THE REAGAN HORROR PICTURE SHOW: Shock Treatment. This is “the other Richard O’Brien movie,” basically: a quasi-sequel to The Rocky Horror Picture Show. And if you’re thinking there’s a reason lightning didn’t strike twice, you’re right–but Shock Treatment is still immensely, totally fun, and you guys should see it! I loved it.

It opens with a fairly tame satire of feel-good television and local boosterism, at the Denton (Home of Happiness) TV station. Even at the start, three of the most notable aspects of the movie are in place: The tunes are incredibly catchy (I have “Denton, Denton U.S.A.!” ringing in my head right now…), the style is ’80s rather than ’70s (it’s incredibly fun to hear O’Brien tackle the first hints of MTV pop and New Wave), and the satire is much broader and more open than in RHPS. Rocky Horror isn’t fundamentally satirical; Shock Treatment is. I’m guessing that’s one reason the much more protean RHPS is the one that became a cult hit. You would definitely not find lyrics about Denton’s “tolerance for/the ethnic races” in Rocky. Similarly, there’s a later, really fun song, which ends with the lines, “Faggots/are maggots!/Thank God I’m a man,” which: too broad for Rocky by a country mile.

Its themes are almost eerily ’80s in their specificity: marital breakdown (Brad and Janet are in trouble, and the shock treatment of the title is intended to make Brad a better husband), anxieties of masculinity, and the nexus of consumerism and televangelism. This is a much more bourgeois movie than Rocky. (And, sadly, much less gay.) It’s less sexy, too, with the exception of a brief, fondly perverse interlude between O’Brien’s character (not Riffraff) and Patricia Quinn’s (not Magenta).

Random note: Susan Sarandon was replaced by Jessica Harper as Janet. This works not only because Harper is good enough to handle the fairly blank role, but also because her voice is much darker and huskier than Sarandon’s, which is a fun, unexpected interpretation of Janet’s changed personality after marriage. She’s certainly not an iconic actress like Sarandon; but she doesn’t have to be.