Shocker

Written and directed by Wes Craven, Shocker follows Peter Berg’s Jonathan Parker as he develops a psychic connection with a vicious murderer (Mitch Pileggi’s Horace Pinker) and must subsequently work with his cop father (Michael Murphy’s Don) and dead girlfriend (Cami Cooper’s Alison) to put an end to the seemingly unstoppable killer’s reign of terror. It’s interesting to note that Shocker boasts an opening stretch that hardly hints at the off-the-wall craziness that’s to come, as Craven delivers a first act that effectively establishes the two central characters and the apparently clear-cut nature of their relationship (ie it’s essentially a riff on Craven’s own A Nightmare on Elm Street universe). And although Craven proves unable to justify the movie’s padded-out (and often excessively deliberate) 110 minute running time, Shocker nevertheless benefits from a consistently surprising narrative that contains enough elements and wild left turns to sustain several horror movies (ie the storyline contains, among other things, body switching, psychic connecting, and black-magic voodoo). The completely bonkers final stretch does, in the end, confirm Shocker’s place as a seriously erratic yet partially fulfilling piece of work, and it’s a shame, ultimately, that the movie’s box-office failure prevented Craven from making further Horace Pinker installments. (Pileggi’s consistently engaging performance remains an obvious highlight within the always uneven proceedings, to be sure.)

**1/2 out of ****