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Welcome to The Wonder Years of transsexual comedy musicals. No, really—why else would this 1975 flick be the favorite midnight-movie camp experience for red-blooded, straight American college students? This Frankensteining of sci-fi and horror B-movies and body parts sends well-scrubbed young couple Janet (Susan Sarandon) and Brad (Barry Bostwick) time-warping to a Gothic Transylvanian castle where Dr. Frank N. Furter (Tim Curry) parties like its 1869 in lingerie scrimped from a Frederick’s of Hollywood trunk sale. And before you can say, “Dammit, Janet,” Dr. Frank is unveiling his new human sex machine, Rocky Horror (Peter Hinwood, looking every bit the buff, vacant man-toy as Barbarella’s John Phillip Law). What follows is a rather prude orgiastic mess, memorable only to 1980s teens who saw it when audience participation was at its rambunctious full tilt. Nevertheless, Curry would never, ever again get to wear such fabulous shoes—or have this much fun—in a movie. And in Nell Campbell’s Little Nell, RHPS offers the perfect combination of scary goth sexiness and Bob Fosse glam that certain teenage girls—and some boys—have strived to duplicate ever since.

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