A cult favourite, The Rocky Horror Picture Show follows the mis-adventures of newly engaged couple Brad Majors and Janet Weiss, as they're forced, after their car breaks down, to take shelter in the sinister house of Dr Frank-N-Furter.
Shock Treatment
( dir. Jim Sharman
)
United Kingdom (UK)
:
20th Century Fox
,
1981
Z1864425
1981
single work
film/TV
science fiction
A loose sequel to The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Shock Treatment revisits Brad Majors and Janet Weiss, now somewhat unhappily married. Caught up in the transformation of their town into a single enormous television studio (in which the town's residents act as a studio audience), Brad and Janet face their own personal weaknesses, the dissolution of their marriage, and an unexpected bid for revenge.
'When Richard O'Brien first brought the Rocky Horror Show to the stage in 1973, he thought it would play for three weeks, at most.'
'This article reframes an icon of twentieth-century cross-cultural folklore. It argues that the protagonist in The Rocky Horror (Picture) Show is both a hybrid of two types of comic entertainers and an example of the way the pantomime tradition travelled between England and Australia. By clarifying what original Rockydirector, the Australian Jim Sharman, likes to call his “colourful past”, and by exploring his many reflections on popular culture, this article maps out his relationship to the aesthetics of the circus world and to clowning in order to understand their echoes in Rocky Horror. Sharman’s numerous references to Australian popular culture unveil a circus-struck theatrical ethos. They also convey that Dr Franknfurter, the Transylvanian scientist protagonist in the musical and film, is funny because he is so much a clown. In fact, this sweet transvestite extraterrestre draws on qualities of two quintessential comic favourites of the circus world: violent clowns and panto dames. The Franknfurter character is thus related to both: the axe-wielding cannibalesque antics of comic madcaps from the (sawdust) stage and the Australian comedians and dame role performers Bobby le Brun and Barry Humphries. Frankie is a blend of particular clown traditions as well as their dashing actualisation.' (Publication abstract)
'This article reframes an icon of twentieth-century cross-cultural folklore. It argues that the protagonist in The Rocky Horror (Picture) Show is both a hybrid of two types of comic entertainers and an example of the way the pantomime tradition travelled between England and Australia. By clarifying what original Rockydirector, the Australian Jim Sharman, likes to call his “colourful past”, and by exploring his many reflections on popular culture, this article maps out his relationship to the aesthetics of the circus world and to clowning in order to understand their echoes in Rocky Horror. Sharman’s numerous references to Australian popular culture unveil a circus-struck theatrical ethos. They also convey that Dr Franknfurter, the Transylvanian scientist protagonist in the musical and film, is funny because he is so much a clown. In fact, this sweet transvestite extraterrestre draws on qualities of two quintessential comic favourites of the circus world: violent clowns and panto dames. The Franknfurter character is thus related to both: the axe-wielding cannibalesque antics of comic madcaps from the (sawdust) stage and the Australian comedians and dame role performers Bobby le Brun and Barry Humphries. Frankie is a blend of particular clown traditions as well as their dashing actualisation.' (Publication abstract)
'When Richard O'Brien first brought the Rocky Horror Show to the stage in 1973, he thought it would play for three weeks, at most.'
