Shock! Shock! Shock!

This black and white slasher turned superhero mystery film feels like 90 minutes plus but is somehow only 60 minutes long. It has so many awful things about it that stand out such as ridiculous music, a stupid script, terrible special effects including the dreaded fangodon, horrible acting yet, somehow a few people involved in this went on to have futures in entertainment.

It's a solid pallet cleanser if you're in the middle of a stack of gory movies or art films that take themselves too seriously. Taken as a comedy it's one of the best I've seen.

It's "so bad it's good", "simply bad" and "pretty great" all at once, but it does require you to be one of about six people that this was made for.

"Shock!Shock!Shock!" is an excellent, intentionally cheap science fiction horror comedy. I'm a man who loves his B movies, and Todd Rutt and Arn McConnel evidently do as well. This black and white thriller was filmed on what looks like super 8 with sound recorded afterward right there in the editing room. The acting is purposly emotive as are the special effects purposly bad and the plot twists purposly out to lunch. The filmmakers went out of their way to make this one stink with punky style. Never boring, the movie opens with a kid playing with blocks on the floor framed by the legs of his parents standing over him kissing and talking about how wonderful life is. The kid gets mad, knocks over his blocks and toddles off screen. The parents laugh at the little guy and go on to muse about how perfect life is when all of a sudden they're attacked! We see a close-up of a stabbing knife, a close up of a woman's screaming mouth, buckets of black blood falling all over with lunks of spam in it, and then we fade into an overview of the little toddler holding the same blood-drenched knife that is almost as big as he is. I wont spoil anymore of it for you, but the plot gets even more ridiculous and unpredictable. "Shock!Shock!Shock!" has been one of my favorites for years now, friends I haven't seen for years still ask me about it: "What was that one totally whacked out movie...where do I find it?" It's available on VHS last I saw, and often found in the cult section of major video stores. Give it a look!

Really odd movie starts out as a slasher flick then turns into a Ultra Man style super hero thing with great punk-pop tunes by a (on screen) band that reminds me of Shonen Knife and the Monkees. The special effects are really cheesy, the super hero has ping pong ball eyes and shoots laser beams which are indicated by scratching the film negative.

In short- really bad special effects, really great music, and a plot that veers wildly from genre to genre without treating it as a joke.

I have run across one or two movies worse than this, but they were so abrasive that I couldn't sit through them. This one, while horrible, is saved by a 60 minute running time and nothing too unpleasant on the screen. In its 60 minutes it runs through at least 6 different genres. There is no nudity, no believable action, and puppet-show level special effects. I think that it was an intentional spoof, as the acting is about at the level of Pearl and her sidekicks from the Mystery Science Theatre, and I refuse to believe anyone could achieve that while trying to seriously act. This film is only for those viewers so jaded by everything else out there that they want something "different". This is not like anything you've seen before, I sincerely hope. It might also serve as inspiration for some aspiring film-maker as I think any 12 year old with their parent's video camera could produce something better.