Hellraiser (film series)

D: Clive Barker

New World / Film Futures (Christopher Figg)

UK 🇬🇧 1987

90 mins

Horror

W: Clive Barker [based on his novel "The Hellbound Heart"]

DP: Robin Vidgeon

Ed: Richard Marden

Mus: Christopher Young

Andrew Robinson (Larry Cotton), Clare Higgins (Julia Cotton), Ashley Laurence (Kirsty Cotton), Sean Chapman (Frank Cotton), Doug Bradley (Lead Cenobite)

Hellraiser may well be the bleakest horror movie of the 1980s, but it’s also one of the best.

The plot is a little too complex to limit to a few simple blurbs, as whilst it does feature a puzzle box that opens a portal to hell as its iconic macguffin, there’s far more to the story and themes than that alone.

Shortly after married couple Larry & Julia move into a new house, Julia reminisces over an affair she had with Larry’s brother, Frank, whose ghoulish form resides in the attic having escaped from a hellish underworld.  Julia discovers his presence and helps him reclaim his human form by bringing men back to the house and murdering them so Frank can harvest their skin and organs.

In addition, Kirsty, Larry’s daughter from a previous marriage begins to suspect that all is not as it should be and makes the discovery of the puzzle box, which she solves and allows some guardians of hell, an army of demonic beings named Cenobites, to come into the world.  They initially plan to take Kirsty back with them so she can truly experience pleasure and pain, which are one and the same to them. However, Kirsty bargains that she knows the whereabouts of Frank, who had escaped them, and that he should take her place instead.

Filmed in London, though it is never specified where it all takes place, Clive Barker directed and adapted his own novel “The Hellbound Heart”, following dissatisfaction with the adaptation of his other works, and whilst some of the performances are a little inconsistent, thematically and visually, it’s a solid effort from a first time filmmaker.

The makeup effects still hold up, especially in the design of the Head Cenobite, considered the Pope of the Underworld, who would later become known simply as “Pinhead”.  Some of the other visual effects haven’t held up as well, though they would have been quite well done for the time of production.

Personally, I think the best moments of the film come before the introduction of the Cenobites, and the final act is the weakest part of the film. 

Nevertheless, the Pinhead character would go on to become what this horror film would be known for and would take more precedence in many sequels that followed (far too many), which inevitably suffered from the law of diminishing returns.

7/10