HellraiserThose who seek death shall find it. In Hellraiser, Frank Cotton (Sean Chapman/Oliver Smith) acquires a mysterious puzzle box, an artifact which possesses the dark power to open a door to a realm beyond our reality and invite a cadre of diabolical "cenobites" to unleash their own inscrutable brand of torture upon anyone foolhardy enough to solve the puzzle. Frank is not their first recipient/victim, nor will he be the last; his destruction is but the first step in his ultimate ruin of the Cotton family, including his brother Larry (Andrew Robinson), his former lover and Larry's 2nd wife, Julia (Clare Higgins), and his niece, Kirsty (Ashley Laurence).
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Hellraiser is both written and directed by Clive Barker, based on his novella "The Hellbound Heart". Clive Barker has built his reputation on works of horror which are both visceral and dreamlike, where reality proves to be more fragile than we expect, and horrors lurk beyond that thin veil of our dimension. Hellraiser is a story about creatures which seek to cause inconceivable suffering, but they appear to do so only after they are invited as a result of one solving the puzzle box, a kind of abstract contract for their unique kind of service. As horrifying as they are, the real antagonist of the movie is Frank, who also recruits Julia to his side with some reluctance. After Frank's disassembling in the first few minutes of the movie, there should be no assumption that Frank would return; but this is a world where blood spilled in a corrupted attic of the old family homestead can be soaked into the nails and the floorboards upon which Frank met with his extraplanar executioners, and reconstitute himself in a magnificent display of gruesome special effects. Frank's pursuits have been for pleasure and pain, a promise the cenobites fulfill, but to an extent that even Frank doesn't want to play their game and remain their prisoner. In order to escape, he manipulates Julia to lure men home and slay them, so that he may siphon their blood to regrow his skin. Kirsty's relationship with Julia is already strained, as Kirsty regards her stepmother as cold and aloof (which she is), so she doesn't want to come around the house after her father and Julia move in. Perhaps it is the lurking presence of the cenobites clinging to the house like the mold and rot which clings to the attic door, but Kirsty begins to experience lucid, bloody dreams, and her anxiety proves to be not unfounded. She occasionally crosses paths with a disgusting homeless man, who invades the pet shop she works at to eat the crickets kept in a terrarium--seriously, worst pet store job ever. Eventually, she discovers the puzzle box, and after her instinctive, unconscious opening of it, she faces the monsters from elsewhere, and enters into an unusual pact of mutual benefit with them, at the very risk of having her "soul torn apart".
Hellraiser stands out from the horror crowd due to its heightened perception of reality. Characters dress in outlandish garb--even for the Eighties--and speak and act in an unnatural manner, the implication being that the characters are extreme representations of themselves, just as the kinds of pleasure and pain which Frank (and others before him) have pursued. Intense close-ups and rapid cuts back and forth between characters and what they are observing also speak to this, accompanied by forceful, orchestral music by Christopher Young. What is interesting about Hellraiser is just how little is explained about what the cenobites are. The leader--often referred to as "Pinhead" (Doug Bradley) for all the pins in his head--only speaks of how they are "demons to some, angels to others", and his desire to inflict pain seems to come from a place in which he wishes to share these experiences with others, not as an administrator of any kind of justice or malice. Where the puzzle box comes from--save for the mysterious shopkeep who passes it along to the next unwary soul--or the other monsters that lurk in the dark never get any resolution. This ambiguity makes them more fascinating, and allows our imagination to fill in the blanks, and wonder what kind of other world where they might have originated from is like. One thought I have about the puzzle box comes as a result of a scene when Kirsty is strolling along the bay, beneath massively constructed shipping cranes and other creations. Although it might just be a scene showing her taking in the scenery of her new home, a good deal of attention is given to those man-made constructs which are testaments to humanities desire to achieve a greater state of actualization as a result of their labors. The puzzle box is a construct which requires effort to open (in most cases), and allows the person to achieve a greater state of understanding of extreme levels of sensation. The message is that people will always pursue new and greater experiences--ways to expand their understanding of the universe--by their accomplishments, even if it does lead them into danger. Just as it was with Lot's wife, apparently there are some sights we cannot bear not to see, and we pay dearly for that knowledge. As Frank experiences the retribution due, he exclaims, "Jesus wept", drawing a parallel between himself and He who was also tortured and resurrected. The implication here is that the agony and the ecstasy which Jesus experienced mirrors Frank's own, and the line between the two is not so clear when it comes to heaven and hell, man torn between.
Recommended for: Fans of a brutally visceral, hauntingly dreamlike, and intense horror film, which delivers overwhelmingly gruesome moments and the shock of monsters both beyond reality and those far closer to home.
Hellraiser stands out from the horror crowd due to its heightened perception of reality. Characters dress in outlandish garb--even for the Eighties--and speak and act in an unnatural manner, the implication being that the characters are extreme representations of themselves, just as the kinds of pleasure and pain which Frank (and others before him) have pursued. Intense close-ups and rapid cuts back and forth between characters and what they are observing also speak to this, accompanied by forceful, orchestral music by Christopher Young. What is interesting about Hellraiser is just how little is explained about what the cenobites are. The leader--often referred to as "Pinhead" (Doug Bradley) for all the pins in his head--only speaks of how they are "demons to some, angels to others", and his desire to inflict pain seems to come from a place in which he wishes to share these experiences with others, not as an administrator of any kind of justice or malice. Where the puzzle box comes from--save for the mysterious shopkeep who passes it along to the next unwary soul--or the other monsters that lurk in the dark never get any resolution. This ambiguity makes them more fascinating, and allows our imagination to fill in the blanks, and wonder what kind of other world where they might have originated from is like. One thought I have about the puzzle box comes as a result of a scene when Kirsty is strolling along the bay, beneath massively constructed shipping cranes and other creations. Although it might just be a scene showing her taking in the scenery of her new home, a good deal of attention is given to those man-made constructs which are testaments to humanities desire to achieve a greater state of actualization as a result of their labors. The puzzle box is a construct which requires effort to open (in most cases), and allows the person to achieve a greater state of understanding of extreme levels of sensation. The message is that people will always pursue new and greater experiences--ways to expand their understanding of the universe--by their accomplishments, even if it does lead them into danger. Just as it was with Lot's wife, apparently there are some sights we cannot bear not to see, and we pay dearly for that knowledge. As Frank experiences the retribution due, he exclaims, "Jesus wept", drawing a parallel between himself and He who was also tortured and resurrected. The implication here is that the agony and the ecstasy which Jesus experienced mirrors Frank's own, and the line between the two is not so clear when it comes to heaven and hell, man torn between.
Recommended for: Fans of a brutally visceral, hauntingly dreamlike, and intense horror film, which delivers overwhelmingly gruesome moments and the shock of monsters both beyond reality and those far closer to home.