Why Shock Treat­ment is an ​“equal” to The Rocky Hor­ror Pic­ture Show

It’s a few years since Brad Majors and Janet Weiss escaped the leather-clad clutch­es of Dr Frank-N-Furter and his fren­e­mies. Back in their native Den­ton, USA – the so-called ​“home of hap­pi­ness” – their mar­riage has hit the skids. While attend­ing a live tap­ing at their local TV sta­tion, they become embroiled in a series of inter­re­lat­ed game shows. This plays out in front of ever-present towns­peo­ple, who soak up the C‑list exploits ²⁴⁄₇.

So goes the plot of Shock Treat­ment, the maligned sequel to cult sta­ple The Rocky Hor­ror Pic­ture Show. Before its the­atri­cal release, the cre­ator, com­pos­er and star Richard O’Brien said, ​“It’s not a sequel, it’s not a pre­quel, it’s an equal.” Audi­ences and crit­ics disagreed. 

Like its old­er sib­ling, it was direct­ed by Jim Shar­man, pro­duced by Lou Adler and Michael White, and fea­tured sev­er­al of the same key cast mem­bers. Just like Rocky Hor­ror, it was a box office flop – one that O’Brien went so far as to call ​“an abor­tion”. The musi­cal black com­e­dy was foist­ed upon the mid­night cir­cuit in 1981. Though it cel­e­brates its 35th anniver­sary this Hal­loween, it remains most­ly obscure. Would Shock Treat­ment be remem­bered were it not posi­tioned in the stilet­toed shad­ow of its big sis?

Pro­duced at the height of Rocky Horror’s cult fren­zy, it failed to gar­ner the tit­il­lat­ing ubiq­ui­ty of its fore­bear. A healthy dose of ​‘east­er eggs’ couldn’t con­vert even Rocky Horror’s most devot­ed dis­ci­ples, who were deterred by the con­spic­u­ous absence of core cast mem­bers Tim Cur­ry, Susan Saran­don and Bar­ry Bost­wick, among others. 

Cult films are like Domino’s piz­zas. You can’t scrimp on ingre­di­ents, deliv­er at mid­night and expect every­one to love it. But when either comes with extra cheese, it’s def­i­nite­ly a plus. With its synth-heavy sound­track, sat­u­rat­ed neon palette and ham­my per­for­mances, Shocky’s cer­tain­ly not as gou­da cult movies can get. But for all its flaws, the film deserves recog­ni­tion at least for its pre­scient pre­dic­tion of real­i­ty TV and the com­ing devo­tion to the cult of celebrity.

Sure, the premise seems absurd. Fast food tycoon Far­ley Fla­vors (one of two char­ac­ters played by Cliff De Young) owns a tele­vi­sion sta­tion, which is seem­ing­ly home to the town’s entire pop­u­la­tion. Plucked from the crowd, Brad (De Young again) and Janet (Suspiria’s Jes­si­ca Harp­er) try their hand at the Mar­riage Maze game. They soon find them­selves com­mit­ted and seduced, respec­tive­ly, by the kooky cohorts who run the joint. Among them are O’Brien, Patri­cia Quinn and Nell Camp­bell, play­ing new wave exports of their Rocky Hor­ror foils, and pro­vid­ing famil­iar faces to the core audience.

They’re joined by such inex­plic­a­ble new cast­ing choic­es as Ruby Wax (tak­ing over minor Rocky Hor­ror role Bet­ty Hap­schatt), Bar­ry Humphries (arbi­trar­i­ly Aus­tri­an game show host Bert Schnick) and baby-faced Rik May­all in one of his first roles (‘Rest Home’ Ricky, an order­ly at the station’s on-site men­tal health ward).

A car­ni­va­lesque crowd (strewn with for­mer Tran­syl­va­ni­ans) watch­es in real time as the soap oper­at­ic nar­ra­tive unfurls over 36 hours, ad break inclu­sive. Brad is seen bound, gagged and locked away on the Den­ton­va­le set, while Janet flaunts her new­found sex­u­al­i­ty on the break­fast show. When Janet refus­es to sell her hus­band out in exchange for small­town star­dom (rem­i­nis­cent of her role in Phan­tom of the Par­adise – Rocky Horror’s glam rock god­moth­er), the cast, crew and crowd spurn the cou­ple, just as real world audi­ences would with Shock Treat­ment itself. 

Crit­i­cised for its con­vo­lut­ed plot – the result of exces­sive redraft­ing – per­haps Shock Treat­ment was mis­un­der­stood because it arrived dread­ful­ly ahead of its time. O’Brien depicts real­i­ty TV, and society’s inter­est in the sex lives of strangers, twen­ty-plus years pri­or to The Bachelor’s pre­mière. Denton’s addict­ed mass­es crave con­tent around the clock, and they’re whol­ly invest­ed in the shows they watch, almost three decades before Net­flix began stream­ing. Shock Treat­ment shows how adver­tis­ing and spon­sor­ship influ­ence pro­duc­tion, and even explores the link between media and men­tal health – one of today’s most per­ti­nent West­ern concerns. 

With the 2016 remake of The Rocky Hor­ror Pic­ture Show comes a tidal wave of pop pro­pri­etary scorn, decry­ing this cin­e­mat­ic era of remakes, reboots, pre­quels, sequels and spin-offs. (Re)visit Shock Treat­ment for a filmic fol­low-up that was satir­i­cal, psy­chic and tru­ly inventive.