Get Commited!

If you are a fan of the Rocky Horror Picture Show, or any cult movie, for that matter, this movie's worth a look. Cliff DeYoung and Jessica Harper star as Brad and Janet Majors (the hapless couple from RHPS), now unhappily married. They are contestants on the game show Marriage Maze, a sort of Newlyweds Game for people on the verge of divorce, hosted by Bert Schnick, a blind, abrasive German (Barry Humphries, in a hilarious pre-Dame Edna role). Brad ends up on Dentonvale, a reality TV show run by Doctors Cosmo and Nation McKinly (RHPS veterans Richard O'Brien and Patricia Quinn). As Brad is drugged and dragged off into the care of Nurse Ansalong (RHPS veteran Nell Campbell), Janet finds herself flung headfirst into the heart of the local TV studio,quickly becoming a local celebrity. And past that, you'll have to see the movie to find out what happens.

overlooked underrated masterpiece? yes!

Six years after "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" Richar O'Brian provides a sequal (yes, I said SEQUAL for all those Rocky fanatics who insist this "isn't a sequal" --that's like saying the number 3 doesn't follow the number 2 simply because you find the number 3 inferior to 2 for personal reasons, but now I sound like I'm slamming Rocky fanatics which I don't mean to because I do feel a certain kinship there) in his (O'Brian's) as yet unfinished trilogy (which puts one in mind of Dario Argento's unfinished "Mater" trilogy, the first film of which, coincidentally, featured Jessica Harper ["Suspiria"]).
This musical/rock opera was made in 1981, and 23 years later it is perhaps more relevent now than it was at it's creation. Crass talk shows where mentally, financially, and intellectually challenged people parade their problems for the world to see (sometimes scripted, sometimes all too real) as well as "sell your privacy and soul for 15 minutes of fame" reality tv shows continue to pop up every season despite having far outlived their initial coolness. But at the heart of it all is the fact that these reality tv shows, and daytime talk shows, are both "real" and "un-real" at the same time; sometimes scripted, sometimes acted, sometimes overplayed or exaggerated all for the benefit of the camera, we've gotten to a place in history where we no longer know what the truth is based on sight and sound. In the past, we had the firm unfaltering belief, true or false, that what you saw and heard could not be denied. But now, with digital manipulation of images good enough to fool experts, and motivation so subverted by the desire for fame, all our old beliefs have gone out the window.
And this, if you're still with me, is the heart and soul of SHOCK TREATMENT.
I can say O'brien was/is brilliant without hesitation. His ability to observe and record the slow percolation and inevitable rise of the "evil" subversion of reality television is Nostradamous-like.
ALL THIS AND CATCHY SONGS TOO!
We find our "heros" of "Rocky Horror," Brad and Janet Majors, now un-happily married, back in Dentonville on DTV (Dentonville Television) searching for a way to fix their troubled marriage. Brad is an ineffectual, over-emotional, weak husband while Janet is a strong, intellegent woman whose only real weakness is that she still desires to be loved by someone equal to herself, yet refuses to give up on the hoplessly inferior Brad based on loyalty and the belife that television will solve all her problems.
Her internal fantasy seems to be projected into reality within O'brien's deceptively complex plot (I mean deceptive in that critics seem to overlook his amazingly complex structure, espescially when comparing this film to the more commercially/cult successful "Rocky"). . .her fantasy is projected in the form of a more competent, in touch, cool, collected, effective, masculine version of Brad in the form of media mogul Farley Flavors.
Unfortunately, her ideal turns out to be just as flawed as her real Brad, only in a psychotic, stalker, serial killer kind of way.
O'brien, ever artistically and philosophically obsessed with sex vs. gender, sees Brad as split into two versions of himself, the inefective, weak "female" and the cold, brutal "male." Not that O'brien appears to percieve females, real females, as weak, on the contrary, Janet is perhaps the strongest most fully realised character/person in the film. I think it's more that O'brien is playing on the male/female "gender" roles society imposes than the real life "sex" of the individual.
I could go into detailed description of the rest of the plot and story, I could discuss each song, critique this film line by line and have a book of a Doctoral thesis on this film and it's current relativity. But I won't, hehe, perhaps more for the simple fact I don't have the time than that I fear I may bore (and this really isn't the place). Suffice it to say, this film is really amazing.
The MUSIC and LYRICS are not only catchy, but timeless and unique. The cinematography, with its cut between grainy television on television and normal cinemas tyle is cooler than cool. The acting is dead on deadpan happy smiles hiding deep internal torture on a level seldome achieved.
Jessica Harper (who was also amazing in another rock opera, Brian DePalma's "The Phantom Of The Paradise" which wasn't as famous as "Rocky," but is just as amazing) is amazingly gorgeous in all her elvin, big eyed, impossibly cute glory. Her strong deep velvety voice puts Karen Carpenter to shame!
Rent this movie, buy this movie, buy it new if you can find it, buy it used if you can't. Demand it be put out on (widescreen!) dvd! See it, live it, love it. "Rocky Horror" be damned this is a brilliant film (and I loved "Rocky!") and deserves the attention "part one" got!

Be Prepared...

...for one of the most confusing movies you will ever see. I personally got a little bit of detail out of this movie, but the rest of it was random singing and dancing. The funniest thing about this picture is in Richard O'Briens storytelling of live as a tv show. Many people whine and moan that it's nothing like the rocky horror picture show, let alone not a sequel, well guess what....THERE'S NOT GONNA BE A SEQUEL, FRANKS DEAD, OK!? (sobs...) Anyway, for those of you who want to hear of the movie in itself, Denton (Brad and Janet's hometown) is now a big tv studio. Each morning, studio audience members arise from their chairs to view the newest game shows. Brad and Janet (again, nothing like their other characters) are having problems. Seems brads an emotional reck, and after going on a new game show hosted by crazy blind man bert schnidt, Brad is soon committed to a tv show/psychiatric ward called Dentonvale. Richard O'Brien and Patricia quinn once again give stunning performances, this time as Cosmo and Nation McKinley (again into the idea of incest). Little Nell is in the movie as Nurse Ansalong, not too big of a role actually, just eye candy. Charles Gray however has a much more active role than in the R.H.P.S, and he sings too! I suppose the main plot is centered around Janet becoming famous to help brad, then forgetting about him completely and becoming too thrilled with being famous. I highly recommend this, not as being compared to the R.H.P.S (nothing compares with that) but rather as an open minded person who loves looking at weird stuff.