Hide and Go Shriek (1988)

Director: Skip Schoolnik

Starring: Bunky Jones, Brittain Frye, Annette Sinclair

A group of teenagers spend the night in a furniture store for a graduation party. A psycho killer starts hunting them down one by one.

Eight teenagers embark on “the adventure of their lives” as they decide to have their graduation party at a furniture store owned by John’s dad. They are locked in for the night and decide to play hide and seek. Off course it starts off with fun and games, as it always does, before the screaming starts.

But these teenagers only have sex on their mind, and are even making out while hiding. Its as if the writers didn’t know what else they were meant to do. And yup, every single girl flash her boobies – oh, this is so typically 80’s. Sexploitation at its best, baby!

Spending the night in a furniture store didn’t make much sense to me to begin with. But when John started ranting about them making a mess and constantly telling them not to touch or break anything, he became really annoying. I couldn’t help wonder why he bothered offering them to stay at the store if he was so worried they would make a mess. Did he honestly believe a bunch of horny teens would spend the night in the store and not leave a single trace, and leave the store is ready for business the next day? I mean, really! That’s just a dumb idea!

John also didn’t want them to turn on the lights because “someone might see them”. As a result most of the movie is in darkness, making for a rather unpleasant watch. Ok, so the teens are trapped inside the store and there’s a killer stalking them. Man, I swear, this killer does the strangest things! Just weird… From the beginning it was clear the killer is a homosexual, but I still didn’t expect it to turn out the way it did. In a way I liked the turn of events, but in another way it doesn’t make sense at all why he would want to kill the teenagers. It’s as if they were hoping for a shock reveal in the vein of ‘Sleepaway Camp’ (1983).

If you’re looking for something similar, ‘Chopping Mall’ (1986) is much better, and even ‘The Initiation’ (1984) is a better option.

Would I watch it again? No.