What I Liked: This one has a unique story. A puzzle box summons demons, that were once
human, to come and torture you for all eternity. But that’s more the background. The main plot involves a guy who escaped the
weird torture world and needs human flesh to put himself back together.
Yet another movie with remarkable makeup effects. The skinless human that drips blood
everywhere is such a fantastic idea and man does it look good.
What I Didn’t Like: The acting and dialogue isn’t the
best. Both feel contrived at least half
the time and fall kinda flat.
Overall Impression: This is a great little horror gem that
everybody knows about but not a lot of people have seen (I think). I can think of a couple of reasons why this
got left by the wayside. One big reason is
that horror in general was starting to go on the decline in the late 80’s. Slasher, zombie and all sorts of other horror
subs had been around a while by then and audiences were getting tired of
it.
The other big reason is that Hellraiser doesn’t follow a conventional horror narrative. There are, pretty much, no rules in this
series. How and why the puzzle box
works, as well as how the Cenobites (Pinhead and co.) work is never explained. I can see this being too much for most folks
to want to put up with. Definitive rules
make for easier viewing (examples: Freddy attacks you in your dreams, kill a
vampire by driving a stake through its heart, etc.) and this didn’t have
that. The Cenobites would appear
whenever the plot needed them to and would get defeated because the film needed
to come to an end.
I’ll tell ya though, I don’t mind being embroiled in the chaos
of this picture because the design of the Cenobites is genuinely creepy, the
story doesn’t get bogged down or sidetracked, the effects work is remarkable and
the plot is pretty original.
Fair warning, there’s a lot of ghastly imagery that may not
be everyone’s cup of tea. But if you
like lots of blood and spooky ass fucked up humans from hell in your tea then
have a drink. This tea goes down
surprisingly smooth for being so sordid.
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