The Rocky Horror Picture Show Ending Explained: Let's Do The Time Warp Again
"The Rocky Horror Picture Show" is pure absurdity from start to finish, but the ending might be the most over-the-top and confusing moment of the entire film. The squares Brad and Janet have found sexual freedom in Dr. Frank-N-Furter's lab, but tensions boil over when Janet sleeps with Frank's hunky creation, Rocky. Luckily, Frank offers a solution — free love.
Sadly, the orgy is interrupted by his backstabbing servants Magenta and Riff Raff. They tell Dr. Frank-N-Furter that they are taking over his castle, which doubles as a spaceship and will be returning to Transylvania. Dr. Frank-N-Furter reluctantly agrees to go home, but unfortunately, he never makes it there — the evil twins gun him down, along with Rocky and his tap-dancing disciple Columbia. Luckily for Brad and Janet, the aliens are kind enough to let them escape before flying the castle back to their home planet.
The narrator, a criminologist reviewing Brad and Janet's case files, closes the film with a vague but permeating sendoff: "And crawling on the planet's face, some insects called the human race. Lost in time, and lost in space, and meaning." But what exactly does this mean? And why did the Transylvanians let Brad and Janet live? Let's explore the final moments of the midnight movie that rocked the world.
What you need to remember about Rocky Horror
The reason that Brad and Janet set off on a road trip on the stormy night of their engagement is to pay a visit to their high school science teacher, Dr. Scott, and tell him the happy news — they did meet in his class, after all. But on the way, the young couple run into awful trouble when their tire goes flat, and they're forced to hike to the nearest house — Dr. Frank-N-Furter's castle. The otherworldly scientist, played by Tim Curry in his breakout role, gives the couple an icy hot welcome by stripping them of their clothes, slipping into their chambers, and making love to them both — separately, and without each other's knowledge.
After hours of sexual confusion, the couple are all but completely lost in the labyrinthian halls when Dr. Scott finds them. However, the doctor was unaware that he would find his old pupils there — he came looking for his nephew, Eddie. Eddie was a delivery boy who had an affair with Frank-N-Furter before falling in love with Columbia. Perhaps out of jealousy, Dr. Frank-N-Furter used half of Eddie's brain to make Rocky and locked him away in an ice freezer. When he breaks out and sings a number to Columbia, Dr. Frank-N-Furter brutally murders him, possibly out of jealousy.
But Eddie isn't Dr. Scott's only motive — he also investigates UFOs, just as Dr. Frank-N-Furter suspects. When he arrives, the doctor explains to Brad that the other doctor is actually an alien. Eddie was human, but presumably everyone else in the castle is Transylvanian (although it's not entirely clear — Columbia could also be human). This is where tensions really start to mount, but they don't come to a head until hearts get involved.
How Rocky Horror ends
In the final moments of "Rocky Horror," Rocky and Janet's affair is revealed, angering Dr. Frank-N-Furter and her fianceé alike. Dr. Frank-N-Furter had already slept with Brad and Janet separately that same evening, so Janet's betrayal isn't so straightforward, but Dr. Frank-N-Furter wants Rocky all to himself. After a tense dinner is revealed to have taken place over Eddie's corpse, Janet flies into Rocky's arms and Dr. Frank-N-Furter flies into a jealous rage, chasing Janet around his laboratory. After she, Brad, and Dr. Scott take turns calling him a hot dog, he turns them all to stone. Columbia criticizes the scientist for being a selfish lover and disposing people when he's done with them, so Dr. Frank-N-Furter turns her to stone as well — and the already-statuesque Rocky along with them for good measure. Magenta asks when they will return to Transylvania, but Dr. Frank-N-Furter is not interested in returning any time soon and orders that they put the statues in costumes and makeup, preparing them for one grand final number.
Even though everyone is upset with Dr. Frank-N-Furter before the floor show begins, the number makes them fall back in love with him and with their own sexual liberation. Even Dr. Scott joins in at the very end and finds that his own paralyzed legs are adorned with a fishnet stocking and high-heeled shoes. Sadly, their group happiness is short-lived when Magenta and Riff Raff interrupt to seize the castle from Dr. Frank-N-Furter. The scientist, his man-made lover, and his loyal groupie meet the wrong end of Magenta and Riff Raff's laser guns, but the humans are set free, left to watch the castle disappear into space as they crawl on the planet's face.
Rock Horror ending explained
Riff Raff and Magenta kill Dr. Frank-N-Furter because they want to take over his ship. They kill Rocky because he's Dr. Frank-N-Furter's creation, and they kill Columbia because — despite Eddie's murder — she is still loyal to the crazy doctor. They might also have revenge on their mind after being under Dr. Frank-N-Furter's thumb for so long — Riff Raff even takes a few beatings later for letting Rocky out of his sight. Since they are driven by rage and revenge, it's safe to say they enjoyed killing Dr. Frank-N-Furter. On top of the duo's motives, there's also their Transylvanian nature to indulge in matters of the flesh. But despite their blood lust, Riff Raff and Magenta don't finish the job and kill off the humans. Why?
The usurpers have no concern for earthlings. Dr. Frank-N-Furter was afraid of Dr. Scott meddling in his affairs because he threatened his livelihood. The mad scientist worried that if the government got involved he wouldn't be able to stay on Earth and carry on sleeping with humans, which he so loved to do. Riff Raff and Magenta don't care if Dr. Scott reports on their existence. They have no interest in continuing to party on earth and don't seem to care about soiling relations either. They have had their fun and don't mind leaving a loose end or two since they won't be returning one way or another.
Another reason why Brad and Janet might be left alive
Death would be an ending far too simple for Brad and Janet's strange adventure. Instead, they are left adrift, aimlessly going about their humdrum lives with the hidden knowledge of worlds beyond the layman's imagination. The couple and the doctor are left writhing on the empty spot where Dr. Frank-N-Furter's castle once stood, trying desperately to grasp onto the pleasure center that slipped through their fingers. They look like insects flipped onto their back — insects crawling the planet's face.
Even though Magenta and Riff Raff let the earthlings live, their ending is a thoroughly miserable one. It's possible that the Transylvanians knew that they would be left with a fate worse than death and thus decided it would be crueler not to kill them. They are lost in space and time and will be unable to reconcile with their boring old pleasureless lives. The Transylvanians may have been aliens on Earth, but they were at home in their homeland. After their contact with extraterrestrials, Brad and Janet might have never felt at home on Earth again.
Viewed through the lens of the story's apparent metaphor of queerness, Magenta and Riff Raff have the pleasure of returning to the LGBT+ community knowing who they are. Brad, Janet, and Dr. Scott have only a brush with self-discovery and are left questioning their identities in a world of heteronormativity.
What has the cast and crew of Rocky Horror said about the ending?
"The Rocky Horror Picture Show" was originally a musical parody of B movies created for the stage by Richard O'Brien. O'Brien penned the original stageplay along with all the music, also starring in it as Riff Raff. He reprised his role in the film, which Jim Sharman helped him adapt for the screen by co-writing and directing. When it comes to deciphering the meaning behind "Rocky Horror," the co-creators prefer to leave things open-ended.
"There is sort of an ambiguity in it," Sharman told The Los Angeles Times. "I don't think anybody can completely explain it. I think that's the interesting story. I think it must be something in the DNA of the movie."
However, the story behind the very beginning of the film does offer an alternate take on the ending. The opening number "Science Fiction/Double Feature" was sung by a female usherette in the original stage production, blending the reality of the theater and the world of the play, but Sharman had other ideas for the film.
"I never forgot Richard [O'Brien]'s haunting, yet slightly androgynous, voice singing 'Science Fiction' the first time I heard it, so I thought he should sing it," the director told the New York Post.
But O'Brien's mouth didn't quite fit Sharman's vision for the floating set of lips that we see onscreen. Instead, those lips belong to Patricia Quinn, the actress who plays Magenta. This wasn't a random choice, though — it also has some bearing on the plot. Sharman imagined that "Riff Raff and Magenta somehow coalesced into one androgynous being" to perform the number. If that's true, it's possible that the very beginning of the film actually takes place at the very end, as Riff Raff and Magenta return to their home planet in their true, combined form.
Is there a sequel to Rocky Horror?
O'Brien actually did write a sequel to "Rocky Horror" back in 1988, over a decade after the film was released. This follow-up film was titled "Revenge of the Old Queen," the writer revealed to Radio Times.
"I thought, 'Well, this time I'll make Riff Raff an interesting character. If we're gonna go out with it again, why don't I take the lead?'" O'Brien continued.
The writer had a B-plot in mind for Brad and Janet as well. The sequel would pick up right where the film left off and find Janet newly pregnant — with Dr. Frank-N-Furter's baby. In the end, though, O'Brien decided that a sequel had the potential to spoil the hard-earned legacy of his magnum opus.
"It had some mileage, but it's probably better to leave it alone," he concluded.
While there has never been a "Rocky Horror" sequel, the story certainly leaves room for one. Although the beloved Frank-N-Furter is dead, many of the main characters remain alive, including Brad and Janet. Perhaps they could seek out the Transylvanians again for advice about raising a half-alien baby, or maybe Riff Raff and Magenta will change their minds about leaving the couple alive and return to Earth to finish the job. There could still be a sequel one day, but at this point, a remake is more likely — in fact, Fox attempted a remake in 2016 that performed dismally.
The alternate ending in the U.K. version
Even huge fans of "Rocky Horror" might not know that the UK version of the film has an alternate ending with an extra musical number. In this rendition, after Riff Raff and Magenta depart for Transylvania, Brad and Janet sing a number called "Superheroes" that was cut for the U.S. release. The lyrics are bleak, contrasting the tone of the gleeful floor show and more appropriately introducing the narrator's final ominous message.
Covered in bruises and blood, the young couple crawls through the smoke trying to find each other. They lament about "bleeding" inside after sinning — for having "lied" in a quest "to find the truth." The titular superheroes are presumably Dr. Frank-N-Furter and the Transylvanians, but in Janet's final line, she says "the beast is still feeding," suggesting that the beast is actually the desire that the aliens have awoken within her.
This song gives the message of the film a different significance. If Brad and Janet's final number is the floor show, where they sing about feeling "released" and "sexy," then "Rocky Horror" reads as a triumphant journey of sexual self-discovery for the young couple. When they lament their escapades in "Superheroes," it suggests that their sexual deviance was actually a bad thing, even life-ruining.
The narrator's closing words about humans being lost in space and time feel slightly out of place in the American version, which ends rather raucously for our hero and heroine. In the U.K. version, they fit perfectly as a verse of the song, giving the ending a bit more ... meaning.