Wes Craven is one of the giants of horror cinema. With The Last House on the Left and The Hills Have Eyes, he mastered the art of dread in horror. He seemed less concerned with frightening his viewers than with making them deeply uncomfortable. He lightened up in the 1980s, though, introducing one of horror’s most wisecracking antagonists with Freddy Krueger. That new style of his continued, less effectively, with Shocker, the story of another mass murdering serial killer with personality.
Mitch Pileggi plays Horace Pinker, a ruthless killer terrorizing the fictional California town of Maryville. It seems not a week goes by when there’s a news report of a home invasion where Pinker murders an entire family. One of those is the family of the detective investigating the murders, Lt. Don Parker (veteran That Guy Michael Murphy), and his adult foster son, Jonathan (Peter Berg), a star football player at the local college.
The supernatural rears its head early in this movie, as Jonathan dreamt of his family’s murder as it was happening. He has some psychic connection to Pinker, and it allows his father and the rest of the local cops to track down and capture Pinker.
Justice for Pinker is swift. In what appears to be mere days after his capture, Pinker is in the electric chair, but not before performing an occult ritual in his death row cell, using electricity and a mangled television, that allows him to transcend his execution, taking over the bodies of anyone nearby. He uses his newfound immortality to get back to some serious murdering, and visit casual vengeance on Jonathan, who was so instrumental in his capture.
The remainder of the film is a cat and mouse game between Pinker’s possessions and Jonathan, with plenty of bodies being piled up along the way. The final act denouement is a morbidly hilarious display of horror flick silliness that has to be seen to be believed, and 
justifies lengthening a movie that could have ended twenty minutes earlier. Without spoiling things, James Woods’ adventures in Videodrome ain’t got nothing on what’s showing on the televisions of Maryville, California.
Shocker is very much a character driven movie. Yes, there is lots of blood and a decent amount of gore (much was left on the cutting room floor to satisfy the MPAA’s censors, according to Craven), but the focus is on characters. That, of course, means the burden on the cast was much higher than in a typical slasher flick, where character development can consist of little more than abs and boobs.
Murphy was reliable, as he has proven throughout his career. This was mostly an opportunity for Pileggi and Berg, who had yet to make significant strides in their careers when this film was made. Pileggi has since become inseparable from his role in The X-Files, while Berg has had a very successful career not only in acting, but producing and directing. Both of them gave their all in their roles, yet it’s easy for viewers to see where they were lacking. Pileggi looked the part. It felt, though, that he was missing the extra gear necessary to really drive home Pinker’s menace. The movie worked best when it felt like Craven was about to lose control over the narrative, and a more unhinged performance from Pileggi, I believe, would have done much to cement this flick’s absurdist bona fides.
As for Berg, he was a touch too hammy. He didn’t come close to the legendary bombast of Pacino or the incredible self-confidence of Shatner, but he still gave it too much. There were more than a few scenes he shared with supporting cast like Richard Brooks (of Law & Order fame), and love interest Camille Cooper, where one could see them wince when Berg delivered a line with more force than necessary.
Shocker clocks in at an hour and 49 minutes, and it feels it. That’s surprising given that Craven maintained a fine pace. I think the movie feels long because it hits slasher flick notes at regular intervals, then gives viewers another twenty minutes they didn’t ask for, like a waiter pushing dessert after an already large meal. However, it’s that final twenty minutes that is the most compelling part of the movie. Laugh with it or laugh at it, it’s when accounts are settled between Pinker and Jonathan where Shocker is at its best.
Keep an eye out for some cameos, including Timothy Leary as a televangelist, John Tesh as a newscaster, and musician Eugene Chadbourne as a bar patron.