'Cult classic': How the Rocky Horror Picture Show finally conquered Vancouver

July 18, 1981. Fans dressed in costume as Columbia, Dr. Frank-N-Furter M agenta and Riff Raff, perform in front of the screen at the Ridge Theatre in Vancouver at the last showing of the Rocky Horror Picture show. Photo by Ian Lindsay /Vancouver Sun

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On July 20, 1981, The Vancouver Sun reported The Ridge Theatre hosted its final midnight screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show due to a city bylaw change.

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The 1975 film, which stars Tim Curry, is a musical comedy horror that follows the encounter between a couple and a transvestite mad scientist at a creepy castle called The Frankenstein Place.

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The Ridge, which was located at 3131 Arbutus St. and closed in 2013, was the first Vancouver theatre to host its “witching hour” screenings of the film, which packed the house every Saturday.

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But in 1981, local residents blamed film fans for vandalism and crime in their neighbourhood and said their weird costumes frightened elderly women. The Vancouver City Council subsequently passed a bylaw banning The Ridge from such midnight screenings.

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Flash forward to 2026, and Rio Theatre is preparing for their annual Rockytober! screenings of what senior programmer Rachel Fox calls “the cult classic of cult classics. The film that never went away. Rocky Horror owns the screen the last week of Halloween.“

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July 18, 1981. Leonard Schein with one of the regular performers, dressed as Dr. Frank-N-Furter, at the last showing of the Rocky Horror Picture Show at the Ridge Theatre in Vancouver. Photo by Ian Lindsay /Vancouver Sun

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Leonard Schein, founder of the Vancouver International Film Festival and owner of The Ridge, first booked a midnight Rocky Horror Picture Show in 1978.

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After facing claims of concern from local residents about the screenings, The Ridge countered by submitting a signed petition to council showing that 139 neighbours supported the midnight shows while 13 were against.

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Police cleared The Ridge and said there was no evidence of liquor or an unusual level of noise. The Vancouver Sun ran an editorial related to the dispute saying that if council was concerned about making theatre owners clean up their neighbourhoods, then it should go after Famous Players and Odeon to clean up Granville Mall.

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Schein hired a lawyer to fight the ban, which was then rewritten to prohibit theatres outside the downtown core from showing movies that ended after 1 a.m. After a 25-year absence, the film returned to The Ridge in 2006. Schein said even though council hadn’t repealed the bylaw, he was hoping that the “fun city” philosophy would mean councillors would no longer have a problem with the film playing at midnight.

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Over the years, several theatres have hosted late-night screenings of The Rocky Horror Picture Show including: The Starlight and Park, (also owned by Schein); The Savoy Cinema, which later became The Fox; and The Rio, which has been screening it since about 2008.

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“The film gives the audience permission to engage, to sing and dance,” Fox noted of the film’s enduring appeal. “Its popularity grew organically, and the live screenings are a collective dynamic experience. People watching is part of the fun, seeing the explosive energy of the fans.”

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Fox also discussed the traditions of this celluloid ritual; what has remained the same and what has changed.

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July 18, 1981. Fans do the Time Warp Again in front of the screen at the Ridge Theatre in Vancouver at the last showing of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Photo by Ian Lindsay /Vancouver Sun

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In a 1990 interview with The Vancouver Sun, Schein noted, “people don’t dress up in costumes the way they used to. I guess younger people are more inhibited about wearing costumes.” But the costume-wearing tradition has resurged in contemporary screenings.