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Shocker

Written and Directed by – Wes Craven

Starring – Peter Berg (Jonathan Parker), Michael Murphy (Don Parker), Cami Cooper (Alison), Mitch Pileggi (Horace Pinker), Theodore ‘Ted’ Raimi (Pac Man)

Length – 105 minutes

Cert – 18 / R

Forgive me, father, for I have sinned. I have a film in my collection that many consider to be awful, yet I watched it and enjoyed it. Yes, it’s time to confess our secrets and defend our guilty pleasures. You know, like admitting to ordering from Erostek (you get your money’s worth I tell you).

If you’ve only ever seen Mitch Pileggi as Skinner in The X Files, then you’re in for a real treat!

TV repairman by day, serial killer by night, Horace Pinker (Pileggi) is killing people. We don’t know why, but it’s not like serial killers ever needed a reason anyway. A few years later, Director Wes Craven would later tell us, “It’s a lot scarier when there’s no motive.” For the investigating officer on the case, Lt. Don Parker (Murphy), things get personal after Pinker kills Parker’s wife, daughter and son, leaving just his adopted son Jonathan (Berg). Once the police are able to find and arrest Pinker, it doesn’t take long before he’s sentenced to death by the electric chair. However, from using black magic to make a deal with the TV set in his cell (!), the execution transforms Pinker into electrical energy, giving him the power to possess other people’s bodies just by touching them.

Released back in 1989, Shocker now has a small cult following. I believe that one of the reasons it was received so harshly at the time was simply due to expectations from Wes Craven. Audiences were obviously hoping for another great horror film. Like Poltergeist and Videodrome, you probably won’t look at your TV in quite the same way again, but unfortunately this doesn’t have any scary jumpy moments. Nor is it overly gory, though part of that comes from the film being cut numerous times just to attain an R rating. So we’re mostly witness to the aftermath of Pinker’s killings (Jonathan’s bathroom is smeared with blood… twice).
Instead, what Craven delivered was a senseless black comedy. What starts out as serious quickly descends into chaotic absurdity after Pinker’s arrest; then, it just gets funnier as it goes along! Craven revealed that he was going through a divorce during the making of the film, which brought about a bizarre sense of black humor about everything.

The premise itself is a great one. How is the hero going to find the killer when he could be hiding within the body of someone else? It reminded me of The Thing, with the original being one of the two films Craven claimed to as inspiration (the other being the cult classic, The Hidden). The only problem with Shocker is that we never have to guess who Pinker has possessed. His one-track mind of wanting to take revenge on Jonathan, as well as laboring the character with a limp, means that he always gives himself away so easily.

In spite of this, Pileggi totally relishes his role as Pinker, delivering a hilariously hyper performance, bolstered by crazy one-liners (“This Barcalounger’s gonna kick your ass”). Kudos must also go to the smaller actors whose characters become possessed by Pinker, successfully putting across the same manic craziness. Even though it’s only for a couple of minutes, Pinker’s possession of the body of a little girl is an absolute highlight. The stupidity of the villain comes from his inability to kill Jonathan, despite numerous opportunities to easily do so. On more than one occasion Pinker has a gun in his hands when chasing Jonathan, but he seems completely incapable of shooting straight.

Along with The Serpent and the Rainbow, Shocker made for one of Craven’s early uses of special effects, but he wasn’t satisfied with the end result. Rushed in the last two weeks of post-production, he described the effects as unfinished. Looking at it today, it crudely epitomises what one can expect from a cheaply shot 1980’shorror film, with Pinker looking digitised when he leaves a possessed body, and towards the end being disguised as a Barcalounger! The most amazingly surreal moment comes during an over-the-top sequence where Jonathan and Pinker dive into a TV set and then proceed to fight through several channels of programming!

The film has shades of Craven’s A Nightmare on Elm Street, with the opening showing similarities when we see Pinker’s hands working with his tools and weapons. Also for some odd reason, Jonathan has a strange connection to Pinker. Because they’re both supposedly related, Jonathan will have precognitive dreams, telling him where Pinker will strike next. This probably goes some way to explaining why his high school coach and friends don’t question him when he later tells them that Pinker is back from the dead and able to possess the bodies of others, regardless of how crazy it sounds.

Although the idea of possessing other people’s bodies just by touch was later reused (and taken more seriously) in the thriller Fallen, a remake of Shocker has long been talked about. Given the story possibilities, as well as the huge technological advancements (especially the current trend to shoot in three dimensions), a remake would probably be welcome. The only downside is that I doubt it would be as ridiculously enjoyable as this.