Ah, "Shock Treatment"-- a witty, campy, colorful movie bursting with cheeky innuendo and amazing songs (one line from "Duel Duet": "You're a dead-end, deadbeat, nowhere mister with a kisser like a Mississippi alligator's sister").

First of all, you have to approach "Shock Treatment" as a sequel to "The Rocky Horror Picture Show." While it doesn't contain the same level of raunchy cheese (or the aliens, or the transvestites, or the sex gags... mostly),it follows the married life of Brad and Janet Majors... who are now on the rocks (no pun intended) after years of marital boredom. This is because Brad is the only person in the town of Denton who doesn't jump for joy watching the town's mind-numbing TV station, which is ruled by a greedy corporate sleaze master with an old connection to Brad and Janet.

So eventually, a phony TV host (Barry Humphries, aka Dame Edna) and his quack-psych-doctor cohorts (Richard O'Brien and Patricia Quinn, who played Riff Raff and Magenta in RHPS) take Brad a hostage in their psychiatric facility/soap opera set so that station sponsor Farley Flavors can turn Janet into the next big DTV star.

A few cast members return in different roles (Charles Gray, Nell Campbell, and some of the Transylvanians, for example),with Jeremy Newson coming back as Ralph Hapschatt. Generally, people dislike this movie, but I love it. And you know why? It's rock and roll. It's obscure. And it's just too much of a riot to pass up.

No matter how hard one tries to judge Shock Treatment on its own merits, comparisons to The Rocky Horror Picture Show are inevitable, and it doesn't hold up at all well against that titan of cult musicals. While Shock treatment's songs are suitably catchy (although frequently frustratingly brief),the rest of the film is a hugely disappointing mess, with a muddled plot -- the result of numerous rewrites -- that lacks the sense of sheer abandonment and fun of its predecessor.

Jessica Harper, so great in The Phantom of the Paradise, replaces Susan Sarandon as Janet, and does admirably, her singing voice once again on top form; sadly, Cliff De Young isn't as impressive, making for a remarkably bland Brad Majors (it doesn't help that De Young also plays the villain of the piece, TV mogul Farley Flavors, with equally lacklustre results). Rocky Horror performers Richard O'Brien, Patricia Quinn, 'Little Nell' Campbell (looking very sexy!) and Charles Gray return, albeit as different characters, and the cast is rounded out by Ruby Wax, Barry Humphries and Rik Mayall. A cracking line-up, but let down by the scrappy script.

Written by O'Brien and director Jim Sharman, Shock Treatment is admittedly ahead of its time in the depiction of fame as a drug, where ordinary everyday folk are willingly to be turned into TV stars and subsequently manipulated by the media, but while the story might be prescient, it simply isn't that engaging, and with all of those revisions, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense either. Some moments feel wholly out of place, while others feel like desperate clones of far better scenes in Rocky Horror.

Visually, the film is interesting, Sharman imbuing proceedings with a garish cartoon-like aesthetic, his colourful song and dance numbers being the highlights. 'Lullaby', in particular, is superbly handled, with a single shot tracking between characters in different rooms as they prepare for bed; sadly, like a lot of the film's best songs, it is woefully short.

Shock Treatment will, of course, be of interest to fans of everything Rocky Horror, and some may consider the mere fact that it comes from the same creative team enough to warrant their devotion (rose tint the film),but the cold hard truth is that there is a very good reason why this one hasn't garnered the same cult following: it simply isn't very good.

While I am a big fan of the original "The Rocky Horror Picture Show", then it is sort of odd that it has taken me so long to actually getting around to watching "Shock Treatment".

This sequel to the immensely popular "Rocky Horror Picture Show" is much less known. and it wasn't before 2017 that I actually had the chance to watch it. So was it worth the wait?

Hardly so! The story is nowhere near in comparison to the predecessor. And it was really odd to see Richard O'Brien, Patricia Quinn, Charles Gray and Nell Campbell return to the movie but in different roles than in "Rocky Horror Picture Show". That just didn't really work for me. The roles of Brad and Janet were now played by someone else entirely, which just was a slap to the face.

It should be said that the cast was good, and I was surprised to see Rik Mayall here.

There were a few good songs here and there, but they are not classics like the tunes from "The Rocky Horror Picture Show".

"Shock Treatment" was adequate enough if you haven't seen "The Rocky Horror Picture Show", but since most of us have, then "Shock Treatment" turned out to be a mediocre experience.