Hellraiser (1987)

Just perfect...

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

One of my interns at work asked me the other day, "You watch all of these horror movies. Don't they scare you?" No, they really don't. Not anymore. Some of them disturb me, like the cannibal films. But only one still kind of scares me. And that would be Hellraiser.There was a time, before the eight sequels to the film and BDSM became well-known fodder on shows like Law and Order that Hellraiser seemed like it came from some alien land more than its true origins. The monsters of the piece, the Cenobites, looked like nothing we'd never seen before, all leather, blood and open festering wounds. The idea that sex and pain could be united wasn't trite back in 1987, so it's difficult to convey the power and fear this film had. It feels wrong. It feels dirty. It feels evil.How this movie was made for $900,000 blows my mind. It looks lush and gauzy at times and at others, like when we see Frank's heart and veins being formed, positively nightmarish. It shouldn't be this good - it was Clive Barker's directorial debut after seeing two of his stories, Underworld and Rawhead Rex, get made into films he didn't agree with. What kind of deal with the devil did this guy make to turn out something so perfect on his first try?The misconception that many people have of this film is that the Cenobites are the villains or the horrific part of the film. If we go to the poster for proof, it says "Demon to some. Angel to others." Pinhead and his gang are there to move the story forward and certainly look frightening, but they are bound by the rules of Hell and the Lament Configuration, the puzzle box that sets the events of the film in motion. Matter of factly, these rules aren't truly defined yet - is Pinhead a tortured soul stuck in the wheels of some hellish bureaucracy? Who created these boxes? None of this matters - "You solved the box. We came." Yes, it can be that simple. You don't need to know all of those answers right now. When Frank buys the box and Morocco and solves it, he gets the answer to limitless pleasure and the drug of all drugs - as Frank says, "I thought I'd gone to the limits. I hadn't. The Cenobites gave me an experience beyond limits. Pain and pleasure, indivisible."That's one of the real horrors of this film: people will do anything to chase a high. That high may be drugs. It may be pain. It may be a sexual experience that makes the mundane life you're stuck in - like Julia, bored with a suburban life with a husband she never really wanted in the first place. The chance to be with Frank again, no matter if she has to seduce and kill for him, is everything. Notice that as he gains more muscle and skin with each drop of blood, she becomes more and more attractive, her skin gaining new color.The main horrors of this film are family and other people. The Cotton family had issues before the Cenobites took one step out of Hell. The most horrific part of the film comes when Frank wearing Larry's skin, stares at his niece in a moment of sexual longing and says, "Come to daddy." Sure, there are horror film trappings, but this type of morally bankrupt behavior isn't something confined to the cinema. So much of the betrayal and madness of Frank and Julia could happen. It happens every day.Hellraiser exists on the border of reality. It's fantastic, but it feels like it could happen. It's the dangerous fiction that could overwhelm your truth if you go too far. In that it's quite similar to Barker's Candyman, which posits that saying the name of its titular character three times in a mirror is all it takes for him to come for you. That seems too unrealistic, but do you want to take the chance? And much like the black leather garbed creatures in this film, Candyman must adhere to a dream logic that only comes into our reality when you allow the genie from the bottle.

This is the original which introduced us to Pinhead, the Cenobites and the Lament Configuration. And it's been downhill ever since. When some of the Hellraiser movies literally started as something else and were rewritten as Hellraiser movies you know you're asking for trouble. But we don't find that here. We have a good horror movie from the mind of Clive Barker. The story is pretty generic or at least it starts that way. A woman and her husband move into the house that was owned by his brother. The same brother that she had been having an affair with. But he disappeared under mysterious circumstances and this is her husband's attempt to repair his crumbling marriage. This is not really looking up for him.A drop of spilled blood in the attic resurrects the brother who shows up as a skinless and bloody corpse. The wife, who still loves the brother, finds him and agrees to harvest some blood so that he can come back completely to life. She does, he's restored and we're introduced to the Lament Configuration. It's a puzzle box. One that when you open it summons the Cenobites who will introduce you to a new world of carnal pleasures. Pleasures like getting ripped up by hooks and chains and having your body modified in unpleasant ways. Their reasoning is they no longer feel the difference between pleasure and pain and are simply seeking new experiences and want to share them.It's an interesting idea in which the Cenobites are not so much evil as just beyond our understanding. There's plenty of blood, quite a bit of gore and just enough menace from Pinhead, the lead Cenobite, to instill actual fear.It's a good example of what a horror movie can be without getting too caught up in just throwing blood and guts at the audience for an hour and a half and the occasional jump scare. The makers of horror movies should take note.

Man.....I'm not gonna lie. I don't see what the big deal about this movie is. Some scenes are decent and gory. None are really scary though! None of this movie scared me, and I watched it by myself at night. I love horror movie, BUT I truly don't see why this one is a classic! To me it was uneventful and lacked suspense. Only reason I gave it this many stars was bc of Kirsty. At least she was something to look at!

The big screen adaptation of Clive Barker's very own novel; The Hellbound Heart, Hellraiser tells of Frank. Being an unsavoury, lecherous man he wishes to experience the extremes of pleasure and pain. To achieve this he purchases a supernatural puzzle-box which when solved, he is torn apart by hooks on chains. After some time passes Franks brother Larry, his second wife Julia and his daughter Kirsty move in to the very house that Frank was killed in. After accidentally cutting himself Larry's brother seeps through the houses floorboards, and resurrects his deceased brother who is discovered by Julia. She previously had an affair with her brother-in-law and it's clear that their fling has still left an impression on her. Being skinless and incomplete as a trio of demonic being called Cenobites had rid him of his body, he persuades his former lover to lure unsuspecting male victims back to the house so that he may feed upon them them so as to regenerate his body. However, when things take an unexpected turn when Kirsty stumbles across her evil uncle.Hellraiser is one of those movies which has so much good things going for it but at the same time it has much that is wrong with it. The directorial debut of Clive Barker this had the potential to be something great, and indeed with his innovative talents as a storyteller there is a cracking horror yarn here. Chalk full with eroticism there is most definitely themes of sadomasochism with the monstrous Cenobites decked in leather clad gear, and are something akin to fetishists. To Barker's credit he didn't do an altogether bad directing job in some areas given this was his first movie as director, however the altogether inconsistency in the quality of acting makes one wonder if this would have benefited from a more experienced filmmaker at the helm. In the main antagonist Frank who is played by two actors, the pre-deceased version and the resurrected zombified incarnation we have one of the most twisted, vile and perverse creations that have been brought to the screen to say the least. Unfortunately both actors, Sean Chapman and Oliver Smith speak with such gravelly, voiced intensity that it feels artificially hokey and takes away from the sheer menace of the character who is left under-developed and two-dimensional. Ashley Lawrence as the main heroine Kirsty is overall fairly decent while Andrew Robinson as her good natured, oblivious father Larry is solid enough for the most part. However the biggest standout is Clare Higgins as Julia, the "wicked stepmother" of the movie who manages to be a reluctant seductress and bored housewife while injecting real humanity and vulnerability, making her an interesting villain. More so I would wager than Frank.One interesting aspect to this, is the Cenobites or more notably Pinhead (who is listed in the end credits as "Lead Cenobites") are really only a secondary threat in this, only making their presence made in the final third of the movie. Actor Doug Bradley who incidentally attended the same Grammar School as Barker, brings a chilling ominous tone to the lead Cenobite and delivers a grandiose performance in the relatively brief time he appears on screen. The make up effects by eighties standard are indeed impressive as are the overall design, although the puppetry effects used in a couple of scenes haven't stood the test of time too well. Barker however does manage to create something of a otherworldly ambience and there is some striking visual flair. This can't entirely compensate though for some of the stilted acting from some of the supporting players, and moments where it strays in histrionic melodrama. Especially in the flashbacks to Frank and Julia. This was a flawed but noble attempt to bring what I can only imagine was a great story, given the reputation of it author, to the screen. It just doesn't all come together quite as well as it should although there's still much to admire.