Shocker (film)

Shocker (aka, Shocker: No More Mr. Nice Guy and Wes Craven's Shocker,) is a 1989 horror film written and directed by Wes Craven. A modest success when originally released, the low-budget film has since become a cult classic. It starred Mitch Pileggi, who later gained fame as Assistant Director Walter Skinner in The X-Files television series, starred as the antagonist Horace Pinker.

A special edition DVD was released in 2001.

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A serial killer is on the loose in a Los Angeles suburb, and a television repairman with a pronounced limp named Horace Pinker is the prime suspect. When the investigating detective, Lt. Don Parker gets too close, Pinker murders his wife, daughter and one of his sons. However, his other son, Jonathan, develops a strange connection to Pinker through his dreams and leads his father to Pinker's shop. However, Pinker manages to escape after killing several officers and targets Jonathan's girlfriend, Allison in retribution.

Another dream again leads Lt. Parker and the police to Pinker, who's in the midst of a kidnapping. This time Pinker is arrested.

However, what they don't realize is that Pinker has made a "deal with the devil"; when he's executed by electrocution, he didn't actually die, but instead became pure electricity who is able to possess others to continue his murderous ways.

Eventually, Jonathan devises a scheme to bring Horace Pinker back into the real world and discovers that Pinker, like all energy sources, is bound by the laws of the real world and uses this limitation to defeat him.

Heather Langenkamp, who played Nancy Thompson in Wes Craven's landmark 1984 horror film, A Nightmare on Elm Street and three of its sequels has a cameo role as the victim of Horace Pinker's thwarted kidnapping plan.

Alice Cooper (who would later play Freddy Krueger's abusive foster father, Mr Underwood, in Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare) and Megadeth bassist David Ellefson contributed music to the film.

• 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
• Wes Craven as the neighbor
• Dr. Timothy Leary as the television evangelist
• Brent Spiner as the talk show guest
• John Tesh as the TV newscaster

Shocker has been noted by some critics and fans as being somewhat similar to A Nightmare on Elm Street. Wes Craven was the creator of both A Nightmare on Elm Street and Shocker, both antagonists are serial killers who have targeted children, both use supernatural means of carrying out their atrocities, both have recognizable attire, and dreams figure prominently in both stories.

Some fans reacted negatively to Shocker, calling it a poor imitation and nicknaming it "Schlocker". Despite the success of A Nightmare on Elm Street, which is credited with saving New Line Cinema from bankruptcy, Craven saw little profit from the film and pitched his Shocker story to larger studios.

• RottenTomatoes.com review
• DVDManiacs review