Hellraiser, in the thunder and heat,
Hellraiser, rock you back in your seat,
Hellraiser, and I'll make it come true,
Hellraiser, I'll put a spell on you!
--"Hellraiser," Ozzy Osbourne
Hellraiser, man, who would have thunk it? Who would have thought that this low budget Canadian film from a first time director (Though Barker was an accomplished horror writer at this point, he had only directed a few short films) would not only be so damn -good-, but also so influential? In that sense, Hellraiser stands at the side of Night Of The Living Dead. Both were low budget, both are extremely ambitious both in scope of storytelling and in scope of their effects, both are extremely entertaining, both spawned sequels and imitators, and each one is one of the most influential horror films of its time.
But enough about NOTLD right now. Let's talk about Hellraiser. Hellraiser is a story about a puzzle box -- which later in the series we learn is called the Lamont Configuration -- which is more than a mere mental plaything. The Lamont Configuration is a tool for opening gateways to sheer experience. And we're talking "sheer experience" in a very 'metal through flesh and bone' type of pleasure and pain here. Needless to say, some people are REALLY into this... and one such person is Frank, whom in the film's opening minutes we see purchasing and opening the box... only to fall victim to the torturous ways of the Cenobites -- pale-fleshed demonic beings clad in black leather tunics and possesing twisted and mutilated bodies.
Okay, so Frank doesn't make it out of the first scene, so he's PROBABLY not our hero. A little while later, we see Frank's brother Larry, along with his wife, Julia, arriving at "the old homestead" to move in. This is, of course, the same house where Frank got turned into the "bits" from "Kibbles & Bits" a little while back. Let's say that Frank didn't necessarily leave the place in such great shape -- including a kitchen covered with maggots and roaches (yuck) and his bedroom strewn with God-knows-what. While there, Julia finds a stack of pictures of Frank in various sexual positions, and takes the one normal picture of him. Uh... huh. Meanwhile, Larry gets in touch with his daughter, Kirstie, who says that she doesn't want to stay with him and Julia... for entirely vague reasons. (We learn a little later that Julia is not Kirstie's mother, who died some time earlier.)
Well, despite the general creepiness, Larry and Julia move in. While Larry and two extremely ineffectual movers carry a giant matress set, Julia begins to have flashbacks about Frank. Oh yeah, turns out that Frank and Julia did a dance of the horizontal variety quite a lot -- including on her wedding night! While Julia stares off into space in one of the empty upper rooms (one which have seen earlier...), Larry gets as nasty gash on the back of his hand. Being the wuss that he is, he goes to Julia before he faints from the sight of blood. While flailing around, his blood splatters all over the hardwood floor, and then begins to SEEP into the wood. And not in a normal way, like at the cracks. Oh no, right through the wood. On the floor. In the room where Frank got ripped apart. And who's heart is now BEATING under! Yikes, call John Goodman from Arachnaphobia!
Well, after much rattling and moaning, the skinless, nearly-fleshless body of Frank emerges, piece by piece, from the floor and pulls himself together. I wonder if this is a common problem in these old Canadian houses, dead victims of demon torture reanimating themselves in an upstairs room? (And if you can read that last line without thinking of Clive Barker then you are probably at the wrong website!) While this is going on, Larry and Julia are hosting a dinner party, which Kirstie shows up to, surprisingly. She spends some time flirting with a Kids In The Hall reject while Julia continues to think about Frank. She excuses herself early and lo, who could have guessed, runs right into Frank. He demands that she help him, and by "help" he means "kill for." Apparently, the more spilled blood he is able to absorb, the more he regenerates. Julia is repulsed, but her cheatin' heart soon comes around to the idea.
What follows inlcudes a series of scuzzy guys getting lured to the house by Julia, who then bludgeons them to death and lets Frank strip their flesh to regenerate his. Interspersed in this is Kirstie's backstory. She works (badly) at a pet store, and gets freaked out by a big crazy guy (who looks a lot like Alan Moore!) who eats living insects. We also discover that she doesn't like Julia becuase she is so cold and distant but still loves her father. Plus we get a neat little dream sequence complete with a bloody altar and a baby's crying. SYMBOLISM!
Just as Frank is just about done regenerating, Kirstie trails Julia back to the house with her latest victim, then stumbles in on Frank. When she grabs the Lamont Configuration, Frank gets really miffed, so she figures it must be important. She chucks it through the window, then hotfoots its outside, grabs it, and takes off. She doesn't get too far, though, as she collapses on the sidewalk and wakes up in a hospital. The nurse and doctor want her to remember what happened, since the police apparently are coming to talk to her, so they leave her with the Lamont Configuration to help jostle her memory. For some reason, she feels compelled to play with the puzzle box...
Business really starts to pick up now! Kirstie "solves" the puzzle, and opens a giant crack in the wall. She wanders in, to be attacked by a giant latex appliance! Actually its apparently some sort of evil sentry thing. Narrowly escaping that thing, she then meets the real stars of this franchise: The Cenobites. Led by Pinhead, also present is Chatterer, Butterball, and a female Cenobite who I affectionately call "Fan Neck Chick." I don't remember if she got a name or not later on in the series, but if she did, it was not better than Fan Neck Chick! Anyways, Pinhead informs Kirstie that they are "Explorers in new frontiers of experience," and that since she summoned them, they are taking her back to hell. Thinking pretty quickly for a chick who just summoned a barbershop quartet of demons, she makes a bargain to give them Frank in exchange for her life. They seem to agree, but then tell her that they will "TEAR YOUR SOUL APART!" seemingly just for the sake of putting in an incredibly cool line. The stage is now set for the finale, as Kirstie goes out to save her father from Julia and Frank while dodging the Cenobites and hopefully taking care of the skinless dead guy all at the same time.
It had been a while since I had last seen Hellraiser, and I had forgotten just how cool a film it is. The story unfolds very nicely (which is not entirely surprising since Barker wrote it as well as directed), the effects are really good, and the film is technically well crafted. Especially when one considers the time when this was made as well as the budget, it becomes that much more impressive.
The main problem I have ever seen anyone have with this film is that the Cenobites (mainly Pinhead) are not the stars. They play a more behind-the-scenes secondary role (much like, apparently, they do in the later sequels Hellraiser: Inferno and Hellraiser: Hellseeker) rather than star like in the first three sequels. I LIKE this a lot, to be honest... the drama of Frank/Julia/Larry is meaningless to the Cenobites, who only care about pain and pleasure and in keeping at their own tasks (IE, dragging people down to hell). When they take centerstage in Hellbound: Hellraiser 2 and Hellraiser 3: Hell On Earth, it makes for interesting results but at the same time demystifies them, and makes them kinda... understandable? I don't know if that is the best word. But what it serves to do is to make us familiar with something which we should have NO familiarity with. They are demons, after all, and to truly comprehend a demonic entity is to know madness (thanks, H.P.!), so leaving them as mysterious hosts from Hell is, to me, a better move than truly introducing their motivations and characters. That's not to say that the sequels aren't good -- if anything, with their larger budgets and values, they are technically much better than this one -- they are just different in focus from the original.
Kinda like how Speed 2 tried to retroactively make Annie the main character of Speed? Or like how I will try to retroactively deny that I ever referenced Speed 2 in an article about Hellraiser?
Man, where is that frigging Lamont Configuration when you need it...
Rating (Overall Quality):
Vault-Worthiness:
I'm looking for that DVD two pack with part 2...
Won't you go back?