‘Rocky Horror’ does the time warp again – this time on TV

Cannes (France) (AFP) – Four decades after it first got audiences dancing in the aisles of cinemas, “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” is back with a tribute television version “Let’s Do the Time Warp Again”.

The new film — which airs Thursday on the Fox network in the US — features the transsexual star Laverne Cox as Dr. Frank-N-Furter, the sexually voracious alien transvestite scientist who seduces a young couple who shelter from the rain in his Transylvanian castle.

Producer Lou Adler, who also brought the original to the screen, said it was seeing Laverne in the hit series “Orange Is the New Black” that pushed him to do the remake.

Tim Curry, the original Frank-N-Furter who the couple interrupt as he creates his perfect man in his laboratory, narrates the new show which premiered late Tuesday at MIPCOM, the world’s biggest entertainment market in the French resort of Cannes.

“Laverne Cox is the reason why we made the movie again, she’s great,” Adler said before the screening.

But apart from a standout performance by Cox, critics claimed the new “Rocky Horror”, directed by Kenny Ortega of “High School Musical” fame, lacked the sexual fizz of the original.

The camp classic flopped on its release in 1975 only to gather a cult following at midnight screenings with fans dressing as the characters and throwing rice at each other in its famous marriage scene.

It has since become the longest running film in cinema history, with weekly screenings in several cities across the globe.

The low-budget British film, which sent up sci-fi and horror B-movies, also launched the career of Hollywood star Susan Sarandon, who played Janet Weiss, the naive young bride who loses all her inhibitions.