I’m willing to cut most movies some slack even if the concept seems highly implausible. But Shocker just takes things much too far expecting a leap of faith of such a gigantic proportions that most people will probably fall short of taking it.

Directed and written by Wes Craven, the movie’s antagonist is an omnipotent killer not restricted by the limits of the physical world, not unlike Freddie Kruger from Craven’s earlier movie series A Nightmare on Elm Street. The problem is that Horace Pinker isn’t nowhere near as strong a character and can’t support a feature film. In fact, he’d have a hard time cutting it as a side character in a more decent short movie.

Shocker also pulls off the quite unique combination of being unbelievable up to the point of being utterly stupid, but still being totally unoriginal. The very same concept of a murderer coming back from the dead after an execution in the electric chair has been done before previously in Prison, Destroyer and The Horror Show, all of which are much superior films to this one.

Probably the only positive note is the movie’s rock induced heavy metal soundtrack featuring selected tracks from Megadeth, Alice Cooper, Iggy Pop and Bonfire that give the movie some good music video -like oomph to it.

80s-o-meter: 82%

Total: 47%