Have you ever had one of those days where a lot of things seem to happen all at once. Maybe some good, some bad but overall its just a rollercoaster of a workday that frustratingly forges images of a warm bed in your mind. Yesterday was one of those days; or at least the part where I worked at the theater. We had a live feed for a special presentation shut down on us, forcing us to give out readmit passes to pissed off old people, three other showtimes were cancelled for various reasons guaranteeing I got the brunt of customer complaints and to top it all off, I had a trainee in the box. All of this while the Governor of Michigan, Rick Snyder came in with his family to watch The Hunger Games (2012). That part was actually kind of cool. Granted I'm not a fan; in fact I signed the petition to recall him, but seeing him with his family while making small talk with some of the employees reminded me that even politicians are human. Less principled ones, but human nonetheless.Needless to say it was a mess of a day much like 1981's Rocky Horror Picture Show's (1975) quasi-sequel Shock Treatment (like how I did that there). For like my abhorrent workday, Shock Treatment has constant, insistent movement to it but ultimately means little and makes little sense. Also at one point in both instances I yelled "Oh God why?!"
I literally had to look the film up on Wikipedia to try to give a concise plot summary. Essentially its about the town of Denton which has been engulfed by a large television studio. Brad and Janet (Cliff De Young & Jessica Harper) supposedly the same characters from Rocky Horror, are forced to endure a cavalcade of bizarre musical numbers while trying to keep their troubled marriage from falling apart. This of course involves him being committed and her becoming a network star. Because nothing says "I love you" like a straight jacket and glitter.
Shock Treatment was recommended
to me by a friend from work who has an odd fetish with the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Admittedly I'm not a fan. The songs were catchy enough but the story was bizarre and just plodded along at a lackadaisical pace. At least imitators like Little Shop of Horrors (1986) had clear cut stories that weren't just an exercise in corset wearing awkwardness. In fairness, I watched it by myself my sophomore year of college so maybe I wasn't able to latch on to its zeitgeist like many of my friends did. Maybe before I judge it definitively I should go to one of those midnight screenings where people lip-synch, throw things at the screen and tape rubber dildos on willing participants.
If only Shock Treatment could be subjected to such...treatment. Aside from the actor playing Brad looking like Ben Folds, there is nothing that makes the couple stand out like Susan Sarandon and Barry Bostwick did. The main villain (also played by Cliff De Young) is blander than a bowl of oatmeal and the songs are right up there with him. It takes a special kind of apathy to start a song singing to a blender and other kitchen appliances. Additionally, you can tell the movie is trying oh so hard to make fun of consumer culture, but it misses its mark entirely like a four-year-old's first archery lesson.If anything positive came out of this
experience, Shock Treatment got me thinking about some of the other underrated musicals I have seen eons ago. Ones that actually make sense and are marginally entertaining like Everyone Says I Love You (1996), The Brave Little Toaster (1987) and Man of La Mancha (1972). Now those are a couple of forgotten gems people should seek out and cherish. Brave Little Toaster specifically celebrates the enigmatic appeal of old horror movies in a single two minute song much better than Rocky Horror did in an hour and forty minutes. Don't believe me, here's the link!
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