Where Horror Goes to Flatline
Some slasher films are set in summer camps. Others, in high schools. Hide and Go Shriek decided, “Nope, let’s do this in a goddamn furniture store.” Yes, this 1988 misfire dares to ask: what if your deadliest threat isn’t Jason Voorhees or Freddy Krueger, but a discount armoire and a squeaky elevator? If you thought Friday the 13th Part V was scraping the bottom of the blood barrel, Hide and Go Shriek comes in with a shovel, digs deeper, and sets up camp in the clearance section.
The Plot, or What Passes for One
Four couples graduate high school and decide to celebrate in the most 1980s way possible: breaking into Dad’s furniture store. That’s right—an entire warehouse of couches, mannequins, and possibly bedbugs is their idea of a party. Beer is cracked, hormones rage, and someone suggests hide-and-seek, because nothing says “we’re adults now” like playing a game popular with toddlers.
Then people start dying. Not in creative, memorable ways, but in the kind of “we have $50 for special effects and a volunteer mannequin arm” ways. A couple is offed mid-game, another guy gets stabbed by a plastic arm, and someone is decapitated by an elevator—because apparently elevators in this universe move like guillotines lubricated with rocket fuel.
By the end, the killer is revealed to be Zack, a cross-dressing ex-con who’s obsessed with his prison lover Fred. Yes, that’s right—Hide and Go Shriek mixes homophobia, bad wigs, and bargain-bin blood in one neat, offensive little package. For the cherry on top, Zack survives and ends up driving the ambulance, because no bad horror movie is complete without a dumb twist ending.
The Cast: Mannequins with Pulse
The cast of Hide and Go Shriek is made up of teenagers who all look like they’re pushing 30, which was standard practice for 1980s slashers. They’re less “fresh graduates” and more “failed soap opera extras who got lost on their way to an audition.”
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Linda Blair isn’t here, but the film feels like the kind of movie Linda Blair would regret doing.
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Bunky Jones as Bonnie: bless her, she tries. She screams on cue, which makes her the Meryl Streep of this production.
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Sean Kanan as John: yes, the same guy who later played Mike Barnes in Karate Kid Part III. Watching this, you understand why Hollywood almost never let him star in anything again.
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Scott Kubay as Zack: rocking a performance that lands somewhere between Buffalo Bill in Silence of the Lambsand a rejected Madonna impersonator.
Everyone else exists solely to scream, have sex on mattresses that definitely weren’t sanitized, and die in ways so bland you’ll forget them before the credits roll.
The Setting: Pier 1 Imports, But With Murder
The choice to set this in a furniture store is either genius or idiocy, depending on how much you’ve been drinking. On one hand, it gives the killer endless props: mannequins, mattresses, lamps. On the other hand, watching teens run from danger through aisles of discount recliners has all the suspense of a Black Friday sale at Sears.
There’s one legitimately creepy idea buried in here—the mannequins scattered throughout the store sometimes look like bodies, and the killer blends in with them. But the movie botches it by overusing the gag until you feel less scared and more like you’re waiting for a clearance sale.
The Kills: DIY Gore on a Dollar Store Budget
A hallmark of a good slasher film is inventive kills. A Nightmare on Elm Street had geysers of blood. Friday the 13th had arrows through throats. Hide and Go Shriek has… a mannequin arm shoved through someone’s chest. You know, like a kid pretending to impale his friend at a slumber party.
Other highlights:
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Elevator decapitation: probably the film’s most memorable death, mostly because it makes zero sense. Elevators aren’t designed to chop heads like cucumbers.
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Knife stabbings: lots of them, all filmed like the cameraman was half-asleep.
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Head stumble gag: Zack literally trips over a severed head, which is less terrifying and more Looney Tunes.
It’s gore without glory, violence without bite. You’ll spend more time wondering why the cops don’t just, I don’t know, open the damn doors than being scared.
The Big Reveal: Homophobia in a Halloween Mask
Here’s where the movie really earns its badge of dishonor. The killer isn’t just a random psycho—it’s Zack, Fred’s gay lover from prison, cross-dressing to stalk teenagers because he doesn’t want anyone coming between him and Fred.
Yes, in case you weren’t keeping track, the film equates queerness with homicidal mania, dresses it up in bad drag, and pats itself on the back for being “edgy.” Even for the 1980s, it’s a mess. If Norman Bates and Buffalo Bill are problematic, Zack is a full-on hate crime in shoulder pads.
And just when you think the movie will end with Zack dead, he pops up as the ambulance driver—because the filmmakers wanted to add one more cliché on top of the already steaming pile.
Pacing: A Game of Hide-and-Go-Bore
The film’s runtime is only 90 minutes, but it feels like two hours of waiting for IKEA delivery. The middle chunk is an endless loop of “hide, shriek, fake-out scare, repeat.” Every 10 minutes someone wanders off to “look for their friend,” only to die in the most unimaginative way possible. It’s like the script was written on a cocktail napkin that said, “Teens hide in store, killer kills them, credits.”
By the final act, you’re not rooting for the teens—you’re rooting for the store’s security system to kick in and shut everyone down.
So Bad It’s… Still Bad
Some slashers are bad but fun (Sleepaway Camp, Pieces). Hide and Go Shriek is just bad. The kills are dull, the acting is cardboard, and the “twist” is offensive rather than shocking. Even the title is confused: Hide and Go Shriek sounds like a Scooby-Doo Halloween special, while the UK title Close Your Eyes and Pray sounds like advice to the audience.
Final Thoughts: Close Your Eyes and Don’t Bother
Hide and Go Shriek is a slasher where the scariest thing isn’t the killer, but the idea that someone thought this deserved distribution. It’s the cinematic equivalent of buying a futon on clearance: uncomfortable, poorly made, and guaranteed to collapse under pressure.
If you’re a completist of 1980s slashers, you might check this out once—for the novelty of seeing Sean Kanan before Karate Kid III. Otherwise, save yourself the trouble. This isn’t a game of hide-and-seek; it’s a game of hide-the-remote.
