Movies - Shock Treatment

Home > Listing Index > Movies > Shock Treatment

	Movies - Shock Treatment

Shock Treatment was the less successful and critically panned follow-up to the classic cult film The Rocky Horror Picture Show
(RHPS). It was released in 1981, written by Richard O'Brien who had also written RHPS. The film features 16 songs by O'Brien, some of which were originally written for RHPS.

Shock Treatment features several of the cast members and characters of the original film, but appearing in different roles. Continuing from RHPS are the characters of Brad and Janet, originally played by Barry Bostwick and Susan Sarandon, now played by Cliff de Young and Jessica Harper. Richard O'Brien, Patricia Quinn and Nell Campbell, and Charles Gray return, but in new roles. O'Brien and Quinn play manipulative, brother-and-sister doctors. Campbell is a seductive nurse. Gray's character is a judge, and very close to his Narrator persona of RHPS. If the plot of the first film was widely considered abstract, here it is even more so. The script has been compared to the work of dramatist Paddy Chayevsky, who once said that, "Television is democracy at its ugliest."

The film takes place shortly after Brad and Janet are married and back in their hometown of Denton, which has been taken over by fast food magnate Farley Flavors. Flavors' DTV television station is the biggest thing in town, with every facet of the town's life mirrored by a TV program. Residents are either stars of a show or audience members. Brad and Janet's romance is on the rocks, so they go on the game show "Marriage Maze". As a prize, Brad is imprisoned on the show "Dentonvale", the local mental hospital, run by Cosmo and Nation McKinley. Janet is given a taste of show-biz as Farley Flavors (also played by de Young) molds her into his own superstar in an attempt to take her away from Brad. Betty Hapschatt, a minor character in RHPS, and Judge Oliver Wright try to help Brad and Janet by investigating Farley and other people involved in DTV, eventually discovering that Cosmo and Nation are not doctors, but merely character actors, and Farley Flavors is Brad's jealous, long-lost twin brother, raised on the wrong side of the tracks. Betty and Oliver help Brad break free, confront his nemesis, and get Janet back as the studio audience (and all of Denton?) commits themselves to the mind-control power of "Farley Flavors' Faith Factory".

Reactions

Some fans of the original film did not respond well to Shock Treatment, complaining that the two main characters were played by different actors who did not resemble the originals. The premise of the movie (the town as one large TV studio) was viewed as too absurd for some at the time, but audiences in 1998 more readily accepted this premise in The Truman Show
and Pleasantville. In the twenty-first century, the reality TV craze has made the film's premise far from absurd. Ironically, Shock Treatment was originally scripted to take place in realistic settings around the town of Denton, but a strike in Hollywood forced the production to move to the UK and film on a drastically reduced budget.

Trivia

Shock Treatment played a major role in a storyline for the popular webcomic Something Positive. During this storyline, Davan MacIntyre (the comic's protagonist) auditioned for a role in a stage production of it, and ended up the director. Unfortunately, despite the hard work he put into it, the production was canceled before its premiere due to the producer's failure to procure production rights.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Shock Treatment ]

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article Shock Treatment; it is used under the GNU Free Documentation License. You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the GFDL.

Movies - Shock Treatment

Reactions

Trivia

Searches on eBay

Related searches on eBay