The Last ‘Picture Show’ : With ‘Rocky Horror,’ the Curtain Falls on the Balboa Cinema

As squirt guns blazed, trash bags full of shredded paper were dumped from the balcony and enough rice was tossed to feed a small country, a 13-year Orange County tradition came to a raucous finish early Sunday morning as the last “Rocky Horror Picture Show”

played to a packed house at the Balboa Cinema.

At the end of the screening, the theater itself--a Balboa Peninsula landmark since the 1920s--was closed down for the foreseeable future. The Landmark Theatre Corp., which operated the Balboa since 1979, has pulled out because of a steep rise in the rent, and the owners won’t say what they have in mind for the building.

Various art films would play the Balboa during the week, but every Friday and Saturday at midnight had been “Rocky Horror” time.

“It’s just very depressing that they’ve done this,” said Jennifer Neumann of Irvine, a member of Midnight Insanity, a group that--like groups pretty much everywhere the movie is shown-- performed on stage during the film, mimicking the action on the screen. The final show at the Balboa marked the group’s 201st Saturday night performance. A separate “cast” would turn up on Fridays.

By 11 p.m. Saturday, a line stretched from the front of the 500-seat theater to Main Street and all the way to the foot of the Balboa Pier. Several hundred had to be turned away. “I’ve been here two years and it’s never been this chaotic,” said Rachel Buzolich of Newport Beach, another Midnight Insanity member, who was helping to keep the crowd in check.

Among those in line were longtime regulars who had seen the movie more than 100 times, along with the curious, there because it was the theater’s last hurrah. There also were parents of “cast” members, along for their last chance to see just what their kids have been doing on Saturday nights.

What they saw was a highly choreographed stage show that stretched out for nearly an hour before the movie even began rolling--a far cry from the early days of “Rocky Horror,” when things were far more impromptu.

First shown at the Balboa in 1978, three years after its premiere, the musical, which is based on a staged rock opera, tells the story of a clean-cut young American couple who stumble into a castle full of kinky Transylvanians ruled by the transvestite Dr. Frank-N-Furter. Initially, “Rocky Horror” flopped at the box office. But a young publicist at Fox, Tim Deegan, suggested marketing it as a cult film. It since has become the biggest midnight movie of all time, grossing more than $165 million.

Almost from the beginning, the movie took a back seat to the audiences, who would throw rice at the screen during the wedding scene and recite lines along with the characters. In time, this ritual became more formalized as fans began dressing in character and acting out scenes and musical numbers.

Today’s generation of fans, some of whom were not even born when the film was made, even audition for parts in such groups as Midnight Insanity that perform along with the film in its entirety, complete with props. “Whatever you see on screen, you see on stage,” explained Kristine Martin, who has been part of Midnight Insanity for three years.

“It’s almost like theater workshop for some of these casts,” Deegan, now an independent publicist, said during a phone interview last week. “They take it very seriously. This has gone from being a movie to being an art experience.”

Of all the casts performing along with the movie, the Balboa’s players are “on a par with the best of them,” added Deegan, who remains something of a godfather to “Rocky Horror” devotees. “There are an enormous amount of fans in Orange County.”

Until last weekend, the Balboa casts stored their props and costumes in their own room in the Balboa’s damp basement, paid dues ($5 a month) and took donations in the lobby to pay for supplies, and did fund-raisers for charity. There were about 30 people in the Saturday cast, including 10 main characters, technicians and extras who help fill out the party scenes (and even serve as understudies).

The casts get in free because theater owners know that they work to publicize the film and also serve as a built-in extra attraction. Now that the Balboa is closed, the Saturday cast is leading the search for a new home. While a number of other Southern California theaters (the nearest in Redondo Beach) will continue their own screenings of “Rocky Horror,” all of them already have established casts.

So far, Midnight Insanity members report, they have two interested candidates: the Art in Long Beach and the Miramar in San Clemente. So far, according to Kristine Martin, the Art seems to be the favorite among cast members.

The youngest member of the audience for the last show at the Balboa was Nathanyl Lockie, all of 5 1/2 months old. His parents, Stacy and Gregory Lockie, met at a screening of “Rocky Horror” last year and were married this year.

Crystal and Jim Taber also met at the Balboa during a “Rocky Horror” showing, and likewise married this year. Crystal said she’d been a runaway at 16, and was homeless and hooked on drugs when she started going to the “Rocky Horror” screenings three years ago. She said that her involvement with the movie, and the friends she made through it, helped her straighten out her life.

“Because of this, I learned to be more open and more self-confident,” she said. “This is my family.”

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