It’s Friday night and toilet paper is cascading down from the balcony. Below, dozens of water pistols squeeze out streams of liquid, soaking anyone in their path. Cries of “asshole” and “slut” are audible. Boys hang out in the women’s bathroom while girls dressed in garters and fishnets fix their makeup. Music blares and the kids boogie down.

It’s a pretty rowdy party, but rather than trashing the house of some poor schlub whose parents left him home alone, these kids are whooping it up at the Bloor Cinema. Since 1989, the theatre has screened cult classic The Rocky Horror Picture Show with full audience participation — costumes, singing, dancing, props and profanity-laden callbacks — led by a local shadow cast that’s currently called Excited Mental State. Although the monthly screenings are always popular, the emphasis on costumes, parties and the just plain weird make Halloween the best time to experience the Bloor’s Rocky Horror madness.  

“That’s when everyone gets dressed up,” says Robin Sharp, one of the theatre’s managers. “That’s when everyone gets the most excited.”

Since its debut in 1975, this gender-bending camp-horror romp has remained a staple of midnight movie houses and repertory cinemas. But if recent demographic shifts at the Bloor are any indication, nostalgia no longer drives Rocky Horror’s enduring popularity.

“When we started [showing the film] it was people who had seen it in the ’70s,” says Sharp. Now there’s rarely anyone over 30 in the theatre, replaced instead by armies of 16-year-olds. “It gets younger every year,” he says.

By all accounts, today’s teens should shun Rocky Horror on principle. It’s a relic from the old generation, full of outmoded references and music.

As Alex Woodside, another manager at the Bloor, points out, the themes the film addresses (such as queerness, androgyny and polyamory) were really taboo in the mid-’70s, even for people in their twenties and thirties. But as those ideas become more accepted and mainstream, the transgressive nature of the film fades. Nevertheless, its message still resonates with teens just beginning to experiment with their sexuality.

“It’s all about freedom of gender, it’s all about rebellion, it’s all about sexual freedom and vice and all the kind of things that you’d be interested in during high school,” says Sharp.

Amy Taylor, Excited Mental State’s head cast member, agrees: “As things get more conservative in politics and there are more worries in the world, teens need an outlet.”

Of course, there’s also the atmosphere. “About 25 per cent of them show up just because it’s like a party,” says Woodside.

Sharp elaborates: “Working Rocky Horror, there’s vomit sometimes. There are scandalous 14-year-old girls getting into fisticuffs in the women’s washroom. If you get that many 16-year-olds together in one spot, a lot of people are going to be drinking before the show and there’s nothing you can do about that.”

Both he and Woodside were one-time Rocky Horror fans, so they understand the circus surrounding the film. They say the financial benefits of screening the film outweigh the problems caused by over-indulgent teens.

“The Bloor’s been really fortunate to have been host to Rocky Horror for all these years,” says Woodside. “The fact that it’s always there for us every month and that these kids keep coming out has actually helped us through some hard times.”