10 Horror Musicals You Need To See

10. Shock Treatment

Scripted by Richard O’Brien and directed by Jim Sharman, Shock Treatment is the belated sequel to The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and let’s get this out of the way first: it is not of the same quality.

Nobody could make two pictures like Rocky Horror, but O'Brien gives it a shot with a spirited story about Brad and Janet (played here by Cliff De Young and Jessica Harper) appearing on a sinister gameshow hosted by the improbably named Bert Schnick, a role Barry Humphries embraces with his trademark flamboyance.

Also among the supporting cast are O’Brien, Rik Mayall, Ruby Wax and, encoring from Rocky Horror (although playing different characters), Patricia Quin, Little Nell and Charles Gray. If Rocky Horror was a fringe movie that entered the mainstream, then Shock Treatment is the exact opposite, a studio picture that failed to find widespread acceptance and is remembered mostly as a curio.

It's worth embracing, though, because in an age where satire is all but extinct in mainstream movies, Shock Treatment is all attitude and anarchic spirit.