At midnight, they flock to an old art deco movie palace in the Detroit suburbs.
A glow-in-the-dark dragon mural lights up one of the screening rooms at the State-Wayne Theater in Wayne, Mich. There, twice a month, the Michigan Rocky Horror Preservation Society holds court, its members arrayed in corsets, feather boas, ripped jeans and lovingly detailed costumes that evoke their favorite movie's main characters.
The Rocky Horror Picture Show turns 50 this year, with scores of groups around the world keeping its legacy alive, including this one in Michigan.
"We are the original immersive 3D movie experience," says Becky Milanio Koupparis, the chief operating officer and director emeritus. She first dressed up in goth glam to attend a screening at age 16, in Berkeley, Calif. That was 44 years ago. Now she's a well-known member of the national community.
Koupparis, who makes costuming a speciality, is among the most senior members of this group, which first numbered about 15 people when it was founded in 2013. Now about 60 hardcore volunteers loyally attend screenings as "phantoms," who enthusiastically call out responses to what's happening on screen and throw toast when an on-screen dinner toast is proposed. Others act out the movie underneath the screen as it plays, as the "shadowcast."
"We are trying to mimic every single small movement: lip-synch, turn, dance move, every single thing that they're doing," explains Moonbeam Albin-Frey, a founding member of the group.
Back in the 1970s and '80s, Rocky Horror aficionados had to go to theaters over and over to nail down those details. Some theater owners would have special screenings with the lights on, so hardcore fans could take notes, says current director Jessica Harris. That was before the rise of VCRs and DVDs.
"You couldn't rewind to rehearse your performance," she says. "You couldn't stop and pause to see costuming details."
"And now people are able to 3D print those costume pieces!" chimes in Milanio Koupparis.
It is impossible, they add, to overstate the importance of "screen accuracy." For example, an entire Facebook group is dedicated to recreating a jacket worn by the character Dr. Frank-N-Furter. It has more than 700 members. And arguments rage among fans over details such as the exact color of sequins on a negligee worn by a character named Magenta.
"The debate has always been: are they blue? Are they purple? Are they oil slick?" explains Harris. "I tend to fall on the oil slick side of that debate."
So what's so enjoyable about hyperfocusing on such miniscule details? Albin-Frey bursts out laughing at the question.
"A lot of us in the community are neurodivergent," they say. "When you are neurodivergent, acting out your favorite movie week after week after week is actually pretty appealing. Not going to lie."
The movie's shambolic plot centers on a buttoned-up young couple trapped in a castle with a bunch of gleefully bizarre people (who are actually aliens). They're led by a glamorous male mad scientist, Dr. Frank-N-Furter, who swans about in a glittering corset and heels. You can never tell which characters are going to start canoodling.
"I think that Rocky Horror is just — it's good queer representation," says Jessica Harris. "And it's good to protect drag."
The raunchy call-and-response from audience members has evolved over the years. Once, homophobic and antisemitic slurs were common. Now, it's a safe space, says 19-year-old Ember Dupont-Funk.
"I grew up in a really Christian conservative city, and Rocky was the first time I saw myself represented," he says.
Dupont-Funk joined the Michigan Rocky Horror Preservation Society as soon as he turned 18. "It is dated, but it's a piece of queer history," he says of the film. "For me, I don't think it's a great movie. I love it because it's bad. It's different. Just like me and most of my favorite people here."
The world of Rocky Horror, he says, is a refuge, where people entertain and uplift each other, where being outside the norm is celebrated.
"A world without volunteer work, a world without community, a world without going out is not a world I want to be in," Dupont-Funk says. "And it's kind of a thing that we're losing nowadays."
Not in this theater, though, where fans sell toast in the lobby and dance to "The Time Warp" with abandon. As far as these fans are concerned, The Rocky Horror Picture Show is not 50 years old. The movie, they say, is timeless.
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