SHOCKER

US, 1989, 100 minutes, Colour.
Michael Murphy, Peter Berg, Dr Timothy Leary.
Directed by Wes Craven.

Shocker was written and directed by Wes Craven, considered a master of the American horror movie with such films as The Hills Have Eyes, Deadly Blessing, the first Nightmare on Elm Street, The Serpent and the Rainbow.

This film is in the vein of the serial murderers and the slasher movies. It also has echoes of his Nightmare film. The plot also relates to the police thriller, The Hidden, where the elusive criminal takes several bodies and moves from one body to another.

The film has dramatic impact, but relies very much on special effects, violence and brutality and shocks. At times the irony is so heavy that the movie becomes laughable.

It is certainly in the vein of Wes Craven movies and he declared that he was trying to overcome his Nightmare on Elm Street reputation. Perhaps he does.

1. Impact of the horror? Wes Craven and his reputation? Serial killer thrillers? Police thrillers? The atmosphere of the supernatural?

2. The blend of the ordinary and extraordinary in the town? Sports, homes? Yet the eeriness, the night sequences? The killings? The importance of television and the media? The finale on the television tower?

3. The importance of the special effects, the horror, ugliness? Blood? The musical score? The television effect?

4. Jonathan as hero, absentminded, skill at football, attraction towards Alison, his dreams and the concussion, being psychic? The murders? The irony of the killer being his father? His relationship with his stepfather, going to the scene of the crimes? The deaths and their repercussions? At sport? Alison's death, the funeral? The psychic Pinkers? The build-up to his confrontation with him, the fight, leaping the roof, the arrest?

5. Relationship with his stepfather, the police, the television news, the investigations, the horror?

6. The execution, Pinkers as brutal, mad? Not dying? His killing Alison? The fight, the electricity, the priest, the guards, the chair and the doctor? His speech to Jonathan about his being his son?

7. Pinkers and his shifting forms and the effect: into the doctor, the climax in the car, into the policeman, into the jogger, the horror of being in the child, in the child's mother, the worker? Into Jonathan's friends, into the coach, into his stepfather? The materialising of Pinkers? Electricity, resistance to electricity and shocks, the television and the tower?

8. Jonathan and the chase, the fight, the dangers, the police? Alison's appearances to him? Clash with the coach and trying to get Pinkers away from him? His dead friends? His stepfather possessed and the confrontation?

9. His theory in order to destroy Pinkers, the power, electricity, television? The TV reporter and the cameras? His friends and their charging the electricity? Alison and her support? The heart, the dive? The tower and the fight? The blend of dream and reality? Entering the television? Finally switching off the television and Pinkers?

10. How well-drawn were the characters: Jonathan, his stepfather, Alison? The coach, the team, his friends? The police? Giving the film credibility? How credible a character was Pinkers - seen in his shop? The number of the murders, his brutality? The visualising of the victims?

11. An '80s nightmare, serial killers, the role of the media, the police? Justice? The message of the film?