"The Rocky Horror Picture Show" is adapted from a rock stage musical ["The Rocky Horror Show"] that kidded the pants off those old b & w monster films. Or at least it did so with more success than the filmization. Where the campy hijinks was acceptable and even moderately fresh on stage, it only seems labored in celluloid blowup….

[O'Brien] wrote the rock score, which is okay, and the lyrics, which are frequently clever.

Besides kidding a whole filmic genre, the picture specifically sends up a number of Hollywood cliches including Busby Berkeley and the old RKO Radio Pictures screen trademark. Overall, however, most of the jokes that might have seemed jolly fun on stage now appear obvious and even flat. The sparkle's gone.

Pit, "Reviews: 'The Rocky Horror Picture Show'," in Variety (copyright 1975, by Variety, Inc.), Vol. 280, No. 7, September 24, 1975, p. 22.