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Hide and Go Shriek (1988) - Blu-ray Review

Movie Review

5 beersMannequins.  It had to be Mannequins.

Even more fun at the local neighborhood chopping mall! This movie, full of gorgeous girls and their brain dead boyfriends, is what happens when four teenage couples do some after hours shopping in a furniture store. Well, sort of.

Hide and Go Shriek, complete with its great title and one hell of a shocking twist, is a low-budget slasher with more than a few surprises up its sleeve as a group of teens celebrate their high school graduation by getting locked inside a furniture store so that they can fool around a bit in the beds (pick a floor!) and play some games. What could possibly go wrong with this plan? Turns out everything can and does go wrong in this lean and mean slasher from director Skip Schoolnik and screenwriter Michael Kelly.

There is a killer on the loose inside the furniture store and, as he is always in the shadows, we are never sure of his identity until the final 10-minutes. After picking our jaws up off the floor, we are allowed ample time to connect the dots. Only then do we realize that, due to an opening scene that seems far and removed from the rest of the narrative, it was all there. We just didn’t pick up on what it was telling us on the mean streets.

The horror film stars Bunky Jones as Bonnie Williams (who is fantastic!), Brittain Frye as Randy Flint, Annette Sinclair as Kim Downs, George Thomas as David Hanson, Donna Baltron as Judy Ramerize, Scott Fults as Shawn Phillips, Ria Pavia as Melissa Morgan, and Sean Kanan as John Robbins as our wild teenagers and things get started in a very traditional sense. There is ribbing and goading and pranks with mannequins (which later, once the lights go out, add so much fear and general creepiness to the atmosphere of this thriller that is hard to overstate their impact).

Most of the girls (and boys) shed their clothes within minutes of the evening celebrations beginning adding to the overall enjoyment of the flick, but the sex play settles down once some of them go missing. The film quickly switches gears from lightweight fluff to drop-dead seriousness in a matter of a few minutes.

The film also sports great performances from Jeff Levine and Scott Kubay as a pair of interesting characters that rattle our senses with an impact that is not soon shaken off. They are suspicious and charismatic and provide something that no one saw coming.

Highlighted by an eerie scene in which the teens, finally realizing they are being picked off one by one, desperately pound on shatterproof glass from the inside of a store as they try to get the attention of the cops across the street who are busy harassing a homeless guy, this slasher – and its use of mannequins – absolutely rocks. That scene is expertly shot on the other side of the glass – that is, from the street – and we never hear them scream. We don’t even hear the pounding on the glass. We only see them silently screaming into the glass and, because we’ve been inside with them, we know that there truly is a killer somewhere in the building.

Will no one help them?

Honestly, I don’t dare say more about this very effective thriller or I myself might find, just like one of the teens in Hide and Go Shriek, my own head lobbed off by an overly noisy elevator. Just watch this film. It’s unforgettable in its cross-dressing ways.

Hide and Go Shriek is now available on blu-ray thanks to a brand new 2K scan of the original InterNeg by Code Red. This underrated b-movie cult classic is not to be missed.

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Film Details

Hide and Go Shriek (1988) - Blu-ray Review

MPAA Rating: R.
Runtime: 90 mins
Director: Skip Schoolnik
Writer: Michael Kelly
Cast: Bunky Jones, Brittain Frye, Annette Sinclair
Genre: Horror
Tagline: Close your eyes. Count to 10. And run for your life.
Memorable Movie Quote: "What are you doing? We've gotta clean our home... make it nice again!"
Theatrical Distributor:
Official Site: Release Date: November 16, 1976
DVD/Blu-ray Release Date: December 3, 2016
Synopsis: A group of teens decides to spend a night at a furniture store owned by the father of one of their members. Joining them for the ill-fated overnight adventure is a homeless ex-con security guard. Isolated and trapped, they’re all soon stalked b someone with a taste for cross-dressing who breaks in and begins to pick off them off during a game of hide and seek.

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Hide and Go Shriek (1988) - Blu-ray Review

Blu-ray Details

Blu-ray

Blu-ray Details:

Home Video Distributor: Code Red
Available on Blu-ray - December 3, 2016
Screen Formats: 1.85:1
Subtitles: None
Audio: English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0
Discs: Blu-ray Disc; single disc
Region Encoding: Region-free playback

Offered courtesy of Code Red DVD in 1.78:1, the AVC-encoded 1080p transfer of Hide and Go Shriek is a relative goldmine of previously unseen details and colors. The details in the rooms and the clothing and some of the bedroom furniture items are a reason to appreciate the visual “pop” throughout the high definition transfer. The crisp image quality is the best you’re going to get with a film like this and, admittedly, even a bit better than expected. Some stuff from the same era hasn’t made the HD transition quite as well, but this one looks pretty solid. Colors are perfect. Blacks are solid. Skin tones are detailed and appropriate. The sound – offered here in a strong DTS-HD Master Audio Stereo track – presents the terror in an engaging manner.

Supplements:

Commentary:

None

Special Features:

Fans (old and new alike) get a new 2K scan of the original negative and an Interview with director Skip Schoolnik, producer Dimitri Villard and actor Jeff Levine. A theatrical trailer is also included.

Interview with director Skip Schoolnik, Interview with producer Dimitri Villard Interview with actor Jeff Levine Theatrical Trailer

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Hide and Go Shriek (1988) - Blu-ray Review

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