This one goes out to my friends with the Denton Delinquents, a local troupe performing shadow casts all over the Pacific Northwest. I’ve had the pleasure of helping to run lights for a few of their Rocky Horror Picture Show presentations, providing me with a valuable glimpse into the cultures and practices that have kept that movie beloved and relevant for… shit, close to 50 years now. More recently, the Delinquents finally got their long-awaited shot at a shadow cast of Repo! The Genetic Opera.

I was lucky enough to tag along for that particular presentation, which meant that I finally got to see Repo! for the first time since college. Before I’d spent over twelve years blogging about movies and close to a decade establishing myself as a self-produced playwright/songwriter/director. As such, I suddenly felt the urge to do a compare/contrast between the two movies, to see if I could piece together why the both of them have such significant cult followings, how Repo! pulls so much from RHPS while existing as its own thing, and why RHPS is still the more popular film by a wide margin.

Let’s start with the most obvious points. Both films are aggressively campy, with extravagant production design and over-the-top performances of larger-than-life characters across the board. RHPS has the obvious advantage of inertia, with over 30 years of history as a cornerstone of cult cinema before Repo! came out. And of course (as with most other films), the entire cast of Repo! put together couldn’t hope to match the overpowering magnetic charisma of Tim Fucking Curry in his most iconic performance.

Both movies have a supporting cast with a trio of quirky comic relief supporting characters. With RHPS, we get Riff-Raff and his sister Magenta, alongside Columbia (respectively played by RHPS creator Richard O’Brien, Patricia Quinn, and “Little” Nell Campbell). In Repo! we get three wealthy spoiled siblings named Luigi Largo, Pavi Largo, and Amber Sweet (respectively played by Bill Moseley, Nivek Ogre, and Paris Hilton of all people). Every single one of these characters is over-the-top in their own way — in particular, the Riff-Raff/Magenta/Columbia triad is at least half the reason why the “Time Warp” is the most iconic song in the entire film. Those three characters are definitely a huge part of the sex-crazed and bugfuck nature of their show, while the Luigi/Pavi/Amber threesome capably embody the violence, greed, and superficial vanity that Repo! was specifically designed to rail against.

Both movies feature a narrator to break the fourth wall and serve as a guide for the audience. RHPS of course has the Criminologist (as played by the late Charles Gray), but he plays no direct role in the plot and it’s never entirely clear how he could’ve possibly known everything that happened in the story. All told, Crim is probably most important as a palate cleanser, the “Straight Man” to augment the contrast with the horny extraterrestrial shenanigans at Dr. Frank-n-Furter’s castle.

By contrast, Repo! brings us the Graverobber (played by co-writer Terrance Zdunich), who’s directly involved in the story as a purveyor of contraband painkillers. As a direct result, he’s at least as flamboyant and gleefully mischievous as anyone else in this setting, and thus ill-fitted to serve as any kind of mundane sounding board. That said, Graverobber is still a criminal doing his best to live and work off of GeneCo’s radar, so he is at least in some position to look at the other characters from a fresh perspective and call them on their shit.

Getting back to the camp factor, each movie has a huge climactic song-and-dance number that makes virtually no diegetic sense. In RHPS, it’s the “floor show”. What is the purpose of this floor show? Who or what has Frank arranged all of this for in just such a way? Nobody knows and nobody cares. The Genetic Opera of Repo! makes a little more sense as a work of corporate propaganda, or maybe it’s a trade show, or maybe it’s a convention of some kind… its purpose is frustratingly vague. In both cases, all that matters is that we’ve got a splashy extended musical number in this huge extravagant setting so our characters can bring us a “wow” finish as they work through their differences.

While both movies are set to a rock soundtrack specifically geared toward pumping up the audience and encouraging crowd participation, there can be little doubt that the songwriting in RHPS is far superior. Though RHPS does have its share of dud lines (Rhyming “handyman” with “candyman”? Seriously?), the whole soundtrack is loaded with clever lines and rhymes. I could point to the entire song devoted to finding new rhymes for “Janet” and “Brad”, but my personal favorite example is “hurt her/Frank Furter“.

By comparison, practically every number in Repo! has instances of non sequitur lyrics, forced or outright nonexistent rhymes, threadbare cliches, and syllables emphasized in a way that just sounds wrong somehow. The opening number might be the worst example of all, in which the Graverobber rhymes “you” with “you”. As a reminder, the Graverobber is played by co-writer Terrance Zdunich, who got paid to write that. What the fuck.

All of that said, each soundtrack is very much a product of its own time, in its own way. That might sound odd, as RHPS was clearly and explicitly made in tribute to Z-grade schlocky cinema of the 1950s and ’40s. The very first number tells us as much over the opening credits, for fuck’s sake. However, given the old established pop culture nostalgia rule of The 30-Year Cycle, and given that RHPS was released in 1975, it stands to reason that nostalgia for the immediate post-war era was at its peak during the time of release.

As such, it makes perfect sense that the soundtrack should sound like a throwback to classic mid-century rock n’ roll. My own personal favorite song of the soundtrack is “Hot Patootie” precisely because it infuses 1950s rock with such passionate nostalgia and overpowering energy that it really sells the romance and fun of the era. (Seriously, it’s like they took “Crocodile Rock” and perfected it beyond Elton John’s wildest dreams.) It is at once a product of the ’70s in tribute to the ’50s, and yet does all of this in a way that feels timeless.

By contrast, Repo! takes the opposite direction and looks toward the near future, which obviously doesn’t have a particular musical style yet. That said, Repo! was released in 2008, and most of its songs are heavily infused with the kind of music that was in vogue through the mid-’00s. We’ve got huge swaths of nu-metal (“21st Century Cure” might be my favorite example) with occasional splashes of pop punk (“Seventeen“) and a dash of Evanescence (courtesy of Sarah Brightman’s soprano). With the odd exception of classical operatic belting from the late Paul Sorvino, most of these songs would’ve been right at home on the radio back in the day. More importantly, the industrial grunge sound meshes impeccably well with the corporate-run dystopian biopunk setting of the film.

In summary, both movies are greatly enhanced because they utilize popular musical tropes and genres in a way that complements the settings and themes of their respective films. Yet for all of that, both teams of filmmakers played with their respective genres of music just enough to make for something unique while keeping it recognizable.

Moving on to the story and the characters, I was honestly surprised by the revelation that RHPS and Repo! are both essentially stories about mad scientists. Obviously, Dr. Frank-N-Furter is a mad scientist — he’s a sadistic homicidal psychopath with no regard for anyone else’s joy or autonomy, he’s got a secret laboratory in his own remote castle, and he’s conducting experiments so immoral and destructive that he would rather kill than risk his secrets getting exposed.

In a great many obvious ways, Frank is a transparent pastiche of Dr. Victor Frankenstein. But while Nathan Wallace of Repo! (as played by Anthony Head) may not look like a mad scientist at first blush, he’s unmistakably coded to another famous mad scientist from classic literature: Dr. Henry Jekyll. Seriously, just look at the way Nathan turns on a dime from “growling ravenous demon” to “sweet and caring father”.

Nathan the Repo Man is a sadistic homicidal psychopath. Nathan the father is dishonest and domineering to a pathological extent. Nathan clearly knows that what he’s doing to his daughter is wrong and unethical, yet he continues to actively harm her and lie to her for the sake of asserting total control. But is he a scientist? I’d argue that he is. He’s got his own lab, he’s clearly shown to experiment with medicines and toxins, and wittingly or not, he’s actively conducting an experiment to see how long he can hope to raise a daughter in an isolated setting void of honesty.

Another crucial similarity between Frank and Nathan is that they are both ultimately tragic figures. Both scientists are punished for their hubris and their lies, destined to die in the arms of their respective creations. It’s the only fitting way for a mad scientist story to end, really.

With all of that said, it’s important to note that Frank doesn’t seem to have much of any motivation aside from sating his own ego and having a good time. Yes, Frank’s stated goal is sexual gratification, but he could’ve gotten that from an inanimate sex doll. Frank built a sentient being so he could have the unconditional love and adoration of an impossibly good-looking man, it’s that simple.

By comparison, Nathan was irreparably broken by the death of his wife and everything he does stems from that grief. Nathan has a great deal more pathos, but Frank is a much broader character. The more three-dimensional character might be more fulfilling for a professional storyteller, but the more straightforward character is far more satisfying for anyone who just wants to get up on stage and mug for the audience.

Then we have the respective creations of our two mad scientists. Rocky and Shilo (as respectively played by Peter Hinwood and Alexa Vega) are both young and naive, with no knowledge of anything outside their respective homes. While Shilo is the far more inquisitive character, they both show at least a passing interest in learning of the outside world, in open defiance of their abusive father figures. Yet there are many key differences between them.

For starters, Shilo is a sickly teenage girl while Rocky was literally built from the ground up to be an Adonis in his sexual prime. Despite this, Rocky has virtually no agency in his own story while Shilo develops into a capable and independent young woman with a functioning backbone over the course of her movie. Speaking of which, another crucial difference is that Rocky dies at the end while Shilo survives to go and start a new life in places unknown.

Shilo’s ending in Repo! is pretty straightforward. It cements the film as a coming-of-age story for Shilo while reinforcing the theme that our fates are not predestined by our lineage. But why did Rocky have to die? That answer isn’t quite as clear-cut, but there might be a clue in how his murder overtly resembles the iconic death of King Kong. As with Kong, I submit that Rocky is meant to be a tragic and sympathetic figure: a unique and wonderful specimen with the misfortune to be brought into a world that had no place for him and wasn’t willing or able to coexist with him.

Watching Repo! for the first time in years, I was struck by how the film is basically a conflict between two fathers. Nathan dearly loves his sweet daughter, yet he raises her in cruel and abusive conditions. Contrast that with Rotti Largo (Paul Sorvino) who grudgingly brought up his shithead children with every luxury they ever wanted. (Right up until he died, anyway.)

Does RHPS have anything like this? Funny enough, it does!

While Frank clearly loves sweet innocent Rocky, Frank is possessive to such an outrageous degree that he engages in outright abusive behavior toward his surrogate child. For the analogue to Rotti, look no further than Dr. Scott (as played by the late Jonathan Adams), clearly and immediately established as a rival to Frank. More to the point, Scott gets a whole song about how he and his family did everything they could for Eddie (as played by the late Meat Loaf) even as they all knew his nephew was a worthless piece of shit.

That’s a nice segue into the topic of our antagonists. Again, Repo! is relatively straightforward in this regard. Rotti is clearly established as the villain, a greedy domineering asshole who took over the world by capitalizing on a global pandemic. Yet all the money and power in the world couldn’t buy him love, can’t make him immortal, and it can’t get him a single reliable heir out of three kids. Basically put, Rotti is the embodiment of everything that Repo! was specifically designed to rail against: Immoral vultures monetizing the death and suffering of millions, pressuring the ones that survive to buy shit they don’t need so the rich can get even richer.

(As the Graverobber so aptly put it, “Why care for these petty obsessions? Your designer heart still beats with common blood.” Easily my favorite line of the movie.)

By comparison, the “antagonist” of RHPS is harder to pin down. It bears mentioning that nobody in the cast of RHPS is out for material gain, so there’s no counterpart to Rotti in that regard. I suppose Frank is technically the film’s antagonist because he’s the one most directly obstructing Brad (Asshole!) and Janet (Slut!), our de facto protagonists respectively played by Barry Bostwick and Susan Sarandon. Except that the protagonists play no direct part in Frank’s downfall, or anyone else’s for that matter.

If we go back to the notion of Frank as our main character, that leaves us with two sets of antagonists. On the one hand is Dr. Scott, the character who perhaps best represents the straight heteronormative patriarchal hegemony of the status quo on Earth. Yet despite his best efforts, Scott proves to be totally ineffectual against Frank and ultimately succumbs to Frank’s lurid lifestyle, a symbolic victory against small-minded prudes everywhere. On the other hand are Riff-Raff and Magenta, who declare mutiny against Frank at the last minute to end his reign of debauchery and return to the homeworld.

So we’ve got one storyline in which the deviants win and one storyline in which the normies win. But the normies that win are a different breed of Transylvanian freaks, so I guess it could be said that the deviants win either way. Also, the victory of Riff-Raff and Magenta plays out in such a way that it develops the theme of humans as ignorant and inconsequential motes of dust in the grand scheme of things, so there’s that.

Which brings us to the themes of the two films. Both films are firmly in favor of body positivity. Perhaps more importantly, both films are about the fleeting nature of life and the inevitability of death. And both films take those notions in two wildly different directions.

If RHPS has any kind of moral thesis, it could probably be best summed up with the line “Don’t dream it, be it.” The film is a celebration of chaos and individuality, encouraging the audience to follow their dreams and be their best selves in spite of all opposition and oppression, even and especially if it results in mistakes and failures. We’ll all be dead soon anyway, so take what time you’ve got and make the most of it.

Compare that to Repo!, which offers a much harder kind of sci-fi than the Z-grade space-age goofiness that RHPS was built on. Repo! sincerely does have ambitions of asking profound questions about the real-life implications of biotechnology, particularly with regards to consumerism. If we can buy genetic modifications and specially enhanced organs, how does that change us on a mental or spiritual level? Trouble is, the filmmakers weren’t nearly intelligent enough to make any kind of informed or relevant statement on the topic. More importantly, while a statement about embracing individuality and nonconformity could’ve easily been made within the context of a biopunk setting, the filmmakers never really go there.

RHPS is a show about Brad (Asshole!) and Janet (Slut!), two straight-laced individuals from the outside world who tumble down the rabbit hole, get their shit rocked, and return to their mundane realities as changed individuals. They have no analogue in Repo!. There are no outsiders or “normies” in the world of Repo! because everyone is a product of the same system. There is no corner of the world that GeneCo does not own, and there’s nobody who isn’t dependent on the company in one way or another. As horrific as the status quo is, there’s no character who comes right out and says that this is all fucked up.

In RHPS, our two lead characters spend their entire lives living in the mainstream, oblivious to the notion that there could ever be another way to live, until they find another way and bite off way more than they bargained for. In Repo!, the system has already consumed everything and there is no other way.

This, in my estimation, is a crucial reason why Repo! still hasn’t caught up with RHPS and likely never will. From the beginning, RHPS has enjoyed a symbiotic relationship with the LGBTQ+ community, in addition to drag performers, burlesque performers, etc. The aesthetic and ethos of RHPS allows such stigmatized and marginalized people to find each other and express themselves and have risque fun with each other in a way that Repo! doesn’t have nearly as much room for.

For a case in point, consider Nathan’s Repo Man suit, easily the most iconic costume of his movie. If you’ll forgive the comparison, the suit has a kind of “Darth Vader” appeal to it. Wear this costume and it’ll send the message that you’re a larger-than-life unstoppable force of nature, a badass inhuman killing machine.

Compare that to Dr. Frank-n-Furter. For anyone of any gender to wear that costume on a stage and/or in public is an act of courage in itself. It is a declaration of self-ownership, saying “this is my body, it’s beautiful, and I won’t let anyone shame me for it.” All of that compounded by borrowing the unstoppable badass confidence of Tim Curry’s portrayal, further affirmed by the love and applause of the audience and costars.

That’s empowering and uplifting like precious little that Repo! can offer. Yes, it’s nice that Shilo regains control of her body and claims her independence at the end. It still doesn’t hold a candle.

Furthermore, while both movies lean heavily on the classic lowbrow combination of sex and violence, RHPS leans a lot more heavily on the sex while Repo! goes harder on the violence. As a direct result, there are huge stretches in which RHPS plays like a screwball sex comedy, which is easy to laugh at and harmless fun to play with. Compare that to the blood and guts of Repo!. While it’s certainly fun to have a few campy laughs at over-the-top displays of gore and gleefully macabre mutilations (Just look at “Thankless Job“, if you’ve got the stomach for it.), the gross-out factor definitely has a shelf life and even the hokiest of body horror/comedy will require some measure of stagecraft that sex comedy doesn’t.

Which brings me to what may be the single biggest reason why Repo! shadowcasts never took off the way RHPS shadowcasts have, and likely never will: The resources involved. A decent production of RHPS can (and has) been staged with nine or ten actors, maybe with two or three chorus members if you’re feeling ambitious. Repo! features eight main characters, but that’s not counting the legion of victims, Genterns, bodyguards, and other bit parts who show up for brief speaking roles. Watching the movie and the shadowcast with the Delinquents, I was astounded at the effort it took to manage all the body doubles and costume changes, to say nothing of all the elaborate costumes and props that had to be specially made for the show.

In the very beginning, “The Rocky Horror Show” was created by an out-of-work actor who needed an experimental theatre piece that could be produced on the cheap. Those roots are still plainly visible in the film adaptation, and it’s made the film so much more accessible throughout the decades. Repo! was made on a reported budget of $8.5 million — peanuts by Hollywood standards, but far too much for just anyone in community theatre to try and imitate on a shoestring budget.

That might just be the single most crucial factor in what really makes a cult hit. And I’m not talking about accessibility — that’s imperative, yes, but I’m talking about something much deeper. For lack of a better word, I’m talking about interactivity.

Looking back at this whole compare/contrast I just wrote, it becomes increasingly obvious that Repo! is a film with a more clear-cut story and more overt themes, with better-developed characters in a more clearly defined world. It matters that RHPS has a lot more ambiguity, because those are the blank spaces where the fans have room to play. RHPS offers so much more freedom for the fans to put their own spin on the world and make it their own.

Speaking from experience, I know that creating something is hard enough without the prospect of strangers putting their own imprint onto it. We live in a world thoroughly dominated by a mere handful of media superconglomerates, each with a vested financial interest in zealously protecting their copyrights and intellectual properties by keeping their works pristine and unaltered by the unwashed masses. It’s exceedingly rare to see filmmakers show enough faith in their audience to hand off their film to the fans and say “Take good care of this, and it’s yours.”

But if you’re lucky, that’s how you get the goddamn Rocky Horror Picture Show.

It’s not enough to create something unique. It’s not even enough to create something that a small yet passionate fanbase will find. A true cult classic will actively empower and enlighten its fans, inspiring creativity so the fanbase will come together and build something greater than the initial catalyst. It’s the fans who will build a true cult classic into something far greater than any cast or crew could build on their own.

Precious few filmmakers in the modern era can attain this. Frankly, the team of Zdunich, Smith, and Bousman should be applauded for finding the courage to try it. This is an extremely high-risk/high-reward gambit, one that requires giving up significant creative control for a huge financial risk, both of which are anathema to most storytellers and financiers. But get it just right and those same filmmakers will get something that no amount of money can buy: Immortality.

Don’t dream it, be it.