Shocker

Man, when Wes Craven slums, he really falls HARD. This is an atrocious movie that rips off The Hidden and not to mention Craven's own Nightmare On Elm Street and tries to pass itself off as being original. Has Craven been hanging around Brian DePalma, the original ripoff artist??? There is so much plot here, it seems like the film is 5 hours long. There is no suspense, no terror, just a lot of unconvincing special effects, half-developed satire, and nonstop violence. Plot twists are unbelievable and there is no emotional investment in the characters whatsoever. This is a shameless bunch of hooey that Craven must've written in 9th grade. I much prefer The Hills Have Eyes or Nightmare on Elm Street instead. 2/10.

I have seen hundreds of B horror flicks. So many that my soul is probably wounded because of it, and I have to say this one is utter crap. I could not even sit through it, and that is even with such a bad case of the Flu I can barely stand. Yet I did to turn this piece of crap off. Now I am not being super harsh here. I have seen every horrible film from Basket Case to Its Alive. Even when those films are bad, at least there is still something ironic in their awfulness. In Shocker everything was just very very lame. I like some Wes Craven films like The Elm Streets, and The People Under The Stairs. The Hills have Eyes was decent, but this one seems like it was written and directed by a disturbed 10 year old, who's imagination runs into cliché after cliché, accompanied by a pretty corny 1980's soundtrack ( and not in the good way).

Wes Craven used to make good Horror films once. His disturbing debut "The Last House on The Left" of 1972 remains his absolute greatest achievement up to date, and "The Hills Have Eyes" (1977) and "A Nightmare On Elm Street" (1984) are without doubt classics of the Horror genre. After "Nightmare", however, Craven obviously thought that his name alone was enough to make any film a masterpiece, and he subsequently began to direct crap, such as the immensely overrated "Scream" trilogy in the 90s, and films like this "Shocker" of 1989. "Shocker" is such an incredibly stupid thing that it hardly qualifies as a Horror film. It is not quite clear to me if this was actually ever intended to be scary, or if it is just meant to be some kind of (terrible) spoof. SPOILERS! - "Shocker" is about a serial killer (Mitch Pileggi) who, after slaughtering a couple of families, gets sentenced to death. After going to the electric chair, however, the psycho, who used to work as a TV-repairman, uses electricity and TV rays to come back from the dead and carry on with his murders... The film doesn't start out very well, but the beginning is bearable, at least. It gets dumber and dumber with each passing minute, however, and nothing in the film makes any sense. Many elements of the movie have no reason other than to serve as an excuse for how the story goes on. After raising from the dead, the killer can only be stopped by a necklace that suddenly has supernatural powers, for example. The last fifteen minutes are so damn stupid that I would almost call them an insult to the viewer. The idiocy of the film's climax, in which the killer and the hero (Peter Berg) engage in a chase through different TV shows, truly has to be seen to be believed. The score always seems quite out of place. Alice Cooper's "No More Mr Nice Guy" is a cool song, but I still wouldn't call it very original to play one song over and over again throughout a movie. The performances are also quite terrible. Mitch Pileggi is passable as the villain, but he is anything but scary and seems like a thuggish redneck more than a psychopath. All things considered, there is hardly a thing about "Shocker" that didn't annoy me. A damn shame, since Craven used to be a good director once. Watch his earlier films instead, "Shocker" has almost nothing to be recommended for. Avoid!

Jonathan Parker (Peter Berg) is been having dreams of a psychopath serial killer Horace Pinker (Mitch Pileggi). When Jonathan sees his step mother and his family are murder in his dream that turns into reality. Jonathan could also identity him with the help of his step-father (Micheal Murphy), who is a Police Detective. When his father finally caught Pinker. Pinker is sent to prison to the electric chair. But before Pinker dies, He is into the black magic. Pinker has the power to transfer his could into different human bodies for a brief moment at the time. Which Pinker is making more victims faster than ever. Making Jonathan more difficult to destroy Pinker. Written and Directed by Wes Craven (Scream Trilogy, Cursed, Red Eye) made an absolutely entertaining supernatural horror thriller. Craven for better or worse, he re-imagine his "A Nightmare on Elm Street" with a bigger budget and talented cast. Craven has some fresh ideals but also he uses some elements from Jack Sholder's The Hidden. Which The Hidden and Shocker were later borrow to the extremely flawed but watchable "Fallen" and the campy "Jason Goes to Hell:The Final Friday". This film has excellent use of Special Effects, this film was shot on a low budget. Shocker was shot in ten weeks, giving Craven enough time making the film look professional. This film is violent, it has some scares and it contains a memorable gross-out scene, which it was also later used in Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill Vol.1. Which it is the infamous lip biting stretching scene. DVD has an sharp anamorphic Widescreen (1.85:1) transfer and an good-Dolby 2.0 Surround Sound. The DVD only has an Original Theatrical Trailer and Production Notes as Extras. The film features an Heavy Metal soundtrack by Megadeth, Alice Cooper, Iggy Pop, Dangerous Toys and Others. The Heavy Metal soundtrack of the film is good. This horror film is well photographed by Jacques Haitkin (Wishmaster). The film has good performances by Berg, Pileggi and Murphy. The film also stars:Cami Cooper as Jonathan's Girlfriend and Victim of Pinker's, Richard Brooks and Ted Raimi. Peter Berg is now a filmmaker (also actor), he has directed the underrated "Very Bad Things", an enjoyable action adventure "The Rundown" and the true life football drama "Friday Night Lights". This is One of Craven's best and One of the most Underrated horror films of the 80's. Watch for Reporter turned Pinalist John Test in a bit role as a T.V. News Archorman. Look fast for Heather Langerkamp in the opening scene as a victim. (**** ½/*****).

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

I found "Shocker" to be one of Wes Craven's most fascinating movies. It portrays serial killer Horace Pinker (Mitch Pileggi, aka Walter Skinner on "The X Files") who, when he gets executed, sends his soul through the electrical circuit so that it possesses one person after another. And only teenager Jonathan Parker (Peter Berg) knows what's going on. Naturally, it all leads to a showdown. What I really liked about this movie was how - like "Scream" - it sort of understands that it's an exercise in camp, and so it deliberately gets as comical as it wants. Hell, the very premise is outlandish (the movie "Fallen" basically ripped it off). They waste no effort in portraying any crazy predicament that they can think of. I recommend it. Also starring Michael Murphy.

Now this was a weird idea; a serial killer (Mitch Pileggi, The X-Files) that feeds off electricity. His nemesis was a high school boy (Peter Berg, Collateral, Cop Land) who hit a goalpost and had dreams about his kills - including his own family and girlfriend (Camille Cooper). Wow! The body count rose as the killer had to move from body to body. Then comes the final battle, which I imagine would not ever be seen again as they chased through TV show after TV show. It was something to see. This was more action flick than horror, although it did have it's share of blood and gore.