Shock Treatment (USA, 1981)
Directed by Jim Sharman
Starring Cliff De Young, Jessica Harper, Richard O'Brien, Patricia Quinn

The only thing more foolish than remaking a cult film is making a sequel to one. This idea becomes worse still when that cult film happens to be The Rocky Horror Picture Show: no matter how many of the original cast return, it wouldn't be humanly possible for lightning to strike twice. For all its initial promise and moments of hilarity, Shock Treatment is a failure both as a sequel and in its own right.Shock Treatment could be called the middle instalment of an unfinished Rocky Horror trilogy. The unproduced third instalment, Revenge of the Old Queen, would have been set on the planet of Transsexual in the galaxy of Transylvania, with Frank N. Furter's mother (the Old Queen of the title) seeking revenge on Richard O'Brien's Riff Raff. While Brad Majors has become a Las Vegas go-go dancer and died from falling off a trapeze, Janet has become a mother through her night of passion with Frank in the first film, and brings their new-born child to this strange and twisted planet.Neither Shock Treatment nor Revenge of the Old Queen are direct sequels, retaining much of the same cast but playing different roles. Richard O'Brien and Patricia Quinn are still playing brother and sister, with Riff Raff and Magenta becoming Doctors Cosmo and Nation McKinley. Nell Campbell trades in Columbia for Nurse Ansalong, and Charles Gray's Criminologist becomes Judge Oliver Wright. They are joined by Barry Humphries, playing a Dr. Strangelove knock-off called Bert Schnick, and a pre-Young Ones Rik Mayall as 'Rest Home' Ricky. And in classic B-movie fashion, the main characters from the first film are played by different actors, with Cliff De Young taking over as Brad and Janet being played by Suspiria star Jessica Harper.Shock Treatment does attempt to tackle a number of interesting ideas surrounding the nature of television, using musical conventions to raise serious questions in a light-hearted way. To some extent it is about how advertising has come to dominate television and influence its content at the expense of serious programming. This is shown in Charles Gray's first scene, in which almost every word of his 'interview' is talked over by promo people and his disinterested host, played by Ruby Wax.The look of Shock Treatment is deliberately tacky and plastic. Everything within the TV station looks like an advert, with fake pinball smiles, garish 1950s colours and women who all resemble either air hostesses or fashion models. One song is set in a gallery of all the clichés of the American dream - the white picket fence, the perfectly sheared hedge and the man with his lawnmower. And there is the association of fast food consumption with being sane, which resembles a non-ironic mix of Monty Python's Appeal for Sanity with the New Seekers adverts for Coke.There is also an undercurrent in Shock Treatment about reality television. The population of Denton have given up their lives to become the permanent studio audience of this 24-hour TV station. Their entire existence is based around watching the lives of others, observing and obsessing over every last detail of relationships. The nature of the TV programmes such as Dentonvale reflect this voyeuristic desire; characters are committed to the asylum so that people can watch them go to pieces, all for the sake of entertainment.Sadly, all these interesting ideas end up getting lost as the film moves on. For all the subversive intelligence of O'Brien's ideas, his script and songs cannot convey them in a way which is meaningful, coherent or narratively sound. The result is a total mess which resembles channel surfing through a mixture of MTV and late-night game shows.The first and biggest problem with Shock Treatment is its story. In the case of Rocky Horror, the plot was assembled from different bits of B-movies and pushed forward by the songs: the familiarity of the references always gave you some idea of where it was going, or at least that it was going somewhere. Shock Treatment doesn't have those traditions to fall back on, and its existing plot is far too thin to stand on its own.Because the central story is so simple (Brad and Janet fall out, split and get back together), the film has to keep chucking different things into the mix to appear more sophisticated, until staying on top of it becomes as difficult as herding cats. There are too many characters on whom to focus, with both Rik Mayall and Nell Campbell being largely superfluous, and the rest are barely developed beyond suggestions of odd sexual preferences. In any case, the idea of real people being caught up in a lethal TV game show was handled better in The Running Man six years later.A related problem is that there is no strong central performance. In Rocky Horror, Tim Curry stole every scene that he was in, so that even if what was going on made no sense at all, there was a magnetism in the finished product which kept you interested. There is no such tent-pole in Shock Treatment: Cliff De Young is no Tim Curry, and he doesn't get enough screen time in either of his roles to build himself up. There is also no narrator who can come in to steer the ship: Charles Gray is shoved into the background and becomes a subplot with little bearing on events until the trite final revelation surrounding Brad and Farley.When The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 came out, Kim Newman wrote that it seemed to have been directed by someone who not only didn't make the first film, but who never actually saw it. And for all the good work that Jim Sharman did on Rocky Horror, there is a similar feeling with this film. Despite its deliberately tacky edges and madcap colour schemes, there is precious little of Rocky Horror's distinctive style remaining here. In fact, with all its 1980s fashion and emphasis on glamour, it begins to feel like a series of videos for The Human League or Michael Jackson.Then there are the musical numbers to worry about. The cast sing well enough, especially Jessica Harper in her musical debut. And there are one or two tracks which pass muster: the title track is catchy and 'Bitchin' In The Kitchen' is quite witty in combining marital frustration with household appliances. But the rest are just plain forgettable, with none of the syllable-stretching wit of O'Brien's earlier work. 'Little Black Dress' feels like an off-cut from Grease (and not in a good way), while 'Thank God I'm A Man' finds O'Brien ripping off Frank N. Furter's song from the first film.Worst of all, Shock Treatment is really quite dull. The cast clearly had a ball making it, but next to none of that fun rubs off on the people watching it. The story is too incoherent, the characters too uninvolvingly madcap, and after a while the deliberately plastic conversations between the presenters and audience becomes repetitive and tiresome. Even the prospect of Charles Gray singing and dancing - one of the highlights of the first film - isn't enough to rouse us: the sight of it just makes us wish that such an entertaining actor hadn't been so obviously wasted.Shock Treatment is a deeply disappointing misfire from Sharman and O'Brien. It was never going to match Rocky Horror on any level, and the creators deserve some credit for wanting to make something that could stand on its own and have something to say. But in the end all their efforts are in vain, with all that was magical and distinctive about Rocky Horror being mostly absent this time around. You won't need treatment after watching it, but to quote Rocky himself, it's a pretty big downer.

Rating:
Verdict: A disappointing misfire

The Rocky Horror Picture Show (USA, 1975)
Directed by Jim Sharman
Starring Tim Curry, Susan Sarandon, Barry Bostwick, Charles Gray

Film critics spend a sizable part of their careers trying to convince people to judge films on deeper grounds than whether or not they are fun. But every so often a film comes along which defies all their holier-than-thou criteria, a film which laughs in the face of criticism itself. The Rocky Horror Picture Show is one of these films, and seeing it as “just a bit of fun” is the only way to approach it.

If you go into Rocky Horror wanting to analyse deep-seated themes, or unpick the dialogue to reveal some ecstatic truth, you’ll sit through the whole thing either frustrated or bored and come out completely po-faced having not got the joke. If you go in looking to spot all the B-movie references, you’ll enjoy it a little more, although you will look every bit as geeky as Quentin Tarantino. The only way one can really experience Rocky Horror is to take the film’s advice and “give yourself over to absolute pleasure”: sit back, open your mind and let the Time Warp do the rest.Like all the best cult films, Rocky Horror commercially underperformed when first released. And in hindsight it’s not hard to see why. Much like its contemporaries (Night of the Living Dead, Pink Flamingos, El Topo and Eraserhead) it is very hard to sit through Rocky Horror in complete comfort the first time round. Part of this is intentional: several scenes are scary and the visuals are striking enough to send the uninitiated reeling. But equally there are things about Rocky Horror which (at least now) don’t quite hang together or work as well as one would want.

Richard O’Brien (who also stars as Riff Raff) conceived the stage show as a love letter to old sci-fi and horror B-movies; he described it as a means to relive childhood memories of Frankenstein and Nosferatu, and escape from the reality of being out of work. True to form, the opening song pays lip service to a host of old movies, from the original versions of Flash Gordon and The Day The Earth Stood Still to more campy fare like The Invisible Man and It Came From Outer Space.The film plays out like a jumble-sale of B-movie plots, restaged with maximum camp and more than a little affection. The creation of Rocky is a witty riff on Frankenstein; the monster remains largely mute and afraid of fire, but the master designs him as a source of pleasure rather than a means to make humans immortal. There are clear hints of King Kong in the final third, as Frank N. Furter wonders “Whatever happened to Fay Wray?” and Rocky dies from falling off the RKO Tower. The Hammer stable also runs right through Rocky Horror, solidified by the casting of Charles Gray in his most enjoyable performance since The Devil Rides Out.But by far the biggest influence on Rocky Horror is The Wizard of Oz, something which O’Brien readily acknowledges. The film was originally intended to be filmed in black-and-white up until Frank N. Furter’s entrance, to mimic Dorothy’s journey from Kansas. Moreover, the central story of Brad and Janet is one of innocent, pure individuals being whisked off against their will to a world they don’t understand – and like Dorothy, they have to deal with many great evils in their desperate bid to get back home.While it retains many aspects of the L. Frank Baum story, Rocky Horror subverts or departs from key elements in a way which reveals its deeper message (if it has such a thing). While Oz has a cop-out ending where everything returns to normal, the lives of Brad and Janet are shattered forever; there is no going back to their previous lives of whitewashed churches and pastel dresses. Likewise Dorothy retains her purity or innocence throughout, while both Brad and Janet give in to temptation and find that they enjoy it. The final song is a duet between the conflicting desires of Barry Bostwick’s ‘bleeding’ heart and Susan Sarandon’s promiscuity. One could almost liken the final scene to a sexualised restaging of the Fall, with Charles Gray looking on as a God who is criminally disappointed in his ‘insects’.

Rocky Horror has been hailed as many things in its lifetime, from a call for sexual liberation to some sort of Brechtian challenge to the role of an audience. Most of these accolades have an ounce of credibility but were not the intention of the filmmakers; no-one ever planned that audiences would start dressing up as the characters or talking back to the screen. Its sexual politics are incredibly liberal, with the message being one of accepting each other’s identities and preferences rather than encouraging the 1970s equivalent of ‘free love’. To suggest that Rocky Horror is a non-ironic advert for sexual promiscuity is to foolishly ignore the film’s more sophisticated side.If Rocky Horror were simply a vehicle to convince people to dress up in fishnets and give in to lust, far less effort would have been expelled on the dialogue and the characters. O’Brien’s script is witty and in-your-face, and Tim Curry chews his way through every line with relish and panache. The character of Frank N. Furter is much more complex and unpredictable than one might assume; he is not just a mad scientist posing as a drag queen, or indeed vice versa. Like the story he inhabits, he flits from one aspect to another – he is equal parts bawling child, narcissistic drama queen, sexual sadist and English gentleman, and it remains Tim Curry’s finest performance.

It’s very hard to pin down exactly what makes Rocky Horror such a hoot to watch. Some of it is the songs, which are brilliantly written with syllable-stretching humour. Some of it is in the action scenes, from Meatloaf riding indoors on his motorbike to Dr. Scott’s wheelchair becoming magnetised. But most of it comes from the knowledge that the film doesn’t really care what you think, and that the cast were having a ball – seeing Gray dance the Time Warp on a table is one of the best comedy moments of the decade.Inevitably, there are things about Rocky Horror which don’t work, at least not anymore. In the final third the songs become more medley-based and the plot steadily peters out. Although the ending itself is befitting, there is a lot of filler in the floor show before we get there. This may be intentional, since cabaret shows are not known for being speedy affairs. But there is a still a sense of the film dragging and getting caught up in its own indulgences, particularly in the lengthy dance sequences.

Because the plot is so much of a jumble, the film is incredibly uneven, with regard to the level of humour or horror on offer. Some scenes remain funny, others are scary, but others still seem incongruous or unnecessary. Janet’s encounter with the monster (‘Touch Me’) is toe-curling, and the increasingly campy tone can become tiresome. Because everything is so full on and over-the-top, there will always be some people who won’t put up with all the non sequitur. In its darker moments the film wobbles as the desire to laugh begins to falter, and no amount of singing is going to bring those people back.The Rocky Horror Picture Show is trashy cinema at its most enjoyable. The story may be silly beyond belief and the acting is intentionally hammy, but the music is great and the overall experience is enjoyable. The film has such alacrity, such a cheerful readiness to make you forget the outside world, that you can’t help falling in love with it just that tiny little bit. It isn’t by any stretch a masterpiece, or a particularly rounded work. But as a musical, cult film and watershed, its importance cannot be underestimated.

Rating: 3.5/5
Verdict: Triumphantly trashy