Wes Craven's Shocker

[blacksnake]

Shocker, is about a high school football player named Jonathan Parker, who has recently lost his step family because they were murdered by someone who is killing a lot of the families in the town. One day Jonathan, has a dream and sees what the killer looks like and finds out his name. The police persue him and finally capture the murderer (named Horace Pinker) and sentence him to the electric chair. But things go wrong when Horace, is put into the electric chair and using electricity he can jump in and out of people's bodies and control them and he is on his way to kill more people and most importantly Jonathan. Jonathan, soon finds out about this and must get his stepfather Don, who is a police lieutenant and his friends to finally help capture and put an end to Horace Pinker. Shocker, has good direction, a good script, good performances from everybody involved and good original music. Shocker, is an interesting film and while at times it may be far fetched and certainly has it's flaws it is a compelling and very entertaining film. According to the film's director and writer Wes Craven, the film was quite heavily cut to receive an R rating instead of an X rating. It took about thirteen submissions of the film to the Motion Picture Association of America, to get them to finally give the film an R rating instead of an X rating. Shocker, is done in a way as a B movie but it is very entertaining and compelling and had me entertained the whole time and I quite enjoyed it. While the film isn't exactly scary it was still a fun ride.

[the dead one]

This was one genre film that deserves more respect and appriciation then it has in the past. If what you say is true (13 passes before the "thought police"...hrrrmph...I mean "the MPAA" would clear the film for an R rating...sheesh?! And here I thought that Brian De Palma had problems with "Scarface"? )

Wes Craven has created a very disturbing vision in the form of the very mad and deranged 'Horace Pinker'. The main connection between hero (Jonathan Parker) and antagonist was thought provoking and really gets under the skin. The casting was brilliant, it was nice to see genre alumni like Michael Murphy of "Count Yorga: Vampire" fame in a genre film again. Peter Burg should be commended for his believable performance, I felt for this poor guy, the battle of wills between father and son was one for the books. Poor fucking guy, how would you like to discover that your real father was a sick fuck like Pinker? Mitch Pileggi does the character justice and really does a splendid job in the role of Pinker...a very underrated guy in my book!! Shocker dwarfs its weak counter part, 1989's The Horror Show aka House 3 which features Brion James "Max Jenke"! a weaker film in terms of style and execution (no pun intended!) "Shocker" being the better of the two films from that same year.

Yet I dont see "Shocker" as a B-Film at all, on the contrary, this was an imaginative film. Wes Craven didnt come at his audience with another 'Freddy', though I do remember some reviewers drawing that kind of parallell and very mixed feelings towards Shocker. I didnt see Pinker as an amalgom of Mr. Kruger, these were two different personalties that had thier own agendas and m.o.'s entirely. Shocker had a very creepy dark undertone and feeling of dread to it, an almost surreal aura through the entire film.



Nice review Blacksnake!

[blacksnake]

Thanks for the good words about my review. Yours was good too and I'm glad that you liked the film too.

[jagged halo]

I've never been comfortable with Shocker. Mitch Pileggi steals the show and one wonders what kind of a film Shocker could have been under different circumstances.

I could of done without the character of Jonathan played out like a wet blanket by Peter Berg, actually I'll rephrase that; I could of done without Peter Berg playing the part of Jonanthan. Camille Cooper (Alison) is simply mezmorising as the love interest, and Wes Craven clearly shares an equal amount of affection for her as I do! she is gorgeous!!

The audio commentary on the Momentum release, is engaging, I admire Cravens honesty, he doesn't make any excuses for the terrible FX. To be fair budget constraints pretty much choked what could of have been a far superior movie in my opinion.

Great review Blacksnake;)

[blacksnake]

I've never heard a Wes Craven commentary before but I did like the scenes he was interviewed in for the Last House On The Left DVD. He had some very interesting things to say. Thanks for the good words about my review jagged halo.

[kmksskater]

Ahhh this movie kicked some fucking ass!! i loved this film directing was great i loved Horace because he actually made me get scared of him hell i would run if i saw a freak like him

[Cronos]

i wasnt overly impressed with Shocker, it was fun at times but mostly just ended up being stupid, the acting was pretty bad and the script sucked, the ending was kinda fun thogh

6/10

[jagged halo]

Deadly Friend is a better film than Shocker and that's saying something.

[skweemkween]

Up until I had my lobotomy therefore actually paying hard earned funds to see Darkness Falls, this was the first horror movie I ever attempted to get my money back to no avail.

Mitche Pileggi aside - it was just the most disjointed, clique, mess of a movie I had seen at that time.

I was extremely disapointed in it but I realize it put Mitch on the map.

This was back in 1989 and after the first 45 min, all of us in the audience just started narrating it with our peppered dialogue a la MST3K.