Review: Shock Treatment (1981)

Shock Treatment

Rating

Director

Jim Sharman

Screenplay

Richard O’Brien, Jim Sharman

Length

1h 34m

Starring

Jessica Harper, Cliff De Young, Richard O’Brien, Patricia Quinn, Charles Gray, Ruby Wax, Nell Campbell, Rik Mayall, Marry Humphries

MPAA Rating

Review

When revisiting a popular cult classic, deviating too far from the original in both theme and narrative isn’t the wisest movie. That didn’t stop Shock Treatment from getting made and hoping to thrive off the popularity of its originator, The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

At the beginning of Rocky Horror, Brad Majors and Janet Weiss (Barry Bostwick and Susan Sarandon) were married in the small town of Denton. The action of this film takes place there as well with Brad (Cliff DeYoung) being put into a mental institution on a ruse while his twin brother Farley Flavors (DeYoung in a dual role) tries to use Janet (Jessica Harper) to bolster his successful brand, which now controls the town of Denton. Denton has become a captive city on a reality show run by Farley to sell his various types of products.

Brad and Janet are the only main characters to return in this pseudo-sequel, though they are played by different actors. Whereas four of the original film’s main actors return for the sequel: Richard O’Brien, Patricia Quinn, Little Nell, and Charles Gray. Where they fit into the plot isn’t terribly important, the key players are DeYoung, Harper, and Barry Humphries. Humphries, is sadly, the only performer in the piece who deserves praise. The rest are mediocre at best, especially DeYoung who can’t make his twin siblings distinct enough from one another to make them feel genuinely like separate people.

Original film director Jim Sharman is back for the sequel with O’Brien co-writing the screenplay. The soundtrack has a lot of unimpressive work on it; songs like “Thank God I’m a Man” are even outright offensive. This is somewhat made up for by the better song “Little Black Dress.” That said, there are still quite a lot of songs worth listening to. The aforementioned “Dress,” along with “Bitchin’ in the Kitchen,” “Shock Treatment,” “Looking for Trade,” “In My Own Way,” and “Me of Me.”

In addition to the rather drastic downward vocal shift from Sarandon to Harper (one a high soprano, the other a low alto), the dynamics feel off. The original was a statement on sexual liberation. That is more tepid here with Janet’s personal liberation taking a back seat to the machinations of her “benefactor.” The support team surrounding her may uplift her at moments, but the story isn’t built sufficiently around her growth and the end result is a film where the narrative finds its way to the end through increasingly ludicrous turns, none of which live up to the spirit or the engagement factor of the original.

Although Shock Treatment isn’t an effective sequel, taken on its own terms, it’s just engaging enough to keep the audience involved through all its storylines. Its foreshadowing of the slavish and exploitative nature of reality TV and those who are caught both in front of and behind the camera when soulless corporations find their cheap productions making them gobs of money is both fascinating and prescient.