Wes Craven's 1989 film Shocker can be rented at Seattle's Scarecrow Video, located in the University District. It can also be purchased from Seattle-based retailer Amazon.com as part of the Wes Craven Horror Collection. For other horror and exploitation films, visit Something Weird Video, located in Lynwood.
Wes Craven's 1989 film Shocker had a great concept, at least on paper. The idea of a mass murderer sentenced to death in the electric chair, only to come back stronger than before, is completely original and has loads of promise. There are any number of ways Craven could have woven this story to make for a compelling and scary movie. But he didn't.
Shocker starts very abruptly by letting the audience know of serial killer Horace Pinker (Mitch Pileggi), a TV mechanic who revels in killing whole families in their living rooms. His exact number of kills is not made clear, but at one point it's said that Pinker has killed 30 people. We know nothing of Pinker or his background except that he is "intelligent" and that the police have been unable to find him for nine months. The intelligent killer also makes a habit of parking his dirty repair truck in front of his victims' homes, conveniently labeled with the name of his TV repair company "Pinker TV Repair".
We are also immediately introduced to Jonathan Parker (Peter Berg), an all-American football player type with lots of friends and a pretty blonde girlfriend (Camille Cooper). In the opening scene Jonathan gets hit in the head a half dozen times during football practice and develops a concussion. Somehow the concussion enables him to see the future before it happens, particularly Pinker's murders. Jonathan envisions Pinker killing his foster mother and foster siblings in a very vivid dream before waking up next to his girlfriend. As if on cue Jonathan's foster father Lt. Don Parker (Michael Murphy) calls Jonathan to relay the news that they really were killed by Pinker.
Jonathan is able to convince Lt. Parker that his dream may have been real, and the police show up at Pinker's rattrap TV repair shop to confront him. Pinker easily kills three police officers and then escapes in his dirty van. Jonathan identifies Pinker's appearance to the press from his dream memories, so Pinker returns after escaping to kill Jonathan's girlfriend, I guess just for fun. Jonathan has another dream indicating Pinker's whereabouts and Pinker is finally apprehended.
It turns out that Pinker is a satanic animal abuser, something like the character of Charles Lee Ray in Child's Play, who has an abnormal fascination with electricity (apparently due to his profession). Before being executed, in the most spontaneous death penalty conviction in U.S. history, Pinker electrocutes himself with his prison cell TV in a satanic ritual. After being revived he gives a very threatening and foul-mouthed speech before being strapped to the electric chair, at which point he indicates that he is in fact Jonathan's real father. What?? This ends the first section of the movie, which wasn't particularly good, but it is all downhill from here.
For part 2 of this article, please see Wes Craven's Shocker is shockingly bad, part 2. Part 3 is still being finalized.
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