Halloween Movie Fest: Hellraiser

1987 horror movie

Rating: 15/20

Plot: A married couple moves into the husband's brother's house. Coincidentally, the wife had a sexual relationship with that brother who also--coincidentally--bought himself a magic box and was sucked into a nightmarish alternate dimension of some kind. Some spilled blood brings the brother back into the world of the living, but he needs more in order to come back all the way. And if I write any more about this plot, I'm going to change my mind about the 15/20 that I'm giving this.

I'd never seen this or any of the 27 sequels. I don't really care if my horror movies are scary are not. I do want them to be creative, even if the amount of creativity that goes into the characters or storytelling pushes things into bizarre territories, and I want them to be darkly comic. I don't even care if the comedy is intentional or unintentional. Hellraiser definitely has bizarre and darkly comic covered, but it's also got more than it's fair share of scares. Start with the look of the creatures, sadomasochistic demons. Pinhead--a name that shows you how serious Clive Barker et. al. are about this whole thing--and the other Cenobites [By the way, has Pinhead and the Cenobites been taken as a band name? That would be a good one.] and one vaguely phallic thing that chases a cute Ashley Laurence down a corridor are imaginative creations. The "Chattering Cenobite" reminds me of something from Doctor Who, definitely not a guy you want to meet in a B-horror film. "Butterball Cenobite" looks like a guy I've played poker with a few times while the other, which I guess is supposed to be a chick Cenobite, doesn't look too goofy or terrifying in comparison--not much different than the character in that movie Powder. They wisely don't give the quartet enough screen time for you to get sick of them or for them to lose their novelty. Of course, if they're in the 27 sequels, that might change. Those cats are nothing compared to the monstrous Frank though. How about the incredible make-up job in this that makes it look like he's reverse-melting? Reverse-melting? I'm sure there's an easy everyday word for that, but I can't think of what it would be, so I'm sticking with reverse-melting. Nobody's reading this shit anyway. The blood in this thing might look pretty dopey at times, but they certainly nailed grotesque with the look of Frank. There's lots of gross imagery in this thing--random maggots, etc.--and there's often a perfect combination of special effects, sounds like cracking noises and squelching sounds, and score, especially during a great scene where the creature comes to life through the floor. Just all kinds of creepy coolness, the kind of stuff that I don't think anybody had seen before back in the late-80s. Of course, there are some questionable choices--the "Come to Daddy" catchphrase of Uncle Frank; Kirsty's first meeting with her uncle that turns comical and involves bewildered nuns and a slow-motion Frank voice; that fucking monkey that I swear was three times as loud as any other sound in this movie; a weird near-sex scene with an over-acting Clare Higgins screaming "I can't bear it! Please no!" (reminded me of my honeymoon actually) while Frank creeps out, cuts a rat open, and then leaves; another Higgins line that made me laugh--"Not me!"; a whole bunch of Frank's lines, especially in the awkward scenes where he's pretending to be the dad ("So much for the cat and mouse shit!"); some sound effects that make it seem like the characters are on a boat; a face with maggots coming out of it that was obviously included just for shock value; and did I mention that fucking monkey? There was also all this religious iconography and Frank's final line where he quotes the Bible's shortest verse for reasons that I didn't really understand. What's with all the religious stuff in this? Anybody?

I'm probably going to watch a couple more of these in the next couple weeks. I'm assuming they get worse. Hey! Let's make this a fest! Halloween Movie Fest!