Abbreviated Entry...
So most of June has been pretty brutal for me schedule-wise. Big Time Life Events™ of close family members (weddings/funerals/reunions) have conspired to make the movie-every-day thing rather difficult. I've still managed to watch one every day, but the end result of everything life has thrown my way is that I'm as exhausted as I've ever been. So to keep my sanity (and this blog going), I'm going to do things a bit differently for a little while - I watched the movies, but rather than the standard entry, I'll just do a little synopsis, a little imdb research, quote some of the reviews (can you do that?) and bounce off of them. Followed up by my general impressions.
Okay, thanks!
Shriek (aka Shrieker)
Clark, a penniless college student, has found a new, cheap place to live. An abandoned hospital! It's totally illegal of course, but that doesn't stop her from moving into the (surprisingly nice) old building where three other students also live. But there is a fourth, secret guy living in the basement who seems to know a lot about the occult - and wouldn't you know it, the hospital also happened to be the site of some vicious murders many years ago. *Someone* in the hospital is trying to summon up the Shrieker, a scary monster (see the above picture) who shrieks like a Jurassic Park raptor and then kills you.
...here's an alright spooky old house type atmosphere. The Shrieker itself is only ever seen in quick cuts, in fact you'll get a better look at the creature on the video cover on the IMDb's main page for Shrieker than in the actual film itself. The special make-up effects on it look pretty good so I don't really know why the makers were so afraid to show it. Forget about any decent gore as there isn't any, there's a few dead bodies covered in blood but nothing else...
Shrieker was better than I expected because of one or two decent plot twists but please don't take that as any sort of resounding recommendation because it isn't. Average at best really, it could have been a lot worse but at the same time it could have been a lot better.
-Thanks "Paul Andrews" via imdb
I don't really remember any specifically noteworthy atmosphere or anything special about the setting, other than the fact that the old hospital seemed to be in incredibly good shape for a long-abandoned building. Monster-wise, the Shrieker looks too rubber to really be scary, and you never really see him do anything - you see him lurking in the shadows more often than you see him committing any violent acts. "Better than expected" is probably overselling it. It was just about what I expected, which wasn't all that much.
This comes from the great studio of Full Moon. Makers of such films as "Dollman", "Demonic Toys", and "Hideous". Here they at least try to make a horror movie and not a comedy/horror movie so they get points for that.
-Thanks "Aaron1375" via imdb
Yes, Shriek is a Full Moon jam, and to that end it's pretty good looking, and they don't really go for any dumb comedy. There are some funny moments, but I'm not convinced those were intentional. I felt like Shriek is just a plain bad movie instead of a campy-bad movie like a lot of Full Moon films. So it's got a little different vibe than a lot of their more recent output.
The best thing about Shrieker is the dialogue. Like Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer, this movie is cognizant of the conventions of this type of horror movie and manages to come up with a few good lines and scenes that play on those conventions. Unfortunately, Shrieker is just boring. The plot is your basic Ten Little Indians whodunnit with a monster controlled by one of the suspects/victims. You know from the beginning that each of the characters will get bumped off until only the hero(ine) is left to defeat the evil. And this is exactly what happens. Absolutely no surprises and no tension. Production values and acting were ok, but I had no motivation to watch to the end (although I did) because I already knew how the end scene would play out. The ending did surprise me a bit, because it managed to fizzle out, literally, instead of throwing out a bucket of special effects. Maybe the special effects budget had been spent up by the end.
-Thanks "ric-29" via imdb
I'm not sold on the whole "intentionally playing with conventions" thing. I mean, there are some real groaners as far as the script goes. Someone thought the bizarre line "do you think fear is the place you go to learn?" was really deep, because you hear that on several occasions. And it isn't really a good sign when someone says "is that it?" after your big climax. There are enough clunkers and not enough originality that I suspect it's just a bad script. But I can't say for sure what their intention was. Otherwise, ric-29 here sums up Shriek just about perfectly.
Overall, I don't have much nice to say about Shriek. It's never outright terrible, and there are a couple laughs to be had here an there. But at the end of the day it's just kind of boring. At least it's short.
I would not recommend this film.
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