Shock Treatment (1981)

Shock Treatment: Directed by Jim Sharman. With Jessica Harper, Cliff De Young, Richard O’Brien, Patricia Quinn. Janet and Brad become contestants on a game show… but wind up as captives instead.

“As people have said, this film got a horribly bad rap, and made very little money. The reason, as people have also said, is that it was expected to be in the same vein as RHPS, which it simply was not. Sure, it had Richard Ou0026#39;Brienu0026#39;s trademark musical style and whimsy, but it wasnu0026#39;t the campy kitsch people were expecting. It was, in fact, an intellectual movie with a serious message, a brilliant satire of life in the late 20th century. Ou0026#39;Brien takes jabs at the hallmarks of the decline of modern Western civilisation; conformity, machismo, brainwashing, and the absurdity of the u0026quot;American Dreamu0026quot;.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe plot can be a little hard to discern on the first viewing, but, as with many great intellectual films, more nuances of what Ou0026#39;Brien is trying to say are picked up with each subsequent viewing. The film is certainly surreal, to say the least; and I would suspect psychedelics were somehow involved in the writing of the script. Denton, the picaresque happy U.S. everytown, is actually just a television studio; and all the residents are characters on television shows or are in the audience. Enter Brad and Janet, who, after experiencing the u0026quot;horrorsu0026quot; of RHPS, are having marital difficulties. This works perfectly into the plan of a mysterious fast food magnate, who intends to steal Janet away from her husband and use her to promote his business. He conspires to have Brad locked up in the local mental hospital/soap opera, while promoting Janet as a new bombshell sensation, and taking the whole town under his thumb.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eIn short, if youu0026#39;re looking for more of RHPS, you will be sorely disappointed. But if you want a thought-provoking yet whimsical, tongue-in-cheek attack on all that is mind-numbing and soul crushing in our modern world, definately check this film out. Jonathan Swift would be proud.”