The movie opens with Patricia Quinn’s lips and Richard O’Brien’s voice singing Science Fiction Double Feature. After the opening credits, these lips fade into the image of the wedding of Ralph and Betty Hapschatt where the audience is introduced to Brad and Janet. The young couple decides to get married too and leave to tell their friend and mentor, Doctor Scott. On the way, they get a flat tire and have to find a phone to call a tow truck. The closest place that might have a phone is the castle that they just passed which belongs to Doctor Frank n’ Furter. After trudging through the rain, the young couple arrives at the front door where they are greeted by the butler, Riff Raff. Inside, the Transylvanians are partying to the song The Time Warp which is followed by the arrival of Doctor Frank n’ Furter. Frank invites Brad and Janet up to his lab to participate in the creation of his frank-n-stud monster, Rocky Horror.

Here, they are witness to something reminiscent of Frankenstein as Frank brings his creation to life from a rainbow colored bath with flashes of light. Rocky commences with a song and dance which is followed by Frank presenting him with a set of weights as a combination birthday and wedding present. This scene is interrupted with the entrance of Eddie who has been forgotten in the freezer just adjacent to the laboratory. Eddie sings a song to his groupie-girl, Columbia, and is promptly killed by a savage Frank. After this little interruption, Frank and Rocky are wed to an electric guitar rendition of the Wedding march and Brad and Janet are shown to separate rooms.. Here Brad and Janet are to spend the night. Over the course of the night Frank enters Janet’s room disguised as Brad, and proceeds to seduce Janet despite her original misgivings. Whilst these events unfold, Riff Raff and Magenta torment Rocky until he escapes from his chains into the castle grounds.

Following his seduction of Janet, Frank enters Brad’s room disguised as Janet, to continue the seduction of the young couple. Interrupting Brad and Frank in the midst of oral pleasure, Riff Raff announces to Frank that Rocky has escaped. Meanwhile, Janet proceeds up to the laboratory only to find a whimpering Rocky hiding in his birthing tank. Released from her inhibitions by Frank’s seduction, Janet proceeds to seduce Rocky.

After this final seduction, Frank, beating Riff with a bull whip, and Brad emerge in the laboratory to look for Rocky but instead find that Doctor Everett Scott has intruded upon the castle grounds. Using the triple contact-electro magnet, Frank draws Scott up to the laboratory, causing him to crash through the upstairs wall and careen down to the waiting trio. After introductions are made, Doctor Scott announces that he was Eddie’s uncle which draws a gasp from an eavesdropping Janet. Here a roll call of sorts proceeds with the discovery of Janet and Rocky entwined. Dinner is announced by Magenta, calling all into the dinning room. Here, Frank sings Rocky a birthday song and Doctor Scott reveals that he received a letter from Eddie before he met his fateful demise. Following this revelation, Frank rips away the table cloth revealing the corpse of Eddie, who Frank implies they have been eating for dinner. Dinner comes to a close with this revelation and the heroes and Frank run up to the laboratory where accusations fly at Frank, who freezes our heroes into stone statues.

Following this is the Floorshow. As the Criminologist states when he introduces the floorshow, “From what had gone before, it was clear that this was to be no picnic.” (Adler, 1975) As the floorshow commences, we begin with Brad, Janet, Columbia and Rocky as statues with makeup, corsets, girder belts and thigh high fishnets. As each verse of the song commences, each subsequent character is released from the stone’s embrace. Frank follows up with his own verse, and the five lightly garbed characters swim and frolic in a giant swimming pool.

After a few minutes of this, the five of them jump out of the pool and perform a dance similar to the can-can which is broken up by Riff-Raff and his sister, Magenta, dressed in gold space suits and wielding a three-pronged laser gun. They announce that Frank has run out of time for his experiments and that his mission is a failure. Frank proceeds to sing a song about how he is going home complete with a hallucination of an audience congratulating him on his success. This daydream is interrupted by Riff. Frank turns around to discover that the audience he was just seeing is a figment of his imagination. Riff proceeds to stalk after Frank, shooting Columbia, Frank, and finally Rocky. At this point, the American version of the movie ends with the castle taking off; however, the European version has an added song titled “Super Heroes,” which has Doctor Scott, Brad and Janet floundering in the smoke covered ruins of the castle.