Horace Pinker

"Come on, boy, let's take a ride in my Volts Wagon!"

- Horace Pinker "Finger lickin' good!"

- Horace after biting off a prison guard's fingers.

Horace Pinker is the main antagonist of Wes Craven’s black comedy Shocker. Horace is first introduced as a psychotic TV repair man who slaughters entire families. When finally caught and executed in the electric chair, he returns from the dead with a new array of demonic powers, including the power to control electricity and the ability to enter people’s dreams.

Background
Little is known about Pinker’s early life. It’s revealed that at one point in the past, he abused his wife and son to the fullest extent. His child son attempted to protect his mother by firing a gun at Pinker, which left him with a permanent leg injury that requires him to limp everywhere. Later on, Pinker becomes obsessed with Satanism and the occult, which leads him to kill mass amounts of people for black magic rituals. He hid under the guise of a TV repair man in order to infiltrate his victims’ homes.

Killing Spree and Execution
As the movie begins Pinker has already begun his reign of murder. The protagonist, Jonathan Parker, whose adopted father is a police lieutenant, has a strange dream of Pinker murdering his family. The dream proves to be a premonition, as his whole family is killed, although his father survives. When Pinker realizes Jonathan is on to him, he murder’s Jonathan’s girlfriend Alison.

After he is caught, he is put on death row. On the day of his execution, Pinker is found to be performing black magic in his cell, before being stopped by the guards. As Pinker is strapped in the electric chair, he reveals that he is the biological father of Jonathan, and Jonathan is responsible for the injury to Pinker’s leg.

Return from the Dead
After he is executed, Horace is revived with an array of superpowers. He can now possess people at will, can travel into his victim’s dreams, and can travel as electric current into various electronics. This also allows him to travel into television itself, and interact with the characters of various TV programs.

Jonathan, with the help of the spirit of his deceased girlfriend, forms a plan to destroy Pinker by destroying his source of power. While Pinker and Jonathan are fighting inside the television world, Jonathan’s friend, Rhino, destroys the city’s generator. Jonathan escapes and Pinker is trapped inside.

Trivia
Horace Pinker shares many attributes with Wes Craven’s other infamous serial killer Freddy Krueger:


 * Both are serial killers who are  executed and subsequently resurrected.
 * Both maintain their burn scars from their executions.
 * Both have the ability to travel into their victim's dreams and torrment their victims there.
 * Both have godlike power in their own worlds.
 * Both have to face their own biological children in battle, and are then defeated by them.