Shocker (film)

Shocker
Directed by	Wes Craven
Produced by	Barin Kumar Marianne Maddalena Executive: Wes Craven
Written by	Wes Craven
Starring	Peter Berg Michael Murphy Cami Cooper Mitch Pileggi
Music by	William Goldstein
Studio	Alive Films
Distributed by	Universal Pictures (USA) Carolco International (overseas)
Release date(s)	October 27, 1989
Running time	110 min.
Language	English
Budget	$5 million
Box office	$16,554,699

Shocker (also known as Wes Craven's Shocker) is a 1989 horror film written and directed by Wes Craven. The relatively low-budget film has since become a cult classic. It starred Peter Berg, Michael Murphy, and Mitch Pileggi as the antagonist Horace Pinker.

Both Wes Craven and Universal had hoped for the film to launch a franchise (Craven had particularly wanted to create a new series since he felt he had not been given due profits from New Line Cinema resulting from the Nightmare on Elm Street series). However, due to the middling commercial performance and poor reception of the film, no sequel was made.

Plot

A serial killer is on the loose in a Los Angeles suburb, and a television repairman with a pronounced limp named Horace Pinker (Mitch Pileggi) becomes the prime suspect. When the investigating detective, Lt. Don Parker (Michael Murphy), gets too close, Pinker murders Parker's wife, daughter, and his biological son. However, his adopted son Jonathan (Peter Berg) develops a strange connection to Pinker through his dreams and leads Parker to Pinker's rundown shop. In a shootout in which several officers are killed, Pinker manages to escape. He targets Jonathan's girlfriend Allison (Camille Cooper) in retribution.

Another dream leads Lt. Parker and the police to Pinker, who is in the midst of a kidnapping. This time, just as Pinker is about to kill Jonathan, he is arrested. Pinker is quickly convicted and sentenced to die in the electric chair.

Prior to his execution, Pinker reveals that Jonathan is, in fact his son, and as a boy, Jonathan had shot him in the knee trying to stop the murder of his mother. But what they do not realize is that Pinker has made a "deal with the devil". When he is executed, he does not actually die but instead becomes pure electricity, and is able to possess others (it is unknown if the possessed hosts live or die after Pinker leaves their body since some of them were shown to be lying motionless after being released) to continue his murderous ways. He soon possesses Lt. Don Parker. Parker uses his strength to fight off Pinker, who escapes into a T.V. dish. Jonathan and his friends try to find a way to fight him.

Eventually, Jonathan, with the aid of Alison's "spirit", devises a scheme to bring Pinker back into the real world and accidentally discovers that Pinker, as with all energy sources, is bound by the laws of the real world and uses this limitation to defeat him. Pinker threatens Jonathan that he will find a way out of his "prison". The film ends when Alison's voice tells Jonathan to take care of himself, while Jonathan's neighborhood suffers a blackout.

Cast

• Peter Berg as Jonathan Parker
• Michael Murphy as Lt. Don Parker
• Mitch Pileggi as Horace Pinker
• Sam Scarber as Cooper
• Cami Cooper as Alison
• Richard Brooks as Rhino
• Ted Raimi as Pac-Man

Cameos

• Heather Langenkamp as an intended victim of Pinker's. Langenkamp played Nancy Thompson in Wes Craven's landmark 1984 horror film, A Nightmare on Elm Street and two of its sequels, A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors and Wes Craven's New Nightmare.
• Wes Craven as the neighbor
• Jessica Craven (Wes Craven's daughter) as the clerk
• Jonathan Craven (Wes Craven's son and the film's visual effects coordinator) as the jogger (one of Pinker's possessed hosts)
• Dr. Timothy Leary as the television evangelist
• Brent Finkelstien as the talk show guest
• John Tesh as the TV newscaster
• Michael Matthews voices the Evil Mouth that grants Horace Pinker's request for power in Horace's contact with the devil.
• Kane Roberts (the guitarist from Alice Cooper's band) as a buff construction worker (one of Pinker's possessed hosts)
• Eric Singer as a member of the band on the talk show

Release

The film was released theatrically in the United States by Universal Pictures in October 1989. It grossed $16,554,699 at the box office. Shocker received mostly negative reviews from critics and holds an 8% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 12 reviews.

The film was released on DVD by Universal Studios in 1999. It was subsequently re-released by the studio in 2007 as a double feature alongside Craven's The People Under the Stairs.

Music

Original musical contributions were made by Alice Cooper (who would later play Freddy Krueger's abusive foster father, Mr. Underwood, in Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare), Megadeth who covered Alice Cooper's 1973 hit "No More Mr. Nice Guy." The movie's "title song" was recorded by The Dudes Of Wrath, which was composed of KISS' Paul Stanley and producer Desmond Child both on vocals, Def Leppard's Vivian Campbell and Guy Mann-Dude on guitars, Whitesnake's Rudy Sarzo on bass guitar, and Mötley Crüe's Tommy Lee on drums. Also backing vocals by Van Halen bassist Michael Anthony and Kane Roberts. The soundtrack was released on Capitol/SBK Records in 1989.

Soundtrack listing:

• "Sword & Stone" – Bonfire
• "No More Mr. Nice Guy" – Megadeth
• "Shocker" – The Dudes Of Wrath
• "Timeless Love" – Saraya
• "Demon Bell — The Ballad of Horace Pinker" – Dangerous Toys
• "Love Transfusion" – Iggy Pop
• "Different Breed" – Dead On

External links

• Shocker at the Internet Movie Database
• Shocker at Rotten Tomatoes