film: shocker
beer: shock top pumpkin wheat
i swear that pumpktoberfest 2011 isn't going to be comprised solely of wes craven films but if there's a horror film that pairs better with today's pumpkin beer than his 1989 gem shocker, i haven't seen it. does anybody out there make a serial killer-themed pumpkin beer? as far as i know, the answer is no, so back-to-back wes craven films it is. personally, this was one of the first films i saw by craven & somewhere in my parents' house there's a poster from the film, so it's always held a special place in my heart. though it's not the best horror film ever made, it's filled with just the right combo of horror, hilarity and late 80's nostalgia & music for my tastes. "no more mr nice guy" performed by megadeth? yes yes double yes!
as the story goes, there's a serial killer loose in L.A. & it turns out to be horace pinker, a TV repairman with a limp who's played by mitch pileggi (FBI assistant director skinner on the x-files). a detective (played by michael murphy) is hot on his trail & when he gets too close, pinker murders his entire family except for his adopted son jonathan (a high school football star played by peter berg, the dude who developed friday night lights). for some reason, jonathan starts seeing pinker in his dreams & is able to help his father track him down. unfortunately, pinker eludes the cops & kills jonathan's girlfriend as revenge. still, jonathan keeps seeing pinker in his dreams & eventually, it leads to pinker's capture.
since pinker's a serial killer & all, the state sentences him to death by the electric chair. what the state doesn't know is that pinker is worshipping some sort of god of electricity. just before his execution, he reveals that he's actually jonathan's father [cue dramatic soap opera music] & thanks to pinker's crazy religion, when he's executed he doesn't die. no siree. he becomes electricity & is able to jump into people's bodies, possessing them. this leads to a series of people, from cops to little girls to construction workers, walking with pinker's trademark limp & doing his bidding. eventually pinker possesses the detective but after a battle with jonathan, pinker is expelled from the detective & flees into a satellite dish.
with pinker hiding inside the world of television waves, jonathan needs to come up with a brilliant plan to defeat him. as is to be expected from a late-80's horror flick, the method of stopping him turns out to be quite outstanding. all i'll say is that it's both HIGHLY implausible & also features cameos from alice cooper & timothy leary. by the time it's all over, the world's been saved from electricity-worshipping serial killers but there's still room for a sequel. too bad that shocker was such a failure at the box office that that sequel never got made.
for today's pumpkin beer, we've got the anheuser-busch-produced shock top pumpkin wheat. sure the bottle & website make no mention that "shock top" is a major brand masquerading as an independent brand, but it is. for five years anheuser-busch/shock top has been brewing their belgian white, a beer that won the 2006 "belgian white" gold medal at the north american beer awards. they also make a raspberry wheat but the pumpkin wheat is their first seasonal beer. as usual, the label features their ridiculous "orange slice with a mohawk" mascot & according to the shock top site, it has a flavor "that’s refreshingly fall and distinctly shock top." um, yeah...because shock top's flavor is that distinct.
after trying the despicable jack's pumpkin spice ale (also made by anheuser-busch) back during pumpktoberfest 2009, i wasn't expecting very much from the shock top pumpkin. add to it that i've never thought of their belgian white as anything special & i was expecting the shock top to be a typical weak, over-spiced excuse for a pumpkin beer. as it turned out, it wasn't all that bad. it's a dark orange brew that, due to the wheat, takes on a hazy complexion. the fact that it's a wheat beer helps give it an acceptable amount of body but it also obscures any pumpkin flavor. as for the spices (nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves), they're definitely noticeable in the flavor and are lightly done in comparison to many of the pumpkin beers out there. while you could definitely do better with a pumpkin beer, you could definitely do worse.