The Rocky Horror Picture Show cult following

The Rocky Horror Picture Show cult following describes the cultural phenomenon surrounding the large fan base of enthusiastic participants of the movie The Rocky Horror Picture Show, generally credited as being the best-known cinematic "midnight movie", if not the first.

The film The Rocky Horror Picture Show came about due to the tremendous success of the stage musical The Rocky Horror Show and opened in the United States at the United Artists Theater in Westwood, Los Angeles, California, on September 26, 1975. Although the theater was selling out every night, it was noted that many of the same people were returning to see the movie. This turned out to be an exception, not the rule as it was not doing well elsewhere in the US.

The film was then re-launched as a midnight movie, beginning its run at the Waverly Theatre in New York City on April 1, 1976. The Riverside Twin in Austin, Texas, became the second location to run the film as a midnighter. Over time, people began shouting responses to the characters' statements on the screen. Schoolteacher Louis Farese, Jr., is credited by some with starting the convention of talking back to the film on Labor Day weekend, 1976, at the Waverly Theatre. (These mostly include melodramatic abuse of the characters or actors, vulgar sex jokes, puns, or pop culture references.) A showing of the film at the 1976 World Science Fiction Convention spread its fame to a new cadre of enthusiasts.

A part of audience reception can be recreating the art. This is how the fandom of Rocky Horror developed into a standardized ritual. The performances of the audience was scripted and actively discouraged improvising, being conformist in a similar way to the repressed characters.Rocky Horror helped shape conditions of cult film's transition from art-house to grind-house style. Early participation with the film took place at the original Westwood location of the film's first run with fans heard singing along. Waverly Theatre fans in New York are credited with the call back lines. Performance groups became a staple at Rocky Horror screenings due in large part to the prominent New York City fan cast. The cast was originally run by former schoolteacher and stand-up comic Sal Piro and by Dori Hartley, one of several performers in a flexible, rotating cast to portray the character of Frank N. Furter, shadowing the film above. According to J. Hoberman, author of Midnight Movies, it was after five months into the film's midnight run when lines began to be yelled by the audience. The first person to yell out an audience participation line during a screening was Louis Farese Jr., a normally quiet teacher who, upon seeing the character Janet place a newspaper over her head to protect herself from rain, yelled, "Buy an umbrella you cheap bitch". This self-proclaimed "counter point dialogue" was soon helped into standardization by Piro and repeated nearly verbatim at each screening. By that Halloween, people were attending in costume and talking back to the screen. By the end of 1979, there were twice-weekly showings at over 230 theatres.

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