shock treatment: gotcha jumping like a real live wire

I'll admit to a little apprehension about presenting Shock Treatment, the sort-of, kind-of sequel to The Rocky Horror Picture Show, to my cinema history class. I'll assume that anyone reading this is familiar with the background, since I wrote about it here.

While I love Shock, I was a bit wary as to whether the rest of the guys would. I already knew Ethan didn't like it. Joe and Dave both like a good story, and Shock Treatment crams five minutes of plot into an hour and a half movie. Scott, new to the class, is still a wild card. At least Keith told me that he liked it when he saw it -- 30 or so years ago. But it was the natural followup to Rocky Horror, and I had committed to it. So the show had to go on.

After Dave told us what celebrities died this week -- don't ask -- I started my intruductory remarks. The post I linked to above has a draft, so I'll not reproduce it here. I wasn't expecting to read or recite those remarks verbatim. Which is good, since I didn't. But I did hit all the major points I wanted to hit. And, along the way, We went off on a whole bunch of tangents, but it was a good, loose conversation.

The movie itself didn't go over particularly well. The weak plot, and the fact that it was hard to follow exactly what was happening really hurt it. T here was, however, near unanimity that the music was great. The exception was Ethan, who doesnt care for music.

Having said that, I think that the post-screening conversation was great. Joe did get in some digs that, when he's on his death bed he'll tell his wife of (by then) thirty years that the only time during their marriage that he regrets is the 90 minutes spent watching Shock Treatment. Dave gave the mpovie an eight -- surprising given his complaints that the movie was hard to follow -- on the strength of the music. Keith gave the film a spirited defense, noting how prescient it was in predicting reality TV and our culture of instant fame.

In some ways, I think that this choice made for a particularly interesting class and discussion. Dave's choice of Creature from the Black Lagoon was a strong one. Likewise Ethan's choice of The Horror of Dracula and Scott's The Exorcist. But Shock Treatment, by virtue of being a bit out of the mold for this class (which is centerred around horror, fantasy and science fiction) served to shake things up a bit. And it made for a more interesting discussion.

Since I posted the Shock Treatment trailer a couple weeks ago, this time I'll go with an online review.