Chris Jordan reviews the other Richard O'Brien/Jim Sharman rock opera: the one you don't get to see midnight shows of... even though it deserves them.
The Rocky Horror Picture Show was
one of those lightning-in-a-bottle cult-cinema moments that can only
happen spontaneously and unexpectedly; the kind where just the right
weird movie comes out at just the right time in our pop-cultural
zeitgeist, and finds itself championed by an audience that no one
really expected to be there. You can't deliberately manufacture an
audience response like that – many movies have tried too hard, and
many movies have failed. That is why Fox's upcoming TV-movie remake
of Rocky Horror seems
like a questionable (if not outright bad) idea: actively trying to
recapture that once-in-a-career confluence of weirdo passion project
and audience enthusiasm seems nearly impossible. Just ask Rocky
Horror creators Richard O'Brien
and Jim Sharman. Six years after the unexpected runaway success of
their original film, they developed another rock opera, equally
eccentric, unique, and sharp in its social satire. They weren't
trying to recapture their previous film's magic – in fact, the new
movie was a deliberately very different experience, in both theme and
style. Still, it was from the same distinctive imaginations that had
so recently given viewers one of the most beloved cult classics of
all time; it would be reasonable to assume that their follow-up would
be greeted with equal excitement and passion. Yet it was not to be:
despite having the best cult cred imaginable, Shock
Treatment was a huge flop which
struggled for years with an unfairly maligned reputation. Why was it
so quickly rejected, when Rocky Horror
was so quickly embraced? Was it that it was too weird somehow? That
its music wasn't quite as easy to sing along to? That its characters
weren't as much fun to dress as? Or was the problem simply that it
wasn't Rocky Horror?
Fox unwisely marketed the film as more or less a sequel (which it
isn't, even though it initially seems like it could be); did the
movie itself diverge too much from audience expectations? Whatever
the reason, it took years for it to gain a moderate cult
following on home video, and it only very, very rarely receives the midnight screenings and shadowcasts that its predecessor still enjoys
today. It's a shame, because Shock Treatment
is quite a good movie in its own right; not quite Rocky
Horror good, but not far behind.
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| Shock Treatment: Max H-h-h-headroom approved! |
Once
again Richard O'Brien and Jim Sharman's script is driven by social
satire, but whereas Rocky Horror reveled
in sexual hangups and awakenings, Shock Treatment
is all about pop-cultural obsessions and consumerist dependencies. It
tells the story of a town that has literally been consumed by a
television station: the town exists inside the studio, and the
townspeople's lives, marriages, mental health troubles, and
everything else are captured by cameras as around-the-clock reality
TV that they themselves watch. The community is like a bizarre closed
loop of consumerism and tabloid celebrity, where they are so obsessed
with living into the ideal of American life that the media sells them
that they have actually become the product they are buying and
selling. Into this madness enter Brad and Janet Majors (Cliff De
Young and Suspiria's Jessica Harper, replacing Barry Bostwick and Susan
Sarandon), struggling to navigate both their own relationship and the
town's commercial unreality. The themes their journey takes us
through are not only pretty ambitious and high-concept, they are also
extremely ahead of their time. Shock Treatment
predicts the rise of reality-show culture by nearly two decades, and
features a premise remarkably like The Truman Show,
from 17 years later. This is a rare case of a social satire that has
arguably gotten more relevant and accurate with time, as things that
may have been over-the-top exaggerations in 1981 no longer seem so
far off. This alone makes it essential viewing, and makes a stronger
case for its cult-classic status now than ever.
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| Come on, you know you'd love to dress like this guy at a midnight screening. |
While
the story is told with the same sort of imagination and lunacy we
remember from Rocky Horror,
what is initially so surprising about Shock Treatment is
how very different it is, both in its visual style and its music. The
art design takes the concept of a town that exists on a sound-stage
and runs with it: all the sets are deliberately artificial, and exist
in a space that is clearly constructed, with no windows or natural
light, and skies that are clearly just walls painted blue. It gives
the whole thing an oddly postmodern feel, and puts us in the same
situation as Brad and Janet, not entirely knowing what is real. It is
a very unique art style, and it gives the film a strong personality
which sets it apart from O'Brien and Sharman's previous film. The
music also sets this film apart: while the Rocky Horror
soundtrack is loaded with
ear-grabbing rock songs that are instantly easy to sing along to,
Shock Treatment's
music is a bit more bound to its narrative context: not as geared
towards audience participation, not as easy to pull out of the movie
as rock singles, and more intended to propel the story and themes.
This is not intended as a criticism: they are still good songs (if a
bit uneven), they are just written with a different sensibility,
which means they occasionally may require a couple listens to get
into. This may, however, be one of the reasons why the film didn't
become a midnight hit like Rocky Horror:
Rocky's music is
ultimately more accessible on the first viewing/listen, and
admittedly a bit more consistently strong as a soundtrack album.
Shock Treatment does
still boast a few really catchy and memorable singles, though: the
excellent title track, the Richard O'Brien-fronted “Little Black
Dress,” and the very funny Brad/Janet duet “Bitchin' in the
Kitchen” are obvious standouts that probably would have been fan
favorites had the movie taken off as intended. O'Brien wrote some
excellent lyrics for the film, digging into the ridiculousness and
hypocrisy of American culture with sharp-toothed humor: “You'll
find happy hearts and smiling faces... and tolerance for the ethnic
races.”
O'Brien
also leads the excellent supporting cast in another scene-stealing
performance which is totally different from Riff-Raff, but just as
entertaining and mad. The bulk of the main supporting ensemble consists
of returning Rocky Horror
alums: Patricia Quinn (Magenta), Nell Campbell (Columbia), and
Charles Gray (The Criminologist) are all back, with Gray playing a
very similar character who often lapses back into the role of overly
serious narrator. Patricia Quinn is once again very memorable, giving
another mysterious performance comparable to her iconic Magenta, and
lending her voice to a bunch of the movie's songs, often in contrast
to Richard O'Brien's vocals. Nell Campbell, meanwhile, is paired in
the film with a young Rik Mayall in one of his earliest roles, a year
before The Young Ones.
The actor who steals the movie, however, is a newcomer to the cast:
Barry Humphries (best known for his comedy alter-ego Dame Edna) as a scenery-chewing German TV host who stirs up drama in the lives of the
townspeople/reality-TV-contestants with maniacal glee. Humphries'
Bert Schnick is easily the most entertaining part of the film, giving
even the excellent O'Brien a run for his money; he definitely
deserves a spot in the canon of iconic cult cinema characters.
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| "Whoa, what happened to the lights? I feel like I'm back in Suspiria." |
Of
course, the biggest question anyone ever has about the cast of Shock
Treatment is whether Cliff De
Young and Jessica Harper can fill the shoes of Barry Bostwick and
Susan Sarandon as Brad and Janet. And the answer is... they aren't
trying to. Wisely, they are not really playing the same characters at
all; archetypally they are very similar (Brad is geeky and
mild-mannered and has trouble expressing himself, Janet is
free-spirited and longs for more from life, in a way that isn't a
great match with Brad's phobia of the unusual), but beyond that, they
are totally different people. They make the roles their own, both in
terms of personality and very different vocal styles from their
predecessors. It is wisest to think of them as parallel-universe
versions of the characters in a completely new continuity, not
returning characters in a sequel. In a way, Brad and Janet are
archetypes of average middle-class suburban Americans, dealing with
the angst and ennui that so many such Americans go through in their
search for happiness in life. That they share the name and basic
characteristics of different characters from a different movie is
simply a function of their symbolic role of everyman and everywoman.
In that capacity, De Young and Harper are both great: De Young's
constant bewilderment as a fish out of water in this bizarre
un-reality is great to watch, and Harper has a fantastic, almost
jazzy voice which the music features very well. But all the same, if
you expect the same Brad and Janet you already know, you might be
disappointed. Go in knowing what the characters are really supposed
to be, however, and this version of the couple are great in their own
right.
This
is perhaps the biggest key to Shock Treatment's
lack of success: the presence of characters named Brad and Janet, and
Fox's marketing based around this fact, gives the impression that
this is really a sequel to Rocky Horror,
when it definitely is not. This set viewers up for a mismatch of
expectations and reality which left them badly disoriented. The
fault isn't with the film, but with the unfortunate situation of
audiences expecting something very different from what O'Brien and
Sharman were trying to give. This could have all been remedied by
simply naming its two main characters something else, but calling
them Brad and Janet serves an important enough thematic point that I
wouldn't want it any other way. The key to really enjoying the film
is to view it on its own terms, and not expect more Rocky;
trust Richard O'Brien and Jim Sharman, and be willing to go with
them, even if it's not in the direction you expect. Shock
Treatment isn't a perfect movie,
mind you: at times it is pretty scattered, and its many excellent
scenes don't necessarily add up to a cohesive narrative whole. But
let's be honest – Rocky Horror
has that exact same set of flaws, but we give it a pass because its
strengths are so easy to love. In both cases, the point of the film
is in its themes, its satire, its memorable characters, and its many
inspired moments and set-pieces; I don't think O'Brien is
particularly concerned with narrative coherence, because his
imagination is far too busy for such petty formal concerns.
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| Dammit, Janet... |
Whatever the reason
– poor marketing, mismatched audience expectations, or a level of
surreal satire that was too ahead of its time – Shock Treatment
has got to be one of the most unfairly maligned and overlooked films
in cult cinema history. That it is largely forgotten by the general
public while Rocky Horror still enjoys constant theatrical
screenings is as baffling as it is unjust; this film may not quite be
the masterpiece that its predecessor is, but it deserves way more
fandom than it has gotten. If anything, this is the film that
deserves a modern television update, not Rocky: while that
remake looks like it is bringing very little new to the table aside
from maybe one bit of inspired casting, Shock Treatment's
prophetic relevance would make for a fascinating revisitation, or
perhaps a new sequel altogether. But in both cases, no one else
(least of all a carefully-calculating major network) can possibly
hope to match the sheer originality and mad, playfully transgressive
imagination of Richard O'Brien and Jim Sharman. Rather than trying to
imitate them with inevitably inferior results, efforts would be
better spent trying to champion this hugely underrated film, and get
it a few midnight screenings of its own. Take O'Brien's diagnosis:
“you need a bit of... (oooooh) shock treatment!”
Score:
Score:
- Christopher S.
Jordan