Published via Ecency

(source: tmdb.org)

Although he had made genre classic before and after, Wes Craven owed most of his reputation of Hollywood horror film legend to the iconic figure of Freddy Kruger, main character in popular series started in 1984 with A Nightmare on Elm Street. Five years later Craven tried to create another successful horror franchise based on the antagonist of his film Shocker.

The plot begins in small town of Maryville, whose population is falling victim to vicious and apparently unstoppable serial killer that murders entire families, much to the despair of local police and its detective Lt. Don Parker (played by Michael Murphy). His foster son Jonathan (played by Peter Berg) is student at local college and star of its football team. He recently began to have strange dreams and visions that convinced him that he has psychic connection to the killer. Thanks to that, he discovers that the killer is television repair man Horace Pinker (played by Mitch Pileggi) and after sharing this information Pinker finally gets caught, although not before killing Jonathan’s girlfriend Alison Clemens (played by Camille Cooper). Pinker ultimately gets sentenced to die on electric chair, but execution, due to Pinker’s skills in black magic, doesn’t go as planned and he manages to transfer his soul to another body and uses other people trying to exact his revenge on Jonathan and his loved ones. Jonathan tries to confront him only to realise that Pinker can hide his soul in electric installations and, later, television programmes, using the television sets of unsuspecting victims in order to massacre them in their homes.

Shocker was disliked by critics and many complained that Craven’s script simply borrows too much from Nightmare, turning the film into cheap knock-off. Nothing can be further from the truth. While Shocker is far from being genre classic or even particularly good film, none of its problems have anything to do with the lack of originality. On the contrary, Shocker suffers because Craven stuffs too much different ideas in it, making the plot too complicated, incomprehensible and messy. There are hints of some interesting ideas in Craven’s script, like supernatural killer being inspired and feeding off the endless violence that makes prime content of mass media including television. Those small crumbs of social commentary (including satirical attack on televangelist, with psychedelics guru Dr. Timothy Leary playing one in the film), are, however, drowned by by extreme violence combined with black humour. Craven directs few good scenes, but he can’t hide low budget and the film is slightly overlong. Things become interesting only at the end, in entertaining and imaginative scene during which Jonathan and Pinker fight each within various television programmes, but this happens too late to generally improve impression of the film. Cast is, on the other hand, decent. Mitch Pileggi obviously has great fun in one of his early major roles and plays evil and unhinged character so different from Assistant Director Skinner in The X-Files. Peter Berg is, on the other hand, bland and much less effective than Michael Murphy in the role of his hapless foster father. Camille Cooper, immensely attractive actress, seems to disappear from the film too early, but returns later as memorable ghostly presence. Shocker had unimpressive box office and Craven gave up on the idea of starting another horror franchise. Those who watch the film now might get some entertainment, but they are likely to agree with his decision.

RATING: 5/10 (++)