10 Terrible Movies That Inspired Their Own Cult Followings

2. The Rocky Horror Picture Show

What needs to be said about The Rocky Horror Picture Show that hasn't already been screamed at the screen in a NYC midnight movie theatre a thousand times before? The film's cult status so overshadows all discussion of it that it's sometimes easy to forget that there was actually ever a film at all, and not just a bunch of eccentric folks who like to dress in drag and sing their lungs out. A tongue-in-cheek rip-off of B-movie tropes and cliches in horror films, the story follows a young couple travelling in Transylvania who end up being alternately sexually liberated and tormented by Tim Curry and an assortment of grotesques in his castle before all being taken away by aliens. Sounds kind of weird when you sum it up in one sentence, doesn't it? Despite being something of a parody of the films it's imitating, most of the joy of The Rocky Horror Picture Show comes not from the film's campy story, songs or characters, but from the audience interactions with it. From the screenings in the late 1970s right up to the present day participants would dress up in garish costumes, sing along and yell dialogue back at the onscreen characters, and a whole subculture of people has grown from this over the years, resulting in dozens of Rocky Horror fan sites and networks.