Oh, Rocky!

Having been a fan of The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) for more than 20 years, I was rather looking forward to watching the remake, The Rocky Horror Picture Show: Let’s Do the Time Warp Again (2016). This was especially the case when I read that Laverne Cox was playing Dr. Frank N. Furter. But I was also a little sceptical, as I’m so attached to Tim Curry’s portrayal.

Sadly, the reboot was a disappointment. While the music remains faithful to the original score, fairly successfully delivering those familiar songs, the rest kind of falls flat. The dark, campy flavour of the original film has been erased, giving the viewer a much more stylized movie that seems heavily produced. More so, the sexuality—so crucial to the original film—is largely absent from this reboot. Laverne Cox looks great, she shows that her voice has fantastic range, and she delivers humour and trademark villainous expressions, but she isn’t seductive. And to play Frank N. Furter without oozing sexuality is to miss the essence of the character.

Where is the leching at Rocky when we are first introduced to the scientist’s creation? What happened to the flirtation with Janet? Where is the brazen attraction to Brad? And what about the power Frank has over Columbia?

 

It’s all lacking in 2016 Frank N. Furter. Further, the creepy hints at incest between Riff Raff and Magenta are absent. Since Fox decided to show the film at the family-friendly hour of 8 PM when it premiered on October 20, this could reflect a directorial decision to tone it down for a younger audience. After all, even the killing of Eddie is less gory than in the original film. And the lack of sexual chemistry is not unique to Dr. Frank N. Furter. When Janet sings “Touch-a Touch-a Touch-a Touch Me” to Rocky, the scene is comparatively tame as well.

It takes more than putting two attractive people in front of a camera. But this seems to have been lost on the director. Basically, none of the pairings in this film evince sexual chemistry, and without this, the remake of what is undeniably a bawdy film cannot help but fail.

Most catastrophic, in my opinion, is the crucial moment in the plot, when Frank goes to both Janet and Brad in the night, pretending to be each of them, respectively, to seduce them. 

This epitomizes the hedonistic lifestyle that Frank leads, and is punished for, and awakens the sexuality of the square protagonists. And yet, how these encounters play out doesn’t compare to the original.

The sexual acts are replaced with spanking, and while a little BDSM wouldn’t be out of place in this scenario, that isn’t what’s going on. It feels more like naughty humour than sex.

Something else that didn’t sit well with me was Laverne Cox’s performance of the song “Sweet Transvestite”. This is the song that introduces Frank N. Furter to both the viewer and Brad and Janet, but the dramatic entrance that the character makes in the original film is missing here, where Frank enters the room dancing on a platform attached to a crane. What is disconcerting about this scene is that a transgender actress is singing about being a man dressed in women’s clothes. If Laverne Cox herself sees nothing wrong with it, I’m no one to say she’s wrong. But it does seem like it could send a negative message about trans women.

This film could have been a lovely homage to the original if it had used a little creativity to modernize the costumes and setting while maintaining the edginess and lasciviousness of the original, instead of this overproduced, subdued spectacle. It’s worth a watch if you want to feel nostalgic for the original, but you won’t be doing the Time Warp again and again with this new cast.