Shocker

With its freewheeling mixture of gore, surrealism and Freud, it will do almost anything to grab attention. If the movie's metaphors are as obvious and as portentous as the heavy metal music that punctuates the action, Shocker at least has the feel of a movie that was fun to make.

At first glance (or at least for the first 40 minutes) Shocker seems a potential winner, an almost unbearably suspenseful, stylish and blood-drenched ride courtesy of writer-director Wes Craven’s flair for action and sick humour. As it continues, however, the camp aspects simply give way to the ridiculous while failing to establish any rules to govern the mayhem. The result is plenty of unintentional laughs.

A sloppy, often goofy chiller, the film is full of references to (and outright rip-offs from) other movies, especially those of New Line Cinema, Craven's erstwhile producer.

Problems arise from an uncharacteristically loose structure, which frequently brings the movie to the brink of narrative collapse; Craven's visual flair and enthusiastic pacing nevertheless deliver ample (if sometimes frustrating) rewards.

I was a bit disappointed by this film. It’s quite a strange experience. It’s a pretty dull and generic slasher movie with some mildly interesting derivative moments. The special effects are very cheesy. The characters are fairly memorable with mostly good acting. I didn’t like Mitch Pileggi though, he was over-acting and not in a good way, director Wes Craven is probably partially to blame for that. It’s simply not a good film, one of Craven’s worst although not as bad as The Hills Have Eyes Part II (1984). The flight choreography, cinematography and direction are all pretty weak. They don’t have enough story, it’s very much rinse and repeat. The film cannot fill the runtime. A serial killer jumps into different bodies and tries to kill the person that caught him. That’s it. Not worth the effort you put into finding and watching it.