Movie Details
| Title: | Shocker | |
| Director: | Wes Craven | |
| Year: | 1989 | |
| Genre: | Horror | |
| Times Seen: | 1 | |
| Last Seen: | 11.02.24 |
Other Movies Seen By This Director (4)
- New Nightmare
- A Nightmare on Elm Street
- Red Eye
- Scream 4
| Date Viewed | Venue | Note |
| 11.02.24 | Internet | This Screening is part of event: Virtual All Night Horror Movie Marathon 5 I haven't seen this since 1989 (or whenever it hit home video). I remember I rented it and watched it twice because I was an idiot kid. I didn't even love it the first time, I just remember being like "well I rented it, might as well give it another run." All I remember is the plot being all messed up because there has to be a whole mini-movie before he dies then a whole mini-movie after he dies so it was like two movies in one. I did not remember that it basically becomes The Hidden for a while. My memory was he went straight to electricity-town... but I think i'm thinking of that one Gremlin in Gremlins 2 instead. Getting ahead of myself. This movie is about a serial killer who is sentenced to death via electric chair, but as a last request he gets a TV in his room and with some black candles and jumper cables makes a deal with... the tv gods: killer: "Come on! Give it to me!" TV God Lips: "You got it, Baby!" So he doesn't die after he fries and instead keeps killing semi-indiscriminately via Hidden-possession for a while then he beams into a TV satellite and... I dunno, I guess he dies after the whole town's power goes out and the main kid turns off an exploding burning tv with a remote. Oh, and he blows on it like a smoking pistol. I would say this movie is a textbook examples of going off the rails but it at no point was ever on any rails for it to go off of. This is a rails-less movie through and through, a complete mess. I remembered it being goofy but... yeah. I think the only scene I liked was when Peter Berg calmly explains the rules to the possession-hopping evil spirit of the shocker guy to his college football coach as the assistant coach (Ted Raimi) dresses his gunshot wound. That's at the 1-hour mark. Everything else is kinda ridiculous. This is a cocaine movie right? I mean 89 is pretty late but it's still technically the 80s. I'm just kidding... i think this just goes to show that even a Wes Craven, who made the shocking and vile Last House on the left and clever iconic Nightmare on Elm Street and postmodern milestone Scream can both write and direct a steaming pile of shit. "It's like Elm Street but with TV!" I think the whole movie was made just to do the sequence where they're fighting amidst the content of the channels, which admittedly is a novel idea and they put them in Headbanger's Ball heavy metal type footage of nuclear test bomb footage and riots and whatnot. I think that idea was more cleverly explored with more humor a few years later with a John Ritter movie called Stay Tuned (I should re-watch this. it could suck now. I haven't seen it since it came out) and a few years after that with Pleasantville. It's a stand-out here though... you just have to slog through so much stupid shit to get there. A barca-lounger coming to life, John Tesh, Peter Berg oh man Peter Berg. I forgot he was the main kid in this. This was very much still actor-berg and I really can't stand him here. So much berg. It's hard to believe he's only 5 years away from Last Seduction here. Ok that's enough Shocker. It was a fun spectacle to marvel at. Probably didn't need to see it again but that's ok. Maybe I'll watch it again in another 35 years. The one I'm actually curious to give another watch is People Under the Stairs. I remember that one being really crazy. |
