100 000 volts de terreur

The stage curtains open ...

I was 21 years old when this movie was released in 1989, which is the perfect age to watch it at for the first time. I was naive enough to suspend disbelief and old enough for its gory and violent scenes. Perfect age. "Shocker", directed by Wes Craven, is simply put, a chaotic, full-throttle, horror/action movie - filmed with reckless abandon, heavy metal music, and with the heart of an adolescent. This is one crazy, busy film - and I loved every second of it!

The opening frames has Wes Craven written all over them. The similarities between this movie's opening frames and the original Elm Street's opening frames are remarkable. In fact, the dream sequences and the vibes from Wes Craven's earlier works, scream his presence in this movie. We follow the harrowing events of Jonathan Parker as he tracks down a serial killer named Horace Pinker, with whom he seems to share some sort of telepathic bond to. With everyone around him affected and impacted, Jonathan must be willing to put aside everything he knows is real and enter into Pinker's electrifying, nightmarish world.

This movie is so OUT there, and is so absurd, that one can really only love it for two reasons: sheer entertainment, or sentimental value. For me, it's both. Our villain, Pinker, has a bad knee, therefore, he half-limps and half-drags his left leg wherever he goes. As he jumps from body to body, apparently they inherit his physical properties too, because they all have that same limp. We also witness Pinker making a deal with what looks to be a pagan electricity god, I guess, just before his date with the electric chair - enabling him to jump in and out of electrical appliances as well. See what I mean? Complete chaos.

My favorite scene, and the one that really made it for me, was in the park when Pinker is jumping from body to body and he controls the body of a little girl, and she just turns nasty mean. I loved it. I give this movie a recommend at 7 stars out of 10. It isn't Craven's best work, nowhere near it actually, but what a fun ride! If you haven't seen it yet, then you are in for a shocking experience. (Sorry, I couldn't resist).

Wes Craven certainly had an interesting career in the 80s. A Nightmare on Elm Street solidified the man as a master of horror. But the series went in directions he didn't want it to, so he left it. Sadly his other 80s films were usually pretty messy, and were often subjected to studio meddling. With Shocker, not only was Craven given full control, but he had the chance to outdo the now legendary Freddy Kruger...

...whoops!

The plot of Shocker is fairly similar to Renny Harlin's Prison and Jim Isaacs' House 3. A killer is put to the chair, thanks to a teenager with a psychic connection to him. A deal with the devil and over 1000 volts later, the killer is back in the form of pure electricity. Now he is after the kid responsible for his execution. No more Mr Niceguy!

Its a fun idea for sure, and it is present with its tongue firmly in its cheek. The characters and their relationships are pretty good. The actors all do what they need to to make the material work. Peter Berg makes for a very likable hero. Mitch Pileggi steals the show as the delightfully vile killer Horace Pinker, one who genuinely 'might' have rivalled Freddy if given the chance. And the soundtrack to this rocks!

Unfortunately what let's this film down is how disjointed it is. It feels like 3 films in one. The first half of it is pretty solid, classic Craven through and through. The horror and humour are perfectly balanced and the atmosphere is great. Once Pinker is killed and comes back, we go even sillier. This quarter of the film isn't as good, but is great for a laugh. Not really what you want from a horror film, but fun is fun.

It is the films ending, it's final quarter, that flushes it down the toilet. Reality and atmosphere are completely abandoned. The film becomes an unfunny cartoon (Pileggis performance not included). This is not helped by the truly terrible special effects. I don't know why, even as a concept, Craven thought that this was a good way to end the film.

In the end I do like Shocker, though it was a close call. The first half, and even the little time after it, are too good and fun for me to write it off. The same goes for the acting, music and overall directing of the film. It's such a shame about that ending. So, Elm Street it is not (don't make me laugh, though it is better than some if the sequels). But a bit of fun, Shocker is.

This is better than expected. Wes Craven tries to create another boogeyman in the character of Horace Pinker. Pinker is a serial killer who studies voodoo and kills entire families in their sleep. A young college football player named Jon (Peter Berg) develops a psychic link with Pinker. Jon begins an attempt to help the police catch the crazed killer. The first half of the film is realistic and intense, but the second half is based in the supernatural. Pinker gets the electric chair but becomes an evil entity that can transfer from body to body (mush like "Fallen" with Denzel Washington) and move through electricity. Once again Jon must use his link to stop the killer. Or is the killer to powerful to be stopped? There is some surprising gore and a pretty nifty plot twist. It's fun to watch a young Peter Berg in an earlier role but the film tend to drag a little. This film came near the end of the slasher craze and Craven was trying to cash in on it one more time. Craven was trying to make a point about televisions and the media, it was evident in the film. Overall, it was a solid and better than average slasher flick with a supernatural killer.

Shocker is one of my favorite serial killer movies. At first glance it might look like a standard hack and slash movie though it has some of those elements, it isn't. There is some originality to this movie and the characters aren't your run of the mill dumb high school students. Oh, they're in high school, they're just not dumb. The "Shocker" played well by Mitch Pileggi of X-Files fame is a lot better than Freddie Kreuger or Jason Vorhees. He has a reason for killing that I won't give away. Not all of the students are killed if you can believe it and the ones that make it deserve to. There is a very good scene involving the killer and hero as they fight across multiple TV channels that I've never seen done before this movie. There is comedy in this movie but not much. It is not a "scary" horror movie. It is more of an action move that is done well. Catch it or rent it if you can.

Rayvyn

Wes Cravens' "Shocker" is often one of the more derided in the directors' career, but in this own reviewers' humble opinion, it still manages to be pretty entertaining, even as it gets awfully silly and keeps wavering between a serious, sombre tone and an insane, over the top one. It doesn't help that it's too obvious that Craven was trying to create another Freddy Krueger in the form of raving maniac Horace Pinker, a savage psychopath played to foaming-at-the-mouth perfection by Mitch Pileggi, eventually to become better known for playing Skinner on 'The X-Files'.

Pinker's on the loose, slaughtering whole families, but opposing him is college football star Jonathan Parker (a remarkably sincere Peter Berg), a nice guy who was raised by a police lieutenant (Michael Murphy). Jonathan and Horace, who are connected in a way that the younger man doesn't anticipate, are also psychically linked, and Jonathan is able to give the cops his name and place of business and before too long the killer is caught and executed.

But the story doesn't end there, as Pinker, in league with Satan, "survives" the electric chair and lives on to overtake various unlucky people and control their bodies, including, in the movies' most memorable sequence, a little girl. How can one hold in their laughter watching this blonde haired moppet curse like a sailor, and try to operate a bulldozer?

Ultimately, the movie is a little too absurd for its own good, but damn if it doesn't have some good atmosphere, show off some amusing ideas, and go overboard on the bloodshed. One particular murder scene is just drenched in the red stuff. One of the methods used to combat Horace is pure corn, involving Jonathans' love for girlfriend Alison (Camille Cooper) and an all-important locket. The best stuff is the wonderfully ridiculous climax in which a rampaging Horace and Jonathan run amok through TV programming (they end up in an episode of 'Leave it to Beaver' where Jonathan pleads for the Beavers' help). This does show some invention, and the special effects are effectively cheesy. (One has to love the "You got it, baby!" moment.)

The cast is extremely game throughout this thing; also popping up are Ted Raimi as an assistant coach, Vincent Guastaferro ("Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI") as a victimized cop, Heather Langenkamp in a tiny, non-speaking cameo as a murder victim, Richard Brooks ('Law and Order') as football player Rhino, Ernie Lively as the warden, rock guitarist Kane Roberts also doing the cameo thing as a road worker, and Cravens' kids Jessica and Jonathan in bits. The heavy metal soundtrack adds to the fun.

Overall, this may not be something this reviewer would necessarily consider "good", but it's still something of a hoot, and may keep some people watching out of sheer disbelief.

Six out of 10.