The Rocky Horror Picture Show has been rehearsed for half a century by audiences in basements, boudoirs, and Broadway-adjacent cinemas. As it prepares to mark its 50th anniversary, HarperPop’s new release, ROCKY HORROR: A Behind the Scenes Look at the Cult Classic, finally grants us Mick Rock’s long-hidden archive, a gallery once whispered about, now thunderously revealed.
Mick Rock, “the man who shot the seventies,” carried his camera through Bowie’s alien stardom, Reed’s nocturnal languor, Blondie’s peroxide bravado, and Iggy’s manic contortions. For Rocky Horror, he had the rare privilege of exclusivity: the only photographer permitted to wander Bray Studios during six weeks of fevered invention. His freedom to prowl results in images that glow with sly chaos: Tim Curry sliding into Frank-N-Furter’s corsetry, Susan Sarandon blinking like a startled ingénue, Richard O’Brien tightening the script’s delicious perversities into shape.
Richard O’Brien’s forward for the book poetically describes Mick’s approach: “Frank-N-Furter, mad scientist, self-obsessed, narcissistic exhibitionist, obviously adores to be admired, and for him the seductive clicking shutter of a Hasselblad camera was like a bell to Pavlov’s dogs…”
The story of The Rocky Horror Picture Show is now practically folklore: a flop at release, a fortune amassed later, $225 million earned, and the peculiar immortality of being the longest theatrical run in history. Fishnets, lipstick, rice, toast: Rocky Horror showings became wild, wacky impromptu theatrical productions in themselves. The book underlines how this ritual took shape on set: camaraderie stitched together by costumes, camp, and conviction.
“The Rocky Horror Picture Show is a totally unique phenomenon; there’s nothing even to compare it to,” Rock once said. “It occupies its own unchallenged space in the history of modern popular culture.”
Rock’s lens knew how to consecrate excess. The photographs here are equal parts glitter, horror, and punk prophecy. They are threaded with ephemera, cast interviews, and reflections from an extraordinary court of devotees: Joan Jett, Courtney Love, Juliette Lewis, Jinkx Monsoon, Trixie Mattel, Peaches, and a host of others who’ve kept the midnight fire burning. The text becomes a chorus, each voice affirming what Rocky Horror seeded across fashion, music, and nightlife.
“This book was created in conversation with Mick—his eye present in every photograph, his spirit guiding the choices along the way,” says Pati Rock. “I believe he would be proud to see how his art, his memories, and the voices of those he photographed continue to speak here.”
The care shows. Each page resounds with Mick’s instinct for spectacle, yet it is balanced by a tenderness often absent in rock portraiture: excess portrayed with restraint, depravity made delightful, vulgarity turned into velvet.
“Maybe the strongest impression that these modest stills project is that, as Richard points out, everyone appears to be having such a good time,” Mick Rock commented. “That also may partly account for the delightful potency of this celluloid classic. It’s a privilege to have been of service to such a legendary piece of art.”
Timed with exhibitions in New York and Los Angeles, ROCKY HORROR: A Behind the Scenes Look at the Cult Classic is both archive and altar. It is a love letter to the midnight movie that blurred gender, style, and stagecraft into one dissolute hymn. Mick Rock may have passed away in 2021, but through these pages, he presides still: a photographer of excess who understood that the pose, however exaggerated, could be honest.
Order the book through Rough Trade here.
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