The Rocky Horror Picture Show
and Shock Treatment

It's kind of hilarious and anachronistic to put a DVD in your player and hear that familiar, cheesy, Matrix-like electronic music accompanied by a voice asking, "Are you ready for Fox DVD?" But that's exactly what happened when I put disc 1 of this new 3-disc set in my DVD player. Of course, this was followed by a montage of clips from Fight Club, The Abyss, Big Momma's House, X-Men, Die Hard, and Independence Day, as well as further narration celebrating DVD novelties like "deleted scenes" and "DVD ROM." If you were a DVD fan back in 2000, you saw this intro every time you played a 2-disc release from Fox. This is also the period when Fox released the long out-of-print 2-disc special edition of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, which returns unchanged as part of this new 3-disc set with Shock Treatment, the Rocky Horror semi-sequel from 1981.

Full disclosure: I've never been much of a Rocky Horror fan -- in fact, it bugs the hell out of me -- but I've always been curious about the audience participation phenomenon associated with the film. For this reason, I was curious to finally check out the simulated Rocky Horror audience participation experience that first appeared on DVD six years ago. Unfortunately, audience participation exercises are a lot like video games: watching is dramatically less enjoyable than participating.

While (as a non-fan) I'm probably not the intended audience for this sort of thing, Susan Sarandon backs me up in a VH1 interview clip on disc 2 when she observes a "deterioration" in the Rocky Horror audience participation experience. She notes that, while there was a time when you could understand what was being said both onscreen and off, now it's an incoherent mess (and this goes double for the DVD). In fact, I had to turn off the audience participation track halfway through the movie because it was simply too maddening. I was getting a tension headache. It's like all the most obnoxious people you've ever met gathered in one room and decided to indulge all the annoying, repressed whims they've ever had. It's truly interminable and maybe the most irritating extra feature I've ever encountered.

But the audience participation features -- and the commentary by Richard O'Brien and Patricia Quinn -- have been available all along on the 1-disc edition of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. The real question is whether it's worth springing for the long out-of-print second disc. Believe it or not, the answer is a resounding "yes." The disc 2 features are far more engaging and entertaining than anything disc 1 has to offer (including the movie itself).

While we get a lengthy documentary, the real highlight is a series of VH1 features, including a Pop-Up Video segment on "Hot Patootie!" and some lively interview clips with the film's peculiar cast. Meatloaf's contribution takes the cake (or loaf), as he relays some of the most hilarious and impassioned anecdotes I've ever heard. The saga of how he finally found himself wearing a dress on stage after weeks of resistance is worth the price of the whole set.

But the real reason to buy this set isn't The Rocky Horror Picture Show, it's a film alternately described as a prequel, a sequel, and "an equal": Shock Treatment (it's also available as a stand-alone disc, but for a few extra bucks you can keep the whole set). Shock Treatment doesn't have a very distinguished reputation, but this is due largely to a disappointed Rocky Horror fanbase who wanted more-of-the-same, but were instead given a dark, troubling satire that went on to inspire (in my opinion, anyway) portions of David Byrne's True Stories and Federico Fellini's Ginger and Fred.

My personal history with this movie is a bit unusual. Years ago, I caught roughly thirty minutes from the middle of the film while channel-surfing and I was completely transfixed. Stunningly shot and designed, the movie was clearly up to something original and intricate with its movie-within-a-movie, TV-as-alternate-reality/insane asylum scenario. I was sure that, seen from beginning to end, this movie would reveal itself as some kind of forgotten masterpiece of the early '80s.

After renting the movie (on VHS!) and watching it from beginning to end, I changed my mind. Seen as a complete film, it's still pretty incoherent, but it's also way too cold, mean-spirited, and cartoonish for its own good. Still, it's a wildly original, visually stunning piece of filmmaking and, seeing it again on DVD after all these years, I found it a bit more palatable and even more visually impressive than I remembered.

While the Shock Treatment DVD isn't as dense or stacked as the 2-disc edition of Rocky Horror, it's a far more concise and to-the-point presentation (a good thing is this era of over-saturated, undisciplined DVDs). In addition to trailers, we get two featurettes -- that provide all the necessary context -- and a commentary by the presidents of the Shock Treatment fan club, Mad Man Mike and Bill Brennan. This is an engaging track, full of trivia and observations from a fan's perspective (which are in surprisingly short supply on most DVDs).

But rather than praise the film to high heaven, these guys make points like "this really isn't such a bad movie" (I'm paraphrasing). For fan club presidents, Mad Man and Brennan are oddly muted in their enthusiasm. You can tell they love the movie, but you can also tell they've encountered many people who most assuredly do not. It's not cool to like Shock Treatment -- even though it should be -- and these guys know it.

Dismissed by Rocky Horror fans for not being enough like their favorite grating, overrated schlock opera, Shock Treatment has also been dismissed by many Rocky Horror haters who refuse to sit through another campy musical by Jim Sharman and co-star, co-writer, composer Richard O'Brien. Personally, I suggest that anyone remotely interested in any of this, pick up this inexpensive 3-disc set and figure it out for themselves. It may not make you a fan, but it should answer any lingering questions you have about this wacky chapter in cult movie history. -- Jonathan Doyle