‘Close your eyes. Count to 10. And run for your life.’
Hide and Go Shriek – aka Close Your Eyes and Pray – is a 1987 American slasher horror feature film directed by Skip Schoolnik (assistant director on Time Walker; editor of Amityville: The Evil Escapes; Halloween II; Doctor Heckyl and Mr. Hype) from a screenplay written by Michael Kelly. The movie stars Bunky Jones, Brittain Frye and Annette Sinclair.
Screaming Mad George (Society) supplied the makeup effects.
Plot:
A group of teenagers spend the night in a furniture store for a graduation party. A psycho killer hunts them down and kill them, one by one…
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Reviews:
“It’s pure trash, replete with nudity, dim lighting, and people bleeding out the mouth. It’s nasty, cruel, and, actually, sometimes, kind of creepy. A lot of that owes to its look […] The makeup fx are also well-done: there is no shortage of cornstarch-based red stuff. And except for John Ross’s shameless Aerosmith rip-off, his mostly synth-based music score is fantastic.” HNN
“It’s essentially a wonderful melting pot of eighties hilarity, suspense, creepiness, likable characters, and homoerotic undertones that explodes across the VCR like a Technicolor dream-movie […] It’s filled to the brim with hilarious dated fashions (slouch socks!), likable characters, gory deaths, a creepy murderer, and genuine suspense!” Obscure Cinema 101
“Definitely odd and memorable in its own low-key, twisted way, this one is pretty sparing with the gore but does deliver a nasty handful of moments along the way. Despite the harsh sunlight seen in outdoor scenes, it 
doesn’t really feel like a Los Angeles film for the most part; the arty, druggy atmosphere has an almost European feel most of the time…” Mondo Digital
“The killer isn’t given any sort of characterisation except that he is a cross-dresser, stooping the low depths to shamelessly and lazily equate transvestism with serial killing […] Hide and Go Shriek is better than it has any right to be given how late in the day it arrived to the slasher table. You’ve seen it all before but it handles the bulk of the material with a reasonable amount of skill.” Popcorn Pictures
“Performance wise, almost everything was ok, but Bunky Jones let the side down with a torrid cocktail of overacting and just plain shouting. The kids are all picked more as eye candy and there are some hot chicas here, especially the unfortunate who loses her head (quite literally). We also get the usual amount of silly late-eighties shenanigans and campy fun before the terror starts…” A Slash Above…
“The girls are all pretty smoking hot in their 80s way, and we get nice nudity from them all, making it quite a boobtastic film. There’s some inventive kills throughout the film too, such as drowning a girl in a bathroom sink, stabbing a guy with a mannequin arm (!!!) and the tried and true elevator decapitation. That last one is a gory treat.” Ronnie Angel, Slashed Dreams: The Ultimate Guide to Slasher Films
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“With hardly an original thought in its head it gleefully molests every last cliché it can get its hands on. The big hair, day-glo fashion and 80’s speak provide quite a few cheesy chuckles. But as a horror movie, like I said, Chopping Mall did it all so much better. It does pre-date another store slasher Intruder (1988) […] Hide and Go Shriek doesn’t compare well with that film either…” Hysteria Lives!
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Cast and characters:
- Bunky Jones as Bonnie Williams – Grotesque; Frankenstein General Hospital; The Kindred
- Brittain Frye as Randy Flint – Slumber Party Massacre III
- 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
- Sean Kanan as John Robbins
- Scott Kubay as Zack
- Jeff Levine as Fred
- Michael Kelly as the alley Wino
- Ron Colby as Phil Robbins
- Donald Mark Spencer as Vince
- James Serrano and Lyons as the cops in the police car
- Robin Turk as the prostitute in the opening scene
- Joe White as the man behind the newsstand
Release:
The film was given a limited theatrical US release with an R rating; an alternate video version, containing only a little more violence, was released unrated.
In December 2016, Code Red released Hide and Go Shriek on Blu-ray from a new 2K scan. Kino Lorber released a DVD from the Code Red scan on May 30, 2017.
On 10th July 2017, the film was released in the UK as a Blu-ray + DVD combo by 88 Films.
Filming locations:
An abandoned warehouse in downtown Los Angeles, California
