HIDE AND GO SHRIEK

Hide and Go Shriek Movie Review

A group of high school kids go to a large furniture store, owned by one of their parents, to have a party. Unfortunately, a killer soon arrives, and a bloodbath ensues. I have to admit, before even watching a second of this film, I had already given it at least a star or two for having such a wonderful title. 

"It's totally rad"

On their way to the party, the youths all get out of the van and run around it before getting back in--I know what we called this back in the day, but I'm pretty sure if I say it now, somebody, somewhere will be offended--I'll just rename it the bored white kids with nothing better to do whilst stopped at a red light fire drill. 

I'm not sure they even do this in China

Once the youngsters are all at the store, this movie feels very familiar--if I say "a group of teens partying at a creepy location split up and explore the building", which movie are you picturing? That's rhetorical, but there are probably at least a dozen movies from the 1980's alone that fit this description--not that I'm complaining, as I am a fan of most, if not all, such flicks. One thing that certainly separates this from most is the first teen to go--I obviously won't give it away, but will say it surprised me. The ending is also somewhat of a surprise, but we'll save that for, well, the end. 

Hey, let's not get ahead of ourselves!

Aside from a few exceptions, the movie plays out as you expect--there's bad acting (but in that charming 1980's manner), the characters are largely interchangeable, the bodies begin falling as the survivors try to escape the killer...you get the picture. That said, for having such a large cast, the kills are few. The death scenes we do get are decent, and range from happening off screen to a beheading that may or may not have inspired a scene from Final Destination 2. There's not a lot of consistency with the killer--at times he seems to have Powers of Pain level strength, but when we finally see him, he's less Warlord and more Mulkey Brother. The lighting is bad for most of the film, though sometimes it does sort of look like some odd nod to the iris shots of the silent era--when viewed with that in mind, it's much more tolerable. Speaking of lighting, it gets splashed with lots of red in the final third of this movie--combined with the quick, frantic editing, the movie suddenly feels like a throwback to the grindhouse days. This all brings us to the ending, and the reveal of the killer--the surprise here is not so much in who he is, but rather his relationship with another character in the movie. Again, I won't journey off into spoilerville, but this was a movie element you didn't see a lot of in 1980's horror, so much credit must be given for uniqueness. If you measure Hide and Go Shriek in terms of what is traditionally considered to be a "good movie", it will fail--no, this is not a good movie, but all the bizarre individual elements do add up to form a very entertaining film, and one I can't help but to recommend. 

On A Scale Of One To Ten: 7

Hide and Go Shriek Movie Trailer