Back when I tended bar in the trenches of New York City’s night scene, we had one TV tuned to some channel that replayed 1989’s “Road House,” starring Patrick Swayze, once a week, around 3:00 a.m. And, like pizza, no regulars ever got tired of it. I myself got tired of it, but … not … really. Not as much as I should have. And it occurred to me all these years later, it would be fun to explore the reasons that “Road House” simply never gets old, and has, in fact, become a cult classic.

“Road House” is the ballad of Dalton (Swayze), a fine-looking young man with a floofy mullet and high-waisted, pleated pants, who—in much the same way that the prince in “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” just wants to sing—very clearly just wants to dance.  I mean … he just looks like he wants to. You know?

But he’s fated instead by The Almighty to supervise the cleaning-up of low-life drinking establishments. And thus “Road House” is the story of one bouncer’s quest to free a small town from the iron grip of the guy who is on the verge of opening the area’s first JCPenney. At least six men will die for this.

Directed by Rowdy Herrington

That’s the director’s real name—you can’t make this stuff up. Anyway, Swayze, fresh off his “Dirty Dancing” superstardom, plays a bouncer. But he’s…