John B. Marek is a storyteller with dirt under his nails who weaves tales inspired by a lifetime immersed in nature. His insightful essays and award-winning fiction delve into the complexities of sustainable living, the heart of rural communities and the thrill of outdoor adventure. You can find more of his writing at johnbmarek.com.
Growing up in rural northwest Ohio, my transistor radio crackled with ads that painted the nearby, but impossibly distant, city of Toledo as a realm of exotic possibilities. Among them was a spot for the Westwood Theater, which hosted midnight screenings of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” every Saturday. At the time, my teenage imagination conjured only a hazy notion of the film based on those ads and whispers from older relatives – a campy, musical spectacle with men in fishnet stockings and a frozen Meatloaf. I wouldn’t see it on home video until a decade later, but the ad’s details lodged in my mind: fans dressed as their favorite characters, tossing rice, toast and who-knows-what-else at the screen during key scenes. Those screenings must have been a hoot, a chaotic celebration of subculture. Still, I couldn’t help but pity the employees sweeping up the aftermath at 2 in the morning under flickering house lights.
This week, echoes of that Rocky Horror energy surfaced in reports of middle-schoolers wreaking havoc at screenings of “A Minecraft Movie.” By nearly every critic’s account, the film is a creative misfire – a clunky adaptation of the popular video game. Yet, it raked in almost $300 million during its opening weekend, driven not by cinematic merit but by teens flocking to theaters to shout catchphrases and hurl snacks during specific scenes. The loudest uproar, apparently, erupts when Jack Black’s character, Steve, calls a bizarre figure riding a chicken a “chicken jockey” – a niche reference to an in-game creature. As someone who’s never played Minecraft, I’m tempted to roll my eyes and mutter that Gen Z is easily amused. But there’s more to it than that. This isn’t just kids being kids; it’s a modern ritual, a participatory rebellion that transforms a lackluster film into a communal playground. Like Rocky Horror fans with their toast and water pistols, these teens are rewriting the moviegoing experience, claiming it as their own.
The parallel isn’t perfect, of course. Rocky Horror’s midnight screenings were a haven for outsiders, a subversive space where costumes and props were acts of devotion to a cult classic. The Minecraft movie chaos feels more impulsive – a TikTok-fueled flash mob spilling into multiplexes. Still, both share a certain anarchic joy, a defiance of passive consumption. The Rocky Horror crowd turned a B-movie into a decades-long phenomenon; perhaps these teens, in their own messy way, are salvaging something from “A Minecraft Movie’s” wreckage. Or maybe they’re just bored. Either way, I still have pity for the theater staff, mopping up soda, popcorn and gummy bears, wondering what possessed these kids to treat a cinema like a trash can.
In other news, a biotech company called Colossal Biosciences announced last week that it had “resurrected” the dire wolf, a species extinct for roughly 10,000 years. The internet buzzed with excitement – visions of “Game of Thrones'” beasts prowling the modern world. But as details emerged, the narrative shifted. Scientists scrutinized Colossal’s claims and concluded this wasn’t a true resurrection. Instead, the company had genetically engineered a grey wolf, tweaking its DNA to mimic dire wolf traits – larger size, thicker fur, a broader jaw. The result was less a time-traveling beast and more a high-tech costume, a wolf in dire wolf’s clothing.
It isn’t the first time science has flirted with rewriting reality. In 1996, Dolly the sheep became the world’s first cloned mammal, a breakthrough that stunned the globe. Born from a single adult cell, Dolly was a genetic replica, a living photocopy that proved life could be engineered. Back then, cloning felt like science fiction; today, Colossal’s gene-editing wizardry makes Dolly’s creation look almost primitive. Yet, as technology leaps forward – now crafting wolves to resemble ancient predators – the dangers loom larger. Dolly’s birth sparked debates over ethics: Could we clone humans? Should we? Colossal’s dire wolf raises thornier questions: When we sculpt life to fit our fantasies, do we risk unraveling ecosystems or blurring what’s real? One misstep and we’re not just playing with reality – we’re gambling with it.
One story feels like a strange mirror to the other. Rocky Horror fans don costumes to embody characters, not to deceive but to celebrate. The Minecraft teens throw food and yell to reshape a film’s meaning, not to rewrite its script entirely. Colossal’s dire wolf, like Dolly before it, blurs a different line – between creation and imitation, between reviving the past and inventing a facsimile. The company’s bold claim of “resurrection” crumbled under scrutiny, just as Dolly’s existence raised questions no one could fully answer. Authenticity matters, but so does the act of performance. Whether it’s a theater full of teens shouting “chicken jockey,” a fan in fishnets belting “Time Warp,” or a lab-grown wolf with ancient echoes, we’re drawn to experiences that let us play with reality, even if the seams show – and even if the stakes are higher than we realize.
What ties these threads together is a human impulse to participate, to leave a mark. The Rocky Horror screenings thrive because fans make them more than movies – they’re happenings, alive with ritual. The Minecraft movie pandemonium suggests a generation hungry for that same agency, even if their tools are cruder. And Colossal’s dire wolf, flawed as it is, reflects our yearning to touch the past, to conjure something lost, just as Dolly once embodied our reach for the impossible. Each is a kind of alchemy – messy, imperfect, but undeniably alive. Yet, as Dolly’s legacy reminds us, alchemy carries risks: The power to create can outpace our wisdom to control it. As I think back to those Toledo radio ads, I realize I envied the Rocky Horror crowd, not for the movie itself but for the chance to be part of something bigger, something they could shape. Maybe that’s what we’re all chasing: a moment to step into the story, toss some rice and make a mess worth cleaning up – hoping the mess doesn’t come back to bite us.