One of
the most iconic and beloved pieces of Halloween-season viewing ever
made, 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. This is why Fox's TV-movie remake of Rocky
Horror from last year was such a
terrible idea (in addition to just generally not being very good):
actively trying to recapture that once-in-a-career confluence of
weirdo passion project and audience enthusiasm is 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 the film to gain a moderate cult following on home video, and it
hasn't received nearly the amount of 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.
Arrow Video's UK branch has recently released a long-overdue special
edition of the film which finally treats it with the cult reverence
it deserves: hopefully this will bring some new attention to the
film, and perhaps make a case for a much-needed reevaluation.
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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 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 cast 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
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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| "He just watched the Rocky Horror remake by mistake - I'm afraid there's nothing I can do for him..." |
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 people up for a mismatch of
expectations and reality which left viewers 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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| "Whoa, what happened to the lights? I feel like I'm back in Suspiria." |
Whatever the reason
– poor marketing, mismatched audience expectations, or a level of
surreal satire that was way 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
deserved a modern television update, not Rocky: while that
remake brought almost nothing new or worthwhile to the table, 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)
could 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.
Which is where,
fortunately for the film and for us, Arrow Video has stepped in. The
new Arrow blu-ray of Shock Treatment comes in their line of
Criterion-esque limited editions, featuring excellent box-set
packaging (in two variants – one with O'Brien's Cosmo McKinley and
Janet, the other with Quinn's Nation McKinley and Bert Schnick) to
house their new 2K restoration of the film, and a healthy load of
extras. Granted, in this case the extras aren't as exhaustive as
those found on some of the other recent Arrow limited editions: in
particular, the lack of a new long-form documentary about the film's
production is disappointing, as is a notable lack of involvement by
Richard O'Brien himself. But the extras that are here are still quite
impressive. New for the disc is a commentary by Patricia Quinn and
Nell Campbell, and a filmed conversation between Quinn and film
critic/scholar Mark Kerode. The disc also ports over the two
featurettes and the commentary from the previous 25th
Anniversary Edition DVD, and unearths a vintage introduction to the
film by O'Brien, and a nearly half-hour TV documentary about the
film's production from the time of its theatrical release. Rounding
out the extras on the main disc are some fan featurettes and cover
performances, engaging with the audience participation that has
always been Rocky Horror's defining characteristic. The box
set also includes a CD of the film's soundtrack, a booklet with an
essay on the film, a double-sided fold-out poster, and paper dolls of
the characters. While a longer documentary about this fascinating
film and its legacy would have been appreciated, and it would have
been great to hear O'Brien look back on his lesser-known movie, it is
a very impressive upgrade for a film that has never gotten anywhere
close to this level of respect in a release before.
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| Dammit, Janet... |
Score:
- Christopher S.
Jordan
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