Jump to the left and step to the right — another Halloween approaches, meaning it’s time for Iowa City to do “The Time Warp” again.

The Bijou will present its annual midnight showings of the cult-classic movie The Rocky Horror Picture Show tonight through Saturday. Admission is $8.

The Englert Theatre, 221 E. Washington St., will also hold a midnight screening of Rocky Horror on Oct. 31. Admission to the Englert screening is $15.

The movie musical, based on the play The Rocky Horror Show, tells the story of a recently engaged couple — Brad Majors (Barry Bostwick) and Janet Weiss (Susan Sarandon) — whose car breaks down on a rainy evening. Looking for help, they stumble upon the castle of Dr. Frank N. Furter (Tim Curry), a transvestite mad scientist who hails from Transsexual, Transylvania.

As Brad and Janet tour the dark mansion, Frank N. Furter unveils his latest creation, the Frankenstein-like Rocky Horror (Peter Hinwood). Seduction, horror, and musical numbers ensue (not necessarily in that order), and Brad and Janet find themselves trapped in the castle, desperate to escape. Or at least strip down to their underwear.

First released in 1975, the film bombed during its initial run. During the following years, though, it found a home as a midnight movie, alongside the science fiction and horror B-movies it parodies and pays homage to.

At those screenings, fans of the movie turned them into a participatory experiences. Audiences began to lip-sync to the songs and to holler lines at the screen — some from the movie, many others that were not. Throwing objects at the screen at some moments also became commonplace.

More than 30 years later, the film remains a cult favorite, with showings occurring all over the United States, especially around Halloween. Rocky Horror is not known as a great film, but it remains popular because of the audience interaction during screenings.

“It’s cheesy enough to be watchable,” said Nate Freese, a language-arts teacher at West High. “But I think if you break it down for cinematic technique and stuff like that, and maybe for the quality, it kind of loses something in those categories.”

The rabid audience participation, though, makes up for that.

“You have to watch it with an audience,” UI junior Hannah Kane said. “It changes the whole movie.”

Kane, a cinema major, held her own screenings at home with friends before she saw the film in a theater. She said that without an audience, “it’s just a bad, cheesy sci-fi/horror film.”

Audience participation turns the film from a bad B-movie to a fun cult classic. And that interaction comes in various forms.

Shouting at the screen is perhaps the most popular way to get involved. A notable example comes when the film’s narrator says the name of one of the main characters, Brad Majors. Whenever this happens, audience members will often shout “asshole” at the screen.

“The Time Warp,” the most well-known Rocky Horror song, comes with the requisite dance number of the same name, which many audience members often perform.

The hazing of virgins — those who have never attended a screening of Rocky Horror — is also a staple of the proceedings. Kane said that during her “virgin” screening, she had to do a chicken dance in front of the audience.

“It takes newbies some time to open up to the fact that they are actually encouraged to talk and yell at the screen, because it’s something they are constantly told not to do during traditional movies,” Bijou programming director Zane Umsted wrote in an e-mail. “It only takes one or two appropriately obnoxious viewers to help everyone get comfortable with the interactivity, which is what single-handedly makes these screenings so fun.”

Throwing objects is also a long-standing pastime at Rocky Horrorshowings. Rice is usually thrown during the movie’s wedding scene, and toast and playing cards also have their moments. Whenever there is a rainy scene in the film, it is customary for audience members to fire squirt guns into the air.

“It’s a mess,” Kane said. “How many times do you get to destroy a theater?”

The Bijou and the Englert hope that, while participants have fun, the proceedings will not cause damage. At both venues, rice-throwing is prohibited to protect the theaters and give cleaning crews a break.

“We don’t throw rice because it is specifically much harder to clean between shows than other things,” Umsted said. “But we do have kits with various throwable objects, and we give viewers a prompt sheet for them to look over to master their cues.”

The Englert also will provide prop bags for audience members. The prop bags at both venues are included in the price of admission.

Freese said part of the draw of Rocky Horror is the subversive nature of both the film and traditional screenings.

“I think part of it is the racy, sexy aspect of it,” he said. “I think there’s a naughty side of it that people may connect to.”

The film has not only entered the pop-culture lexicon, it’s part of the classroom as well. Freese teaches Rocky Horror in a unit on cult classics in one of his classes at West High.

“We look at what it is that makes a cult classic,” he said. He started off with Star Wars and the “Star Trek” television series.

“Rocky Horror is kind of in a different category [than those],” he said. “Because it helped start the whole midnight-movie idea.”

Freese said he doesn’t show the whole movie to his classes, but he does show clips.

“We don’t watch the whole movie in class,” he said. “I think I’d probably be fired if I did that.”

Umsted said he thinks the screenings will be popular this year. Even when the Bijou was displaced last year by the flood, many people turned out to see the film — and participate in the proceedings.

“We were at Van Allen Hall and, despite the location being much less convenient than our IMU one, we still came close to selling out,” he said. “It’s made my expectations pretty high for this year.”