'80s Roulette: SHOCKER

Wes Craven thumbs his nose at ELM STREET fans

I have (almost) every single movie released in theaters in the ‘80s in the United States on a hard drive and once a week, I’m going to hit shuffle and review whatever film comes up first.

Welcome to ‘80s Roulette!

OCTOBER 27, 1989

Shocker
Mitch Pileggi, John Tesh, Heather Langenkamp, Peter Berg, Jessica Craven, Camille Cooper, Richard Brooks, Sam Scarber, Ted Raimi, Keith Anthony-Lubow-Bellamy, Virginia Morris, Emily Samuel, Michael Murphy, Peter Tilden, Bingham Ray, Sue Ann Harris, Eugene Chadbourne, Jack Hoar, Stephen Held, Richard Gasparian, Joyce Guy, Joseph Roy O’Flynn, Linda Kaye, Vincent Guastaferro, Janne Peters, Bruce Wagner, Marvin Elkins, Christopher Kriesa, Bob Swain, Michael C. Matthews, Richardo Gutierrez, Ernie Lively, John Mueller, Jonathan Craven, Lindsay Parker, Dendrie Taylor, Kane Roberts, Stephen R. Hudis, Gary Davies, Christopher Keyes, Timothy Leary, Marji Martin, Ray Bickel, Mark Slama, Karl Vincent, Wes Craven, Holly Kaplan, Brent Spiner
cinematography by Jacques Haitkin
music by William Goldstein
screenplay by Wes Craven
produced by Barin Kumar and Marianne Maddalena
directed by Wes Craven
Rated R
1 hr 49 mins

A serial killer, a football player seeing the murders in his dreams, and a deal with an electricity-based devil all create mayhem in a small town.

Wes Craven, even in a post-Nightmare on Elm Street world, spent the ‘80s as the Rodney Dangerfield of horror directors, and it wasn’t until he created his second hugely-successful franchise Scream that it felt like he was truly held in the same esteem as some of his higher-profile peers.