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As a child of six and seven in New Jersey, I remember seeing the poster for Rocky Horror out in the featured display window at the mall multiplex. This confused me to no end (“it’s always here, but only on the weekends at midnight?”) and as I recall, frightened me a little. The black and white poster with the movie title rendered in mock Gothic font and drenched in blood red hues seemed part of something not only adult but alien as well. To this day, I am not sure if I ever really allowed myself to gaze too long or closely at the poster as I hustled on in to see Metalstorm: The Destruction of Jared-Syn, Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone (in 3D!) or some other 1983 post-apocalyptic vision of the moment, or if I refrained, for fear that doing so would be akin to taking a bite of the Biblical apple.

I watched the film for the first time in 1990 upon its 15th anniversary/official VHS debut edition. I finally summoned up the oh-so-considerable cajones 15 years after that, just shy of my 30th birthday, to cast off my virgin shackles at last. I wore a good and slutty outfit (ripped black SLAVE shirt from the local leather and accessories shop), Nair’ed all my chest hair off and remarkably, didn’t get all that abused as we virgins were paraded on stage. It was a proud moment, although I do understand, since it has been five years out from that singular moment, that my virgin status has been reactivated.

I don’t have much in the way to say about Rocky Horror that hasn’t been said already. It’s been around just slightly longer than I have, so I have never known a world without Tim Curry’s naughty wink and sexy, sexy strut. The one thing that I noticed early on in viewing the film and that stays true for me today is how melancholic and sad it actually is. Beginning with the wistful, nostalgic Science Fiction/Double Feature (which, I must note, I have karaoked to great reception) pushing on through to the introspective rocker Rose Tint My World and Frank N’ Furter’s torch ballad I’m Going Home, and ending with Brad, Janet, and Dr. Scott liberated but abandoned, crooning Super Heroes as they blindly crawl through the dirt and muck, it’s easy to see a much darker film on display than the surface satire of B-movie clichés and goody-goody archetypes.

“From the creators of The Rocky Horror Picture Show” is how Shock Treatment was advertised when it was released in the fall of 1981. The onscreen credits identify it as a “Lou Adler/Michael White Production of a new musical by Richard O’Brien.” Both statements serve the usual purpose of such marketing maxims: to attest to a level of quality that will carry over from a previous known quantity and to invoke a past success in an almost totemic attempt to summon forth lightning to strike twice.

Shock Treatment isn’t explicitly a sequel but features much of the supporting cast of Rocky Horror in new roles (with one exception), the returning characters of Brad and Janet (played by different actors), the same small-town setting (Denton, U.S.A, although for reasons discussed below, all filming took place on a soundstage) and a returning writing/producing/directing/composing team. A pointedly satirical viewpoint is once again articulated. Brad and Janet are married so it makes sense that Shock Treatment must take place after Rocky Horror but no mention of that film’s events is ever broached.

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