HELLRAISER (1987)
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Just when you thought it was safe to get married and live a happy ever after tale, a movie this weird comes along. See, Larry and his wife have everything going for them until Larry accidentally cuts himself in the attic. Blood drips onto the floor and brings back Larry's brother, Frank. Frank had been playing with a French puzzle box years back when the box opened him to a world of pain and pleasure. Now with each drop of blood Frank can recreate himself, and since Larry's wife, Julia, always seemed to prefer the brother over her own husband she agrees to help him out - by bringing men for Frank to kill. But Larry's daughter, Kirsty, finds out and she grabs the box and the demons inside in hopes to destroy Frank. Who will the demons pick to kill though, Kirsty or Frank?
Overall: Well it’s been 5 years since I originally wrote the review for this film and had to revise it. I’m best at pointing out film flaws and worst at promoting their perfections. So let me try again. The film is an absolute classic of the horror genre and definitely unique and different when it came out. Most films had some killer in a mask torturing young nubile girls at a camp resort. This film blows the marketability of that idea to smithereens. This film is about sex, pleasure, pain and everything in between. Despite how the sequels have gone in later years this film has no real villains. The cenobites aren’t evil…they are just existing to help people to achieve new standards in pleasure/pain. They are “explorers in the further regions of experience.” The box calls them, they help give the “victim” whatever they desire. But don’t cross them. Don’t trick them. Don’t piss them off. You will pay for it. But the film isn’t about them. It’s about the relationships between Kirsty, Larry, Julia & Frank. It’s about sex, murder and lust. What makes this film great is all the new ideas it brought forward. The battle is between Kirsty, her step mom and her uncle. The Cenobites are just there to enhance the love triangle. The gore and scariness of the film were also unique and different. Few films prior to this had involved the same scenes or ideas of flesh-ripping or even S&M in a body-ripping part sort of forum. This film just saw the line that previous films set for it, and erased the line forever. The end scene was absolutely horrific as the body is torn apart. And most films had machete’s, knives, guns, etc. This film had a demon who could summon any instrument of pain at will. Been fishing before? Know what it feels like to have a hook stuck in your finger. Here it is stuck in the face, arms, etc. And it’s not the mere idea of things stuck in the body...it’s the pulling and tearing which is so new to the viewer. It’s the slow painful way the people get hurt when Pinhead is around. And the cenobites were purely scary. The viewer had little knowledge outside of what they could see...and that made it scarier. The film is based on a book By Clive Barker called "The Hellbound Heart." The story and film are essentially the same. The book goes into much more detail on the box and the cenobites though than the film does - only part 4 finally addresses the box's origins. The box though is easily more vivid and hypnotic in the film and remarkably the fame the character of Pinhead went on to was most likely not because of the paper novel. It is about how scary he is in film. No known weaknesses but also he’s not there to revenge some past misdeeds. You call him…he shows up and that’s it. No hangings, no burnings, no stabbings with machetes or knives. You won’t even get near him. Once he shows up, he won’t go away. And that’s what’s scary. And that’s why this film is one of the all-time greats! Comparison: Night of the Living Dead meets Evil Dead |
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