About the film
- Directed by
- Jim Sharman
- Released
- August 21, 1981
- US theatrical
- October 30, 1981
- Certification
- PG
- Country
- United Kingdom, United States of America
- Starring
- Jessica Harper, Cliff DeYoung, Richard O'Brien, Patricia Quinn, Charles Gray
More credits
- Language
- English, German, Latin
- Origin
- GB
- Studios
- 20th Century Fox, Lou Adler Productions, Michael White Productions
- Belongs to
- The Rocky Horror Picture Show Collection
- Written by
- Richard O'Brien, Jim Sharman
- Produced by
- Lou Adler, John Goldstone, Michael White
- Cinematography
- Mike Molloy
- Music
- Richard Hartley, Richard O'Brien, Phil Chapman
- Also starring
- Ruby Wax, Nell Campbell, Rik Mayall, Barry Humphries, Darlene Johnson
- Budget
- $3,500,000
Brad and Janet, the couple from Rocky Horror, live in a town that has been transformed into a giant TV studio. Brad is committed to a soap-opera mental hospital as a game-show prize. Janet is groomed into a manufactured pop star.
In 1980, the team behind the most successful midnight movie ever made set out to shoot its follow-up on location in small-town Texas. Then the Screen Actors Guild went on strike, and the production collapsed.
Rather than wait it out, the writer and director rewrote the whole film to take place inside a single television studio. The strike, Richard O'Brien later said, turned out to be a stroke of good luck.
SHOCK TREATMENT (1981), the almost-sequel to The Rocky Horror Picture Show, is a satire of reality television, two decades before Big Brother or The Truman Show.
20th Century Fox had no idea what to do with it. They dropped it into theaters already running Rocky Horror at midnight, hoping to clone the cult. It died.
A town that cannot tell its life from its programming. A population that volunteers for surveillance and calls it fame. The Rocky Horror follow-up got orphaned by its own studio, but turned out to have seen the future.
How to see Shock Treatment (1981)
Streaming
United States
No subscription, rental, or purchase options listed in United States right now.
Source: JustWatch
Physical media
More editions
Movies they don’t want you to see
Related movies only streaming in other territories
Movies we wrote about
167 commentsPhantom of the Paradise (1974)
156 commentsLocal Hero (1983)
5 commentsA Zed & Two Noughts (1985)
507 commentsWithnail & I (1987)
5 commentsThe Lair of the White Worm (1988)
36 commentsThe Devil Rides Out (1968)
Films scored for your taste
We have to talk…
Godzilla Minus Zero (2026)Not quite as good as the first, but the best monster mash Godzilla movie for sure.
Capturing Bigfoot (2026)Honestly one of the best documentaries I've seen. That sounds like hyperbole, but it was a…
Trouble Every Day (2001)TROUBLE EVERY DAY is definitely an outlier in its graphic extremity, but saying Denis was known…
The Social Reckoning (2026)A little preachy and sanctimonious - maybe. But I wonder if that's just the climate we're…
Doppelgänger (1969)One of the best!
Death Race 2000 (1975)Saw this first run at a local drive-in and loved it. Still do. Still love the…
Man Bites Dog (1992)Rented this vhs in college a couple times. Hilarious and a good way to practice your…
Pandora's Box (1929)Great movie! 🌻
Three Colors: Red (1994)I can’t believe it came out 32 years ago! The wonderful, talented cinematographer Piotr Sobociński also…
Moontrap (1989)Worth the watch
Velvet Goldmine (1998)Mark Sebastian Jordan Bowie also produced all of Transformer.
Zeta One (1969)Malcolm
I still have my original VHS!
Unfortunately the music just isn’t as catchy as RHPS.
Brian Gregory That little black mess.
I absolutely love this movie. First because the music is phenomenal. And second because of the cast. Fun characters, well played. And it’s ageless. I should know. I’m 70.
this guy…….
Richard O’Brien ahead of his time, predicting reality TV! I’ve always loved how the only people who escape are Brad, Janet, the Judge and Betty, and the punk band!
A great movie, so inventive. It’s not RHPS and shouldn’t be judged by that. Claustrophobic
The numbers were made for the MTV generation – just as MTV was starting out. If clips were run with regularity, the movie would have found its audience. That said, perhaps the biggest hurdle was managing audience expectation – Brad and Janet are archetypes, not real characters. RHPS fans never warmed to different actors in these roles. If the character names were different, no one would have cared.
Christopher Connelly Brad was the original Brad from the musical.
Karol Szymczuk That’s incorrect. Neither Barry Bostwick nor Cliff DeYoung appeared in The Rocky Horror Show on stage.
Shock Treatment > Rocky Horror
I like this movie
The music is great , I had the soundtrack on album . Now I have the movie on DVD
Shout out to Rik Mayal
Fans 👍🏼
The songs from this show are all phenomenal
It’s the better film
I liked it.
I actually saw this before RHPS as a young kid in the eighties. Secured my lifelong love for the movies
back when I was doing theatre I wanted to stage this (perfect really, the audience is an active part of the show) but never got a response from O’Brien on getting rights
Time’s tight, Janet.
This film does not get nearly the love it deserves. The thing is when it was released it predicted reality television before it was a thing. I enjoyed it all the more when I totally separated it from The Rocky Horror Picture show.