1987 Directed by Clive Barker
Larry and his wife, Julia move into an old house and discover a hideous creature - the man's half-brother, who is also the woman's former lover - hiding upstairs. Having lost his earthly body to a trio of S&M demons, the Cenobites, Frank, is brought back into existence by a drop of blood on the floor. He soon forces his former mistress to bring him his necessary human sacrifices to complete his body... but the Cenobites won't be happy about this.
After watching Doug Bradley in Wrong Turn 5: Bloodlines I had this immediate need to rewatch Hellraiser....so I did.
The first time I watched Hellraiser I was at an incredibly impressionable age, honestly, I was probably too young to see something of this nature, I couldn't have been any more than 10-years-old. The movie absolutely terrified me but at the same time caused me to have an intense curiosity about the morbid things I was already fascinated with: pain, hell, death, afterlife, etc.
For its time, Hellraiser was above and beyond what most genre-films were exploring. When Clive Barker wrote the novella The Hellbound Heart (a year before the movie was released) it was obvious he was capable of bringing…
Hoop-Tober, Film 10 of 31:
Whoa. This movie is truly insane, and bizarre, and...
Yeah, bizarre.
Seriously really bizarre.
I wasn't expecting Phantasm-level strangeness.
One of the scenes in this film is a definitely contender for the scariest scene of the 1980s, in my opinion:
i66.photobucket.com/albums/h257/drbloodsvideovault/terror/engineer.jpg
It's 4AM. I can't sleep (not sure if it's because of the film).
I can't seem to gather my thoughts,
Or think of anything worthy of including in my review.
I want to watch this again.
But no, I don't. I really don't.
G
R
O
S
S
But awesome.
The acting though, is kinda meh. The writing is kinda meh.
But the creatures. The SFX. The music. The atmosphere.
The main character shift.…
Clive Barker's "Hellraiser" is a gloomy, gory horror film full of violence, mystery, and modern-gothic atmosphere all its own. A monster movie with unique and intelligent monsters, the film is heavy with themes of temptation and self-inflicted suffering. It is an engaging, jolting, and memorably nightmarish piece of work.
Its plot revolving around a mystical puzzle box with the power to open interdimensional doorways, "Hellraiser" follows a family dealing with the effects of what comes out of and goes into those doorways. Human-like creatures wrapped in all manner of depravity who blur the lines between pleasure and pain slip back and forth, harassing those who dare open the box.
"Hellraiser" deals more with the family and its attempts to appease…
Pinhead more bark than bite but still one badass Cenobite. Kinda creepy. Pretty gory. The last 10 minutes are pure insanity. Not a film you want to watch on strong acid.
Some pretty excellent and practical effects. The resurrection of Frank is very well done. This one sits in the middle of the road for me. The gore and story plays fine, but I almost feel this movie was a bit ahead of it's time for 1987. The set-pieces need a bit more polish. The overall feeling of hell is there, the actors are just a bit too uninteresting and hard to care for any of them.
Gore-8/10
Acting-5/10
Nudity-1/10
Story-5/10
Cheese-5/10
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So Bad It's Amazing Factor(2/10)
Incredible practical effects, a legitimately insane film that doesn’t make much sense but doesn’t exactly have to when you’ve got cenobites rising up from hell to rip the skin from people’s bones. If the relationship between pain as pleasure, especially in regards to the sexual angle, had been explored more this might have been even better. It’s a bit like what Martyrs attempted to do years later. Can I mash together most of this film with the philosophical musings of that one into something majestic?
i attempted to reincorporate the original coil soundtrack back into the movie. clive barker was given hollywood money and was told to get rid of the soundtrack and re shoot everything, and chances are produced an inferior product to what it could have been.
some truly bad one liners.
I mean, a film that takes a lot from Possession could never be bad.
From an hour onwards it comes wickedly into its own, and truly cements its place as timeless horror royalty.
"Jesus wept."
This is the perfect horror movie to me. I like my horror sick, twisted, and bone-chilling. Clive Barker is the master.
Simon Ramshaw 255 films
Recently, I've become aware that certain films are able to transcend the medium by being completely self-assured in their atmospheres…
jude law's receding hairline 119 films
recs would be more than welcome!!!
Jack Moulton 630 films
These films don't get better than this for someone out there.
It's simple: Post your #1 ever (no runners-up or…
