warp-ing a retro style game into the modern age!
Honestly though being introduced to a small piece of the Rocky Horror Picture Show and being confused by it until I sought out and fell in love with the original was an excellent way to be introduced to it. Others going down that path with a new format is an experience perfect for what the story offers in my opinion.
Excuse me while I hum “Hot Patootie” for the rest of the day now.
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Bless your soul!
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To me a good game version of the movie would definitely be point and click based. Maniac Mansion comes to mind, being able to play as multiple characters with each having particular talents that make getting around the mansion easier.
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…that was the Commodore 128 version. It was preceded by the Commodore 64 version released in 1985. One of my favorites back in the day…
I hope BoingBoing credits the O.G. versions, because you’ve been able to “play as an 8-bit version of Janet Weiss or Brad Majors” for nearly 40 years now!
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I don’t want to show my age but I was playing it on a CPC464 in 1985, in glorious green on green (dark green on light green) It was a great game, with an almost impossible lift to take you down or up. Hours of fun, especially waiting for the game to load from the cassette!!! I also liked Jet Set Willy, which was quite similar in its gameplay.
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It was the first video I found where I trusted the source.
I had the ZX Spectrum version but I couldn’t remember the year that was released.
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This assumes that seeing the movie isn’t also a confusing experience. (On so many levels.)
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I enjoy starting the story of my first time seeing it by saying “A strange man invited me into his Indiana hotel room…”
Which is completely true.
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Can’t be all that confusing. So there’s a transvestite alien, from Transylvania… no not the region in Romania… ok no, wait. So there’s this wedding in Denton, right?..
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Is it just me, or does Frank look more like Paul Stanley than Tim Curry here?
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Damn, that looks so much nicer than the c64 game I remember.
From a comment on the video I linked:
So I actually know the guy who coded this back in the 80s. He also worked on a number of other high profile games as well. There is actually 4 version of this game. Speccy, orginal C64 with same graphics as speccy, the US version with better graphics and finally a C128 version with extra stuff
es. So I actually know the guy who coded this back in the 80s. He also worked on a number of other high profile games as well. There is actually 4 version of this game. Speccy, orginal C64 with same graphics as speccy, the US version with better graphics and finally a C128 version with extra stuff
I am going to have to watch the c128 version now and see what was added besides better art!
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I remember going to the premier of Richard O’Brien’s “Shock Treatment” on Halloween, 1981, in Denton Texas (outside Dallas). The film was a sad disappointment, trying to reprise the cult success of Rocky Horror, but with little of the original main cast. Still the experience was great overall, due to the massive audience turnout.
Rocky Horror Picture Show was still in the heyday of its “midnight double-feature picture show” cult run. With all the queens, queers and friends flocking in costume, shouting lines, throwing toast, spraying water, etc. Generally reveling in an out-and-open cultural expression of their identities.
Quite the eye opener for a young straight college kid lately come to the city from small town BFE Texas. I’m glad I got to see it so many times in theater. It definitely widened my experience of the world!
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Shock Treatment suffers from the fact its a sequel to Rocky Horror. It lacks the queer energy of the original.
I have a soft spot for it because of my crush on Jessica Harper. Suspira, Phantom of the Paradise and My Favorite Year are some of my favorites.
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I can understand the pressure of wanting Shock Treatment, or whatever they made next, to be just like Rocky Horror. I saw it one time out of curiosity and i don’t remember a whole lot other than being bored.
Phantom of the Paradise is pretty rad. I’ve also only seen that one once but i did love it i think it’d be a fun movie for someone to turn into a musical/play.
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O’Brien wanted lightning to strike twice. But he couldn’t make it happen. He’d have needed big studio money, but they’d never have let anything like that be made. If you read the Wiki stories, even Rocky Horror kind of miraculously came together through unwanted compromises that managed to just work. It at least had the benefit of starting as an experimental stage play. So he could evolve his ideas concretely, not just on paper.
Plus Rocky Horror was to great extent a first, and a copy of first is at best just second.
And the cast made it all happen. Tim Curry! (Kudos to the story for reminding of “I Do the Rock”!) Susan Sarandon & Barry Bostwick? Worked like magic. Meat Loaf. OMG, Meat Loaf! Who knew? I sure didn’t. Then I discovered “Bat out of Hell” - it was just ecstasy.
Yeah, you can’t bring all that together twice.
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I think they def should have continued experimenting with other stage productions and stories to figure out what worked. Or make some comics, or a short story, etc. Trying to jump straight back into a movie and hoping for success can probably be done, but there’s just no room for error. That’s ok though, i’m glad that Rocky Horror itself was a success. I was also very fortunate before COVID when the actual stage production was here in town, i had always wondered how that was in comparison to the movie and it is so much fun.
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I was bored and disappointed the first time I saw it, but rewatching on occasion, it keeps getting better. The soundtrack is the best part of Shock Treatment. Nostalgia makes the first one better, but the songs in the second stand up to repeated listening.
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