Weekly schlock and SHOCK!

While perusing the works of Wes Craven, I found films that I had never seen. How did I miss Shocker?

 

Here we have Los Angeles where a serial killer is on the loose. When the cop on this case gets to close, then the serial killer, a limping television repair man named Horace Pinker, strikes at the cop family. He knocks off the wife and two of his three foster kids. The third, Jonathan, somehow forms a mental/dream connection with this Pinker guy. Oh wait!  I forgot to mention that Horace is into the mystical black arts. Seriously, they mention it passing once and you are supposed to go with it.

Now Jonathan is after Pinker and finds him in, guess where, his T.V. repair store? The cops intervene, Horace escapes and gets his revenge on Jonathan. How does he do this? Well he decides to off Allison, Jonathan’s ever pure and constantly whispering girlfriend.

Eventually Pinker is captured and given the chair like a week later. However, during his last meal, Pinker casts a spell  or makes a pact to the T.V. god and is given some powers. I think that is what is happening in the scene where a prostrating Pinker is having a conversation with a bad television static apparition.

Help me t.v. Jesus! 

Then Pinker dies in the electric chair, but not really. His “shocking” death gives him the power to move through electrical stuff and also possess people. Yeah this is beyond bonkers now. Pinker continues to kill and Jonathan is always after him. Eventually, with the help of Allison’s ghost, Jonathan is able to devise a plan to capture the now electrical undead Pinker in a t.v.

This movie is a giant mess of stuff all mixed together: ghosts, dream sequences, raging television channel battles, bag effects, an attempt at a lot of fun blood, Ted Rami, black magic, a love story, some Megadeth, possession, and the worst football college program ever. It all jumbles together to form a long slow and just plain bad horror movie. Well if you can even call it that.

"Power of good chest flashlight activate!"

There is rhyme or reason to why the bond forms between Pinker and Jonathan. There is no reason for a girlfriend ghost to keep popping up to help. Why was Pinker dead, yet not dead near the end? Why can Jonathan move through the t.v. like Pinker? If he is able to use electricity to move, then why does Pinker need a satellite dish to go nationwide? Was that John Tesh?How does one commune with the television deity anyway? There is a fight and chase through various t.v. shows with Jonathan and Pinker. It is amazingly terrible! Why is Pinker’s little trait an incredibly noticeable limp? The title sharing a name with a sex move is just too comical now. Dream sequences as a plot device? Did we really need to back to that well? Was Wes Craven really drunk or ill when this was written? Why did this get made?

Is there even one good bit in his film? Well…..hmmmm… Well it hasn’t been slated for a reboot yet. Yet. I guess when Pinker takes over the body a little girl and throws Jonathan the finger, that was comical. There was an awful lot, like more than the human body could ever contain, of blood in Allison’s death reveal. The song Sword and Stone, by the band Bonfire, is just 100% pure awesome!

Girl in the bathroom. A lot of blood. (insert menstrual flow joke here)

Shocker is a horrible movie. Just horrible. The plot is sound for a while with the serial killer bit, then it just kind of feels like an exercise in herding cats after that. A phenomenal disappointment and not even recommended as a good/bad movie.

Still go listen to that Bonfire song! Instant classic!