Phase one did have three films that were better than expected, which was a pleasant surprise but it also had four disappointments. The Hills Have Eyes was much worse than I expected and Swamp Thing was just dire. I'm still trying to erase the memories of that one from my mind. Phase two started with a bang, with his first great film and was followed by the utterly horrible and almost pathetic Deadly Friend. Craven followed it with the respectable and not half bad The Serpent and the Rainbow.
Out of the 10 films so far, his track record is split evenly at 50/50; that's 50% of them that were any good and that I would recommend and 50% that weren't. My journey of all things Craven has been flip flopping between the good, the bad and the downright ugly. Only one film so far would I call a classic, or great, or masterful and I still haven't seen why he has gotten the respect that he has garnered over the years.
But with that said, it is really the films that come next, both in phase two and three, that are going to sway my opinion. I'm one film away from the half way point and I still have 12 films to go in total. I don't expect them all to be good, but I do hope there will be at least four films in there that make Craven deserved of his reputation. Right now he's on the fence between being a hack director who gets lucky every once in a while and a passable director who makes entertaining films but nothing to write home about.
Which now brings me to Shocker, his eleventh film (not including the rare and hard to find Chiller) and the film that marks the half way point of Craving Craven. Shocker is another film that I have sort of seen and sort of haven't. I have memories of watching it on TV, in bits and pieces, here and there, over the span of the last 20 or so years. One thing I know for sure is that I have no clue how this film ends. My memories also zigzag between saying that Shocker is a good movie and a bad movie. At certain times, I found the bits and pieces I was watching to be quiet good while other times I thought 'this is one serious piece of crap'.
Based on my mismatched memories I have no idea what to expect with this film. Based on Craven's track record I also don't know what to expect here. Craven has shown himself to be a better director when he works within the slasher genre of the horror film and Shocker is a film that firmly fits into that category. But out of 10 films, Craven has only once made two films in a row that were any good. This doesn't bode very well for Shocker.
Either way, whether it turns out good or bad or pitiful, I am pumped for this film. Ive wanted to see it in it's entirety since I first glimpsed my first scene from it all those years ago. Plus, the DVD cover I have has shown me (something I didn't remember) that a young Peter Berg is the star. Nice! I love the Berg! I don't know what Shocker has in store for me but there is no better time than right now to find out.
FilmThoughts:
Shocker had potential to be great but ultimately it ends up being a failure. It is way longer than it needs to be, makes no sense and as it goes it gets stupider and stupider until all semblance of cohesion flies out the window. It is decently acted though and it has some great effects, not all of them mind you, but most of them come off as pretty convincing.
Jonathan (Peter Berg) is a typical high school student. He plays football, he has a beautiful girlfriend and he has a loyal group of friends. One night he has a nightmare of his adopted mother, brother and sister being murdered. The nightmare ends up being true. Through a preposterous set of events, he leads the cops to the killer who is promptly put on the electric chair. The killer, Horace Pinker (Mitch Pileggi), in another set of even more preposterous events ends up using electricity to jump from body to body and continue his killing spree. It is up to Jonathan, the only one who realizes this, to stop him.
I can't say enough how dumb this movie is. I feel dumber just by having watched it. Wes Craven, who wrote the script, should be ashamed of himself. Besides the fact that he rips off moments from A Nightmare on Elm Street, he also puts together a film that makes absolutely no sense and a film that doesn't know when to quit. The film gets worse and worse and even worse as it goes along.
Where to begin? Let's see. Firstly, Jonathan enters crime scenes and tags along with the police (his dad is a cop) just because he wants to. Why would the police take him on a raid? Then Horace is seen electrocuting himself and some sort of devil thing speaks to him. That devil thingy is never heard from or mentioned again. What else? Jonathan's girlfriend (now dead) acts as a guardian angel of sorts protecting him for no reason than to keep the film going. Horace uses a gun on Jonathan which seems to fire endless bullets that don't hit him at all, but then, with one shot, Horace shoots somebody else. Ridiculous. Jonathan needs a scuba mask to rescue a totem of sorts from the bottom of a lake. Horace breaks his scuba mask and he never thinks to buy one or borrow one or even steal one. Yeah, that makes sense. I mean how hard is it to find a scuba mask, especially in a city that has a lake where you can go scuba diving in it?
But what has to be the worst thing in the film, and one of the worst things I have witnessed in a horror film (made within the studio system that is) is when Horace uses television as his way to move from place to place. Jonathan, with the help from his guardian angel follows him (what?) and then when they enter the real world he uses a remote to pause him. This does make sense as Horace must now bide by the rules of television. But then Jonathan uses the remote to control Horace and in the rules of television and in the context of the movie and the scene, trust me when I tell you this makes no sense at all. I'm not sure I explained that well enough but it's hard enough watching it, let alone explaining it.
Besides the plot holes and the terrible script which has some serious ham fisted dialogue (can the same man who wrote A Nightmare on Elm Street be responsible for this), there are lots of other things that are wrong with this film. Firstly, and most importantly: IT"S NOT SCARY!!! AT ALL!!! It's not eerie in the least bit and after about an hour it wears out its welcome and just starts to drag. Some of the acting is very wooden and the music is pretty crappy. Especially the seriously bad 80's rock anthems that play throughout the film. The costumes worn by minor characters are also straight out of the 80's and not the cool trendy 80's that has made a comeback but the type of clothing that even a homeless person in a shelter wouldn't be caught dead wearing.
There are a few positives to Shocker though. The effects for the most part are pretty good for a 24 year old movie. Pileggi makes a great bad guy and oozes evil as Horace. Peter Berg is fun in an early role, even though he has to say some terrible lines. Michael Murphy is pretty good too as Jonathan's dad. Then there are some comedic moments that made me laugh. After Horace is electrocuted in the chair, and his body disintegrates, Murphy says 'That chair really kicks ass'. Trust me, it's funny and it works.
One scene in particular stands out though especially after all the bad shit that happens before it. When Jonathan is chasing Horace inside the television they flip through a variety of different channels. It's funny and for the most part it looks pretty damn good. They bother Wally and the Beav, they interrupt an Alice Cooper concert, they run amok in a riot and then when John Tesh, as a news anchor, is stating how people are seeing these two all over TV, which he doesn't quite believe, they end up fighting on his desk. If only the rest of the movie was as creative as this sequence. But sadly it's not and then when this sequence ends it goes back to being an almost unwatchable film.
Other than that scene, there really is not much to recommend here. In fact, my recommendation is to stay away from this film. Stay as far away as possible. It's not worth your time or your money. If you like horror films, and if you like slasher films stay away. Like I said earlier it's not scary in the least, it's not gory enough (there is gore though, just not enough) and there is no nudity. I love horror films and I love slasher films and I usually like and think most slasher films are better than they are given credit for. With Shocker I find very little to like and even less to recommend. In case you missed it the first time I said it: STAY AWAY!!!
Re-playability: 1 out of 10 Originality: 4 out of 10
Directing: 5 out of 10 Acting: 6 out of 10
Costumes and Make-up: 6 out of 10 Editing: 4 out of 10
Cinematography: 7 out of 10 Script: 2 out of 10
Production Design (Sets/Locations/Special Effects: 8 out of 10 Music: 5 out of 10
Total Score = 46%
***ALERT: THE REST OF THIS REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SERIOUS SPOILERS: ALERT***
***ALERT: THE REST OF THIS REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SERIOUS SPOILERS: ALERT***
Afterthoughts:
Afterthoughts:
From the outset it seems that Craven set out to make another original and wacked out horror film about a killer that uses electricity to get around. Instead we get a film that steals liberally from what he has done before and a hell of a lot more successfully I might add. The main character is a teenager who's dad is police officer. He has dreams that blend into reality and dreams that he can pull things out of. He asks his friend to sit by him and wake him up when he appears to be having a nightmare. Sound familiar so far?
It does end there folks.The killer, like in Nightmare, kills his mom. The entire climax is set around a plan that he has concocted that relies on others doing exactly what he needs in a certain amount of time. Then there is the bed. Craven has a fetish about pulling someone into a bed (sexual issues maybe?). Here, our titular hero falls into his bed, which has turned into a pool of water, during a dream. Craven used this exact or very similar sequence in the first Nightmare when Nancy's mom gets pulled under. He uses it again in his script for Nightmare 3 and he first used it in Deadly Blessing. And that's not to mention the monster within the bed (in another dream sequence) in The Serpent and the Rainbow and Freddy, in the first Nightmare, coming out of the bed or famously pulling Johnny Depp into one.
Like I said, I was terribly disappointed by the utter crap that Shocker ended up being. I wasn't expecting a good movie, but I was expecting a fun one and one that ultimately I would recommend. What I got was another in the long line of Wes Craven stinkers. I'm seriously starting to think that Wessy boy is way overrated. So far he's made a few films that are good but not great and he's made one film that is rightly a classic. He's also made six films that are bad, two of them being outright horrific. And no I don't mean horrific as in scary, I mean horrific as in the bottom of the barrel, worst pieces of shit, the mainstream horror world has ever offered us. Don't believe me, just watch Deadly Friend or Swamp Thing and see if I'm wrong. Shocker isn't as bad as those two but it comes close.
I can't believe I'm only half way through Craven's films. That means I've got eleven more to go. Phase two of Craven's career so far has been, how should I say this, just as bad as phase one. The originality and uniqueness and cleverness and talent so apparent in Nightmare just doesn't seem to exist outside of that film. Sure Serpent wasn't bad but it wasn't anywhere near as good as Nightmare. I expected better, the world expected better and Craven just better start delivering.
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