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Interviews, Pod 366: A Weird Movies Podcast

POD 366, EP. 174: LINUS O’BRIEN ON THE STRANGE JOURNEY OF ROCKY HORROR, AND A LOT OF NEW RELEASES

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Discussed in this episode:

Strange Journey: The Story of Rocky Horror (2025): The definitive documentary on The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Alpha (2025): Read Gregory J. Smalley’s review. Although it concerns a plague that turns people into statues, ‘s third film resembles a Euro-style family drama more than it does the shocking horror films of her early career. Now on Blu-ray. Buy Alpha.

Careful (1992): Read the Canonically Weird entry! A 4K remaster of Guy Maddin‘s neo-expressionist masterpiece about sexual repression (particularly of the incestuous kind). Playing select art-house theaters. In Chicago and NYC this week; check out Careful at Zeitgeist Films for all screenings.

“The David ‘The Rock’ Nelson Collection Vol 3”: Features the epic backyard horror movie anthology Monster Tales (2002), made by a former amateur boxer turned direct-to-VHS auteur (who proudly refers to himself as “The of the 21st century”). How did we miss the first two volumes?  Buy “The David ‘The Rock’ Nelson Collection Vol 3”.

Desperate Living (1977): Read the Canonically Weird review! The third entry in ‘ “trash trilogy” is the most ambitious, a depraved fairy-tale for perverted sociopaths. The Criterion Collection does it right, in your choice of Blu-ray only or 4K UHD + Blu-ray. Buy Desperate Living.

Dogra Magra (1988): A man awakes in a mental asylum with no memory and is informed he killed his wife on his wedding night. ‘s final film was an adaptation of an “unfilmable” novel; a commentator once suggested the film is like a Japanese mashup of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari with Last Year at Marienbad. This is Radiance’s standard version of the collector’s edition released in late 2024. Buy Dogra Magra. 

“Girl Internet Show: A Kati Kelli Mixtape”: A Blu-ray collection of the work of digital creator Kelli, partly curated by . Some (most?) of the bits featured on this collection were unreleased on her YouTube channel. Buy “Girl Internet Show: A Kati Kelli Mixtape”. 

Hairspray (1988): Read Gregory J. Smalley’s review. John Waters’ PG-rated 50s Baltimore nostalgia piece gets the Criterion Collection treatment, also in Blu-ray or 4K UHD + Blu-ray. Buy Hairspray.

Malpertuis (1972): Read the Canonically Weird entry! The Blu-ray debut of this very strange Belgian/international movie about a sailor who returns to the mansion where his very strange family lives. From Radiance, with some new interviews and lots of archival extras. Buy Malpertuis.

Mare’s Nest (2025): Moon explores a strange world with no adults. Discover the extremely limited screening schedule for this art-house experiment at the Mare’s Nest page at Grasshopper Films.

Mr. K (2025): Read Enar Clarke’s review. The deeply surreal -led effort about a hotel where you can check in but never leave, now on Blu-ray. Buy Mr. K.

The Nude Vampire (1970): Read Gregory J. Smalley’s Apocrypha Candidate review. ‘s sophomore film includes one of his most bizarre scenarios and sets the plate for the vampire films to come. This is the “US Standard” edition 4K UHD (no Blu-ray), but it contains essentially the same material as the old limited edition. Buy The Nude Vampire.

“Roman Porno Reboot Collection, Vol. 1”: Around 2016, Nikkatsu studios asked contemporary directors to make new movies in the style of its early 1970s “Roman Porno” softcore films. One of the first, and the standout of the series, was ‘s subversive Antiporno, included in this set along with more conventional sex pictures with titles like Aroused by Gymnopedies, Dawn of the Felines, Wet Woman in the Wind, and White Lily. “Buy Roman Porno Reboot Collection, Vol. 1”.

Weirdsville (2007): Read Gregory J. Smalley’s review. A quirky (not weird) story of junkies fighting Satanists, on Blu-ray for the first time. Buy Weirdsville.

What Dreams May Come (1998): Read Gregory J. Smalley’s review. goes to Hell in this romantic drama with amazing hand-painted visuals. On 4K UHD + Blu-ray from Shout! Buy What Dreams May Come.

WHAT’S IN THE PIPELINE:

No guest scheduled for next week’s Pod 366 (although we suppose a surprise could always pop up), but the crew will be back to discuss the week’s weird news and new releases. In written content, Michael Diamades sets the stage for Decorado (2025), Enar Clarke scores a Fresh Kill (1994), Shane Wilson decides to Throw Away Your Books, Rally in the Streets (1971), and Gregory J. Smalley wonders what a Wetiko (2022) is. Onward and weirdward!

Capsules

CAPSULE: STRANGE JOURNEY: THE STORY OF ROCKY HORROR (2025)

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366 Weird Movies may earn commissions from purchases made through product links.

DIRECTED BY: Linus O’Brien

FEATURING: Jack Black, Susan Sarandon, ,  , Peter Hinwood, ,

PLOT: Most of the cast and crew of The Rocky Horror Picture Show gather to re-tell their experiences making the landmark cult classic that became the ultimate midnight movie.

Still from "strange journey: the story of rocky horror"

COMMENTS: It isn’t enough just to call The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) a “cult movie,” because it is the first movie to attract a cult at all. As fan after fan raves, it’s not just a movie, it’s an event, a lifestyle, an anthem uniting all us rainbow freaks into the collection of beautiful cosmic blueberries we are. For the 50th anniversary of this phenomenon, Strange Journey (2025) reunites most of the major cast and production team to tell how this movie came to be.

The documentary is everything you’d expect. The producers spared no effort in tracking down everybody for a chat. Although sadly missing rock legend Meatloaf (RIP 2022), we still get sit-down interviews with Tim Curry, Susan Sarandon, Bary Bostwick, Patricia Quinn, and even the rarely-appearing Peter Hinwood. Most prominently, we get Rocky creator and Riff-Raff himself, Richard O’Brien, giving us the complete story of how the story came to be: from its inception as a stage play to creation of the film, its initial flop release, and its subsequent discovery as a cult hit. We even get O’Brien on acoustic guitar singing the hits from the show as he originally composed them.

The documentary is well-produced, with a nice flow alternating interviews and voice-overs with montages of photos and theater review clippings. The fandom gets its say as well, including veteran “shadow cast” performers speaking about how the cult around Rocky allowed them to live out their dreams as their out-of-the-closet selves. Jack Black provides cultural commentary. I don’t even question Jack Black appearing in anything anymore; he’s a free-range media personality who’s attracted to the smell of any camera.

Your humble author was a tad young to catch The Rocky Horror Picture Show when it first came out, but I still heard about it. Over the years, a steady trickle of friends and acquaintances turned up saying they’d caught the show at some midnight campus event. I ended up with a cassette tape of the soundtrack before I ever saw the movie. As soon as I saw it, I got it immediately. The 1970s were a decade of hard-fought social issues, and a time when Americans were maddeningly obsessed with everybody else’s peepees and what they were doing with them. Rocky hit at the exact crest of a wave of social change, throwing off the persecution of alternate lifestyles and expression and wrapping sexual rebellion up in a tribute to rock ‘n’ roll and vintage horror. It was destined to be a hit, because this movie urgently needed to be made at that time.

Naturally, any Rocky fan worth their feather boa needs to run right out and see this doc. So should cultural historians, and for that matter, rock music fans, because Rocky is the singularity around which all things cool revolve.

Strange Journey: The Story of Rocky Horror can now be rented on Plex, Apple TV, or Google Play, and a Blu-ray release drops on July 7, 2026.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“I reminisced, I learned a few new things, and I walked away with an even greater appreciation for this wonderfully weird phenomenon.”–Louisa Moore, Screen Zealots