The comedy-horror hybrid can be a tricky genre to get right. This is especially true of those films that attempt to leverage well known monsters. And while names such as Dracula and Werewolf pop up fairly frequently in these types of films, it is The Creature from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein that offers arguably the most interesting template from which to draw inspiration. While some films focus primarily on achieving humor (Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, I Was a Teenage Frankenstein), others dial back the levity to create a more transgressive viewing experience (Lady Frankenstein, Frankenhooker). But one film that manages to blend both aims seamlessly while also offering up a healthy dose of social commentary is The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975).
In this Horror Homeroom Conversation, we’re deep diving into the cult classic and examining how it uses Frankenstein themes to deconstruct institutional homophobia.
You can watch The Rocky Horror Picture Show on Blu-ray or streaming on Amazon:
You may particularly want to check out Jeffrey Weinstock’s 2008 book on the film in Wallflower’s Cultographies series:
Suggested Reading:
- Benshoff, Harry M. Monsters in the Closet: Homosexuality and the Horror Film. Manchester University Press, 1997.
- Borstelmann, Thomas. The 1970s: A New Global History from Civil Rights to Economic Inequality. Princeton University Press, 2012.
- Doty, Alexander. Making Things Perfectly Queer: Interpreting Mass Culture. University of Minnesota Press, 1993.
- Eichler, Rolf. “In the Romantic Tradition: Frankenstein and The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” Beyond the Suburbs of the Mind: Exploring English Romanticism (1987): 95-114.
- Grant, Barry Keith. The Dread of Difference: Gender and the Horror Film. University of Texas Press, 2015.
- Hitchcock, Susan Tyler. Frankenstein: A Cultural History. W.W. Norton & Company, 2007.
- Knapp, Raymond. The American Musical and the Performance of Personal Identity. Princeton University Press, 2009.
- Picart, Caroline Joan. Remaking the Frankenstein Myth on Film: Between Laughter and Horror. State University of New York Press, 2003.
- Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft. Frankenstein; or the Modern Prometheus: the 1818 Text, Oxford University Press, 1988.
- The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Directed by Jim Sharman, performances by Tim Curry, Susan Sarandon, and Barry Bostwick, 20th Century Fox, 1975.
- Veeder, Willia. Mary Shelley and Frankenstein: The Fate of Androgyny. University of Chicago Press, 1988.
- Weinstock, Jeffrey. The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Wallflower, 2008.
