FOR DYING OUT LOUD 666

RIDE THE LIGHTNING



SHOCKER (1989)
Mitch Pileggi, Peter Berg, Michael Murphy, Richard Brooks, Camille Cooper, Ted Raimi, Vincent Guasteferro
Directed by Wes Craven
Horace Pinker is a terrifying serial killer with a limp, and doubles as a TV repairman. He's slaughtered over 30 people in an L.A. suburb named Maryville, and the police finally zero in on him as their prime suspect. Lead detective, Lt. Don Parker, is all set to at last nab the sonofabitch, but Pinker eludes him and savagely kills Parker's family, except for his foster son, high school football star Jonathan, who by sheer luck was not at home during the massacre, but dreamt it. Parker remains on the case, and as Jonathan mourns the devastating loss of his adoptive family, he starts having more disturbing dreams that point to Pinker's repair shop. He tells his Dad, who in turn with a number of cops arrive at Pinker's place which is full of cluttered junk, electronics, and numerous TV's displaying scenes of catastrophe & destruction. After a shootout resulting in 4 dead officers, the killer's narrow escape, and Parker in deep shit with his bosses, Pinker murders Jonathan's girlfriend, Allison, in revenge. She quite literally dies in a bloodbath. Jonathan (who at this state should be catatonic) has another dream of Pinker on the prowl, but this time he thwarts the madman's kidnapping and barely escapes being killed himself during a fight on a rooftop. With the cops in tow, Pinker is finally apprehended, and his arrest is followed by un unseen but no doubt sensationalist trial resulting in quick conviction, and sentence of death by electric chair. Jonathan demands from his Dad to attend as a witness, and Parker agrees. On the execution date, Pinker is in his jail cell making a deal with the Devil, by performing a black magic ritual on his knees infront of a TV, hooked up to jumper cables(!) He is zapped/anointed from a groovy-voiced, demonic force and sparks fly just before he is stopped by guards.

The accompanying Priest is stunned and disgusted by the Satanic paraphernalia. Having passed out, Pinker bites the lip of one guard trying to perform mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, chomps on the fingers of the other, and is then beaten while he laughs maniacally. Led to the chamber and utterly remorseless, he locks eyes on Jonathan and tells him that he is his real father. As a boy, Jonathan shot biological Papa in the left knee to protect his mother whom Pinker was fatally attacking; thus accounting for their strange, psychic connection. Parker angrily jumps up and tells Pinker to STFU. The execution goes awry, and Pinker disappears in darkness where he kills some prison staff. Jonathan and Parker find Pinker's body which bursts into flames and vanishes. Having gotten a real supercharge instead of just dying-by-frying, a now newly juiced-up Pinker has turned into an immortal being of pure, evil energy; able to body-swap and travel through cable wires & powerlines into people's televisions to slaughter more families. Back home (how the hell does a kid at 16 or 17 back then even have their own place?), dreaming Jonathan is visited by Allison's ghost, and she hands over a heart pendant which gives him the strength to drive Pinker away; setting the course for our hero to play a deadly game of cat & mouse, trying to stop Pinker from resuming his body count. Our killer on the loose possesses the female prison doctor; a cop; most memorably: a little girl in a playground who swears like a trucker as she bouncingly hops & drags to operate a bulldozer, and is tackled by Jonathan infront of the girl's freaked out mother; the mother; a buff construction worker (Alice Cooper guitarist Kane Roberts) who tosses the pendant into a lake with his pickaxe; Jonathan's football coach; and Parker who nearly suffers a lethal heart attack during a chase atop a high voltage broadcast tower.

Alison protects Jonathan with an inner light (the power of undying love?) that repels Pinker, but after a brief wrong arrest for copycat murders to which he fled, Jonathan is cleared by his father. As Pinker escaped via a beam from a TV satellite dish, Jonathan is helped by his teammates (on standby at a power station ready to pull a little technical difficulty ala short circuit sabotage), and a pair of TV videocameramen (in a replica of the dead little sister's bedroom, set to go live-on-air) to bring Pinker back; trapped in the real world, where he'll be subject to the physical limitations of manipulated signal reception. [For Jonathan, this seems like the biggest/cleverest/riskiest experiment he'll ever partake in, for I'm guessing the how-to instructions needed for this digital trickery were probably not exactly plastered in the Panasonic and Sony equipment manuals of the day. So bravo & good luck you stealthy stuntman, as you venture into the idiot box airwaves]. While dreaming in his vibrating reclining chair, he makes out with Allison and gets back the pendant. He is also visited by the spirits of Pinker's victims who tell him to wake up, stop smooching, and prepare for his showdown. Pinker attacks him in his house by passing through light sockets in the wall but is repulsed by the pendant. Jonathan goes after him and the term "don't touch that dial" is completely thrown out the window as both men engage in a bizarre, channel surfing chase as they run amok through a crazy TV show landscape of documentary war footage; classic sitcoms; Alice Cooper concert antics on stage; historical disaster; South Korean street rioting; boxing; Entertainment Tonight with John Tesh (atleast he wasn't singing); Dr. Frankenstein and his famous monster; nuclear explosions; a redneck family's living room (complete with obligatory fat wife pigging out on the couch); and a televangelist preacher game show(!)

Will Jonathan get remote control, freeze-framing retribution? Will he still bang his dead girlfriend? Will Pinker be reduced to the output of a kiddie sparkler? What will happen to the neighborhood in a blackout? With their boob tubes broken, what will people do without their nightly fix from the TV Guide? While similarities to A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET can't be helped (a wisecracking villain who goes after his victims with an emphasis on sleep, anyone? How about parental guilt, or alternate realities?), this was a better than average slasher flick for Craven, inspite of the negativity heaped upon it. Originally more graphic with its violence, the movie was submitted to the MPAA 13 times before finally getting its X-rating changed to R. As Pinker was intended to be a new horror icon, the subgenre was fizzling out near the end of its craze, and the idea of a freshly-created franchise never saw fruition. However derided it is in Craven's stable for being cheesy and over the top in ridiculousness, its premise certainly brings laughs -- even if unintentional. Berg (more of a direcor & producer these days) looks a bit too old to be a high schooler, but ironically (and hilariously) he seemed to get his ass kicked more harmfully by running into a goal post and falling over a water table, than by Pinker tossing him around like a rag doll and beating the crap out of him. Yes, Berg's stiff & monotone acting is quite bad, and his character is a slight dork, but this is Pileggi's movie through n' through.

Best known as Walter Skinner on "The X-Files" for its entire run, Pileggi shines playing a merciless, brutish psychopath, and is clearly having a blast hamming it up as a homicidal heavy with bursts of insane giggling. [Pileggi and Craven teamed up again 26yrs later for the Director's last film (which he co-produced), THE GIRL IN THE PHOTOGRAPHS, before his death at 76 on August 30, 2015]. Heather Langenkamp, Dr. Timothy Leary, and Craven himself (along with his son & daughter) drop in for quicky cameos, and the soundtrack features Megadeth covering Alice Cooper; Iggy Pop; Dangerous Toys; and hair metal one-off The Dudes of Wrath comprising members of Alice Cooper, Kiss, Van Halen, Mötley Crüe, and Whitesnake. In closing, SHOCKER is enjoyably silly, with some interesting & imaginative ideas for the sfx of the time. While there might have been an attempt at some sort of subliminal commentary about the exploitive oversaturation of 24hr news trauma, or excessive media consumption, or the budding germ of technological overload thanks to the proliferation of a mass communication medium, the movie is still a very funny romp. [The sound of an unseen British nature show narrator being punched out as he describes the red-crested nuthatch, instantly followed by Pinker climbing a tree near the bird's nest, and peering out over a sleeping Jonathan, still cracks me up]. In all fairness, the movie's amusing and wild absurdity single-handedly makes this an unapologetic, unashamedly, nostalgic, guilty pleasure fave of mine. Uneven and filled with imperfection, I loved it in high school and still fondly dig it the same all these years on. It definitely hits the spot for those goofy moods.




THE HORROR SHOW aka HOUSE III: THE HORROR SHOW (1989)
Lance Henriksen, Brion James, Rita Taggart, Dedee Pfeiffer, Aron Eisenberg, Thom Bray, Alvy Moore
Directed by James Isaac
Dedicated detective, Lucas McCarthy, has finally nabbed sadistic serial killer, "Meat Cleaver" Max Jenke, who has murdered a staggering 110+ people. The fateful night of capture involved splitting up with his partner as they tracked Max to a diner. Finding 2 cops dead in the kitchen, his partner legged it to a nearby power plant, and McCarthy followed to find his partner dying with both arms severed. McCarthy apprehended Max (but not before the death of a little girl grabbed hostage) and was stopped by his Lt. from putting a bullet in the sicko's head. Put on leave of duty, seeing a shrink, and still plagued by nightmares, McCarthy witnesses the disturbing execution in the electric chair (a great sequence reminiscent of SCANNERS with bulging & popping veins, and rippling & bursting skin), in hopes of freeing himself from tormented dreams. Old Sparky however, is just the beginning. As Max's body burns to a crisp before exhaling his last breath, he has dabbled in diabolical dark arts to elevate him to another level of reality, and tells the detective it ain't over by a longshot. McCarthy is soon shocked to find Max is far from dead as a doornail, and fears he will soon come after him, and carry out a new series of gruesome killings. Max goes a step further by scaring the bejesus out of McCarthy's family in their new home. Wife Donna discovers their cat has gone missing, and the furnace keeps blasting itself on. That's because it now houses Max's malevolent soul. Hallucinations start to drive McCarthy a little loopy, and he wonders if his house is haunted, and if he's going full-on batshit.

Meanwhile, with Mom & Dad going out for a celebration meal, daughter Bonnie sets up a rendezvous with her rebel boyfriend, Vinnie, in the basement but he is killed by Max impersonating her voice. The next day, son Scott (who likes music, and scams companies into sending him freebies) helps his big sister look for the missing Vinnie as an angry McCarthy yells at Max in the basement boiler to 'come out, come out, from wherever you are' and keep his grubby hands off his family. Hearing the noise, his kids think he's shouting at Vinnie. Later, (in the movie's absolute wackiest moment) when he sees Max morphed in a roast turkey on the dinner table (a nod to ERASERHEAD?), he stabs it insanely which in some extreme circles would suggest that he would rather have preferred chicken. This is quickly followed up by him turning the TV off with his gun because he sees Max taunting him on every program. McCarthy sees a police shrink, and a college professor of questionable reputation, who knows a thing or two about the occult, tells him that the only way to defeat demented Max is: Are you ready for this? -- To destroy his electro-ghost evil spirit with an overdose of power since this will cause the electricity surging in him (that has made him superhumanly immune) to be brought into the real world (as a re-resurrection from his already undead state?) allowing for a re-energized re-electrocution to destroy his electromagnetic essence and make him a Regular Joe again (even though he wasn't quite an Average Joe to begin with)... Or some crackpot science-planation to that effect.

Dad has tried to "fix" the furnace but his kids don't steer clear of the dreadful downstairs, and when a lured Bonnie returns to the basement, she finds Vinnie's dead body, and McCarthy is arrested thanks to Max's frame-up. Professor Paranormal Investigator is also killed after snooping about in Jenke's old apartment. With Dad in police interrogation and out of the way, Max runs roughshod over the McCarthy family by killing Scott (guess what with), entering Bonnie's body, and taking Donna hostage. Intent on clearing his name, McCarthy escapes and makes it back home to fight Max once and for all, and try to save his family. He enters the furnace(!) which apparently operates like Mr. Peabody & Sherman's WABAC time machine. In this Narnia-ish nightmare (just in case we needed to be reminded of all the trauma McCarthy has swirled through), we make stops back at the diner, and power plant where Jenke chops at a transformer panel causing the voltage to blast both men (and Donna) back into the McCarthy living room. Having materialized back into mortal form, Max is shot dead. Yep, after all that slugging it out and exchanging of quips (that reminded me of Spiderman vs. Electro), the preposterous/convoluted-claptrap/psychobabble theory actually worked. Shortly after, the McCarthy's are moving out of their house with Scott alive (um, what?), and the cat having come back. Donna snaps a happy family pic and we fade to black from the snapshot.

Hmm, so let's see here: another profane, dangerous, cruel, unrepentant & unstoppable killer with a twisted laugh, who has made a pact with the Devil; returns from the grave and threatens heinous revenge; harnesses electricity; displays a penchant for body-jumping transference/possession; alters reality; pins murder on the protagonist hero; borrows from A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET; was introduced with hopes of its killer becoming a re-occurring slasher badass; and also saw considerable cutting from the MPAA. Sounds like a real familiar "SHOCKER" doesn't it? The confusing thing about the lame-named THE HORROR SHOW is that it was released as HORROR HOUSE: HOUSE III in Europe, as a 7-part Italian rebranding of movies (La Casa) which are actually unrelated whatsoever to the original cannon (except for production crews), yet continue in the series as sequels -- even though they are unofficial. The direct-to-video HOUSE IV is actually the proper continuation from HOUSE II, meaning IV should be the real III. But since it follows after the European numbering which is wonky by US/Canadian order, there's further murkiness which -- wait for it -- gets more vexing(!): The installments also wrongly tie into THE EVIL DEAD titles as well (excluding ARMY OF DARKNESS). Did you get all that? Another arbitrary wedge-in sharing nothing in common to the franchise. Mamma Mia. As both electric chair films were released in the same year, (and arguably equal in plot holes and flaws) many people wrongly believe THE HORROR SHOW was the low-rent rip off, when infact it opened in April -- 6 months before SHOCKER. Unlike Pileggi's extravaganza of sheer craziness, Brion James (certainly no stranger to playing menacing goons) in his grimmer flick was going for more violent bloody gore, hacked off limbs, and intensity in addition to humor.

And due respect, he does a solid job as a sleazeball wreaking havoc. Sadly, James died in August 1999 at 54 from a heart attack. Of the nearly 100 movies in his filmography, he said playing Max Jenke was his all-time favourite role. Alongside him is Henriksen who always brings A-game seriousness, and is fun to watch as he unhinges into paranoia. Unfortunately though, he's wasted here as the story stretches into periods of dullness, too many flashbacks (including the clichéd intro of a flashback in a dream, which is taking place in another dream), and James just not used enough. Outside of the 2 stars, the acting is nothing to write home about, and the only real bright spot are the sfx (of which Greg Nicotero was a part). Oh yeah, Kane Hodder did stuntwork. THE HORROR SHOW is dumb but not outright terrible. [Except for the huh? ending. If Scott is alive, is it because the undoing of Jenke has reversed all of the killer's actions? With Scott suddenly just back with no explanation, or device to indicate the whole ordeal was imagined, I feel a better implication would have been to leave us wondering if this is a final dream orbiting around what is still a reign of terror being conducted]. Enough digression. Overall, the movie is still a much more erratic & unraveled mess than SHOCKER. If you got a good jolt out of Horace Pinker, this movie is worth a watch for a particular comparative contrast in presentation; to see if Max Jenke (even with his impressive body count) in your opinion is either big league or farm team. In case I haven't made my allegiance known, I'll take the orange jumpsuit with checkerboard chest strip.