Rocky Horror Picture Show: Let’s Do the TimeWarp Again. A Remake That Will Really Drive You Insane

Chloe Mangham, Opinion Editor

Recently, Fox came out with a reboot of the cult classic film, Rocky Horror Picture Show, starring Laverne Cox as Frank N. Furter, a doctor, Victoria Justice as Janet Weiss, a heroine, and Ryan McCarten as Brad Majors, a hero. Along with this spectacular line-up, there is a guest star appearance from Tim Curry, the original Doctor Frank N. Furter.

This musical is a spinoff from the classic 70’s tale of a wacky and promiscuous version of the novel of Frankenstein and his monster. Doctor Frank N. Furter is an alien transvestite from the land of Transexual Transylvania who creates a beautiful monster named Rocky.

A newly engaged couple, Brad and Janet, come along the castle of Frank N. Furter and his helpers when their car breaks down in the middle of nowhere. There, they discover a new way of life and love while accepting their sexualtiy and their sexual being.

So let’s get down to the real talk: did this really leave me shivering with anticipation? As a hardcore RHPS fanatic, I came in expecting the worst. How can someone remake something so perfect and unique?

While this film was already accepting of different sexualties and apperances, this remake went even farther with equality. Not only is the lead role of Frank N. Furter a black woman, Laverne Cox is also an openly transgender actress who you can see in her breakout role in the Netflix original series, Orange is the New Black. Many of the roles were played by POC’s (People Of Color), which is an outstanding take on the original RHPS. Also, the costumes are bomb.

However, there are some downsides to this remake. In this new version of RHPS, the only thing they changed were the costumes and tunes of the songs- some not for the best. They didn’t even change the lines, which could be seen as a plus side, but I was hoping that since it was a remake, it would be different. Along with that, they would switch point of views from a crowd watching the remake in a movie theater, to the actual film. I thought this was distracting and unnecessary.

One fatal mistake they made in this rendition of RHPS was that they straight-washed it. Frank N. Furter is supposed to be a male transvestite who is sexually ambiguous; that’s what made this 70’s classic so iconic in the LGBT community. Yet, they made Frank N. Furter female, most likely to respect Laverne Cox being trans, ultimately taking out any gay relationships that happened in the original film.  I understand being respectful towards her, but it takes a huge step back from what the film was trying to convey.

Yet, with more cons than pros, I still couldn’t help myself from singing and dancing along to all my favorite songs. Might I just add, the song “The Sword of Damocles” was almost better than the original, mostly because this Rocky, played by Staz Nair, had a really enticing voice compared to the hilarious voice of the original Rocky, played by Peter Hinwood (vocals done by Trevor White).

So, this version of the classic Rocky Horror Picture Show really did bless my soul.