Dallas' Mocky Horror Picture Show Revels in Film's Biggest Flops

There is a proud tradition among movie fans of playfully mocking bad movies, as few things are more entertaining to watch among friends than “so-bad-they’re-good” classics. It’s something of a comfort-watch routine that’s generally done in good nature among cinephiles who share a genuine love of cinema, and for the crew of Dallas’ The Mocky Horror Picture Show live comedy performance, it has become a surprisingly fruitful opportunity.

Since 2018, Danny Gallagher and Liz Barksdale have performed live comedy routines alongside screenings of “bad” movies, beginning with the 1959 camp horror classic, House on Haunted Hill. At the time of its release, the film had a rather limited fan base, as it failed to generate the same cultural legacy as other collaborations between Vincent Price and director William Castle. But it's movies that find similar cult-favorite status that give Gallagher and Barksdale the opportunity to analyze all of the confusing plot holes, reused props, cheesy performances and other unintentionally hilarious moments.

The Mocky Horror Picture Show was born from sparsely attended performances at the Pocket Sandwich Theatre and Stomping Ground Comedy Theatre. Gallagher and Barksdale met through the improv scene in Dallas, but when they began collaborating with the voice actor Albie Robles, the trio developed a unique voice in the art of “movie riffing” — an interactive blend of commentary, comedy and criticism.

“I was just so happily shocked that there was something like that here in Dallas,” says Robles, who joined the crew after attending a previous Mocky Horror Show performance. “I kind of surprised them a little bit by auditioning, not just doing the jokes and script I provided, but because I had editing experience. I actually put a film clip together and did my voiceover, and then I added a new thing, which was editing in a joke from The Evil Dead. That started a whole new thing for Mocky where we were doing ‘edit jokes.’”

The group’s name is a loving reference to The Rocky Horror Picture Show, the 1975 horror-musical-comedy that steadily became a cult sensation, and helped to coin the term “midnight movie.” Over the course of a half-century (and many Dallas screenings), The Rocky Horror Picture Show live screenings became a gathering for like-minded film enthusiasts, whose traditions included throwing things at the screen, reciting lines and singing along to the movie-musical.

Although The Mocky Horror Picture Show tends to favor films that are entertaining in the ironic sense, their performances share a commonality with the live Rocky Horror Picture Show events, as it invites audiences to participate in the discussions.

Gallagher and Barskdale first realized their shared appreciation for these kinds of films when they discovered their mutual love for Mystery Science Theater 3000, an idiosyncratic comedy series that centered on fictional characters offering their live thoughts on “B-movies” from the 1950s. Although the performance that Gallagher, Barksdale and Robles perform isn’t broadcast like Mystery Science Theater 3000, the hosts have enjoyed the notion of playing “characters,” whose agitation with their viewing selections increases over the course of the screening event.

“I personally was in a place where I didn’t have any shows lined up, and I was ready to start writing comedy as well as performing it, which is what I really wanted to do,” Gallagher says. “Liz and I had pitched this idea to every theater we’ve been to. We’d literally just go to each other’s houses and watch bad movies to try and figure out how to riff on them."

There is no dearth of online content revolving around film discourse, but The Mocky Horror Picture Show is distinct when it comes to preparation and presentation. While the comedy trio's comments are made off the cuff, all of them have industry experience and an encyclopedic knowledge of cinema. They’ve also managed to score some major venues, including the Texas Theatre, where the group lampooned a 4K restoration of the 1936 anti-weed propaganda film, Reefer Madness. Produced at a time when drug use was nearly synonymous with the “dark arts,” the exploitation film offered an amusing journey into a different era of cultural puritanism.

Many of the group’s biggest successes have come from making fun of films that have relevance to recent releases, as they tend to offer crossover appeal to audiences interested in familiar properties. When 2023's The Super Mario Bros. crossed $1 billion at the global box office to become the highest-grossing video game adaptation in history, Mocky Horror hosted a screening of the infamous 1993 live-action Super Mario Bros., which infamously starred Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo as Mario and Luigi, respectively.

Similarly, the popularity of Chris Evans’ portrayal of Steve Rogers in the Marvel Cinematic Universe prompted the group to lampoon the low-budget, direct-to-video Captain America film from 1990, which was produced by the bankrupt Marvel Entertainment Group purely to retain licensing rights.

“It’s interesting to see what [audiences] laugh at,” Barksdale says. “We have 800 jokes in these things sometimes, and sometimes they really don’t get something you think is going to land, and sometimes they really love something."

The scale of The Mocky Horror Picture Show’s productions has grown over time, as the Captain America screening involved a parodical introductory video that was made in conjunction with special aerial drone photography from Daniel Rockey. The screening’s success resulted in the group earning a showcase at the Alamo Drafthouse in Richardson for the unintentionally frightening 1998 holiday “comedy” Jack Frost. The film stars Michael Keaton as a miserable family man who is transformed into a life-like snowman after being killed in a car accident (seriously, look it up). In promoting the events, the group utilized a quote from the legendary film critic Roger Ebert, who cited the titular snowman as “the most repulsive single creature in the history of special effects.”

The Mocky Horror Picture Show has steadily gravitated toward more modern titles that audience members may have seen in theaters. Their most recent screening at the La Cantera Arts Conservatory featured X-Men Origins: Wolverine, the notorious 2009 superhero spinoff that served as a prequel for Hugh Jackman’s X-Men character. Often ranked as the single worst installment in the 25-year-old franchise, X-Men Origins: Wolverine was received with such disdain by comic book fans that it began a running gag within the Deadpool franchise, in which the anti-hero made fun of his role in the film.

Although the screenings have been the bulk of The Mocky Horror Picture Show’s activity, the group has also held live Twitch streams on Wednesdays where viewers are encouraged to share their own “riffs” to showcase at upcoming shows. As far as future expansions go, Gallagher says that the group has kept an open mind.

“Not only can we riff movies, but we can shoot films, we can do monologues," he says. "We did an original song, which is something we’ve been wanting to try. We want to make this a thing for Dallas. We feel like Dallas has not just a movie theater infrastructure, but a movie fan community that is so big that it deserves to have something like this.”