#34. "Hellraiser" (1987, Barker)
By Eivind Langdal
30th December 2009

Are you a stereotypical male teenager? Then chances are there are three things in life that interests you more than anything else: porn, heavy metal, and violent movies. Sure, there might be other things that you like, such as tearing off the wings of flies, or perhaps, burning ants with a magnifying glass, but in the end, it mostly boils down to these three things. I couldn’t possibly tell you why it is like this, as my knowledge of psychology is mostly limited to what I remember of what Lorraine Bracco was saying in The Sopranos. It’s not really the “why?” that matters here. It’s the “how?”.
 
I could bore you to tears with stories that took place in video stores, starring none other than yours truly, a young little boy who would look at the covers of adult movies, but rarely (if ever) would be getting the chance to see any of them. I vividly remember one store that would stack Hellraiser: Inferno, which would mean that the year was probably 2000, which again would mean that I was about 10 years old, which again would mean there was no way in hell I would get a chance to see the film. If you really don’t know why adult movies are like the forbidden fruit, then there’s no way you’re going to get it now either.
 
To this day, I still haven’t gotten the chance to see Hellraiser: Inferno, but just recently I finally got to see the first film in the series. The question then is: was it worth the wait? Hard to say, really, as I’m not sure of how I would have reacted to the film nine years ago. One thing is for certain, though: this is a movie for mature audiences. Reading that, most of you will probably think I am referring to the movie’s massive amount of gore, and that would make you right, but that is not all that I’m saying. For while the extreme violence of the film is certainly not for younger viewers, the thing is that calling the film one for mature audiences could just as easily refer to the fact that this is, for better and for worse, a very sophisticated horror film.
 
“Sophisticated”; it does seem like an odd word to use for a film about demons who specialize in extreme sadomasochism, doesn’t it?? And yet, I think those of you who have seen the film might actually be nodding along to what I am saying. Yes, Hellraiser might be a very violent film, but is also an extremely patient one. It is disinterested in providing its audience with cheap shock tactics and mindless use of extreme gore. Instead, the director, Clive Barker, goes for mood and atmosphere, and boy, does he succeed. This movie is so incredibly creepy that, in the end, even the scenes that aren’t supposed to scare us will do exactly that, as we have been injected with dose of expertly crafted tension strong enough to scare a statue out of its pedestal.
 
The film begins when a man named Frank buys a mysterious box from a mysterious man in a mysterious country (yes, that scene does go easy on the exposition). When he comes home, he opens the box, which unleashes the power of the Cenobites, who describe themselves as “demons to some, angels to others”. The most famous of them is their leader (named "Pinhead" in one of the sequels of the movie), who would eventually become such an iconic horror villain in the real world that even the average sitcom Step By Step would have an episode where a kid is dressed as him for Halloween.
 
The cenobites tear Frank’s body apart and reassemble it to turn Frank into a hideous monster that resorts under the top floor in his house. We are then acquainted with Larry and Julia, who are looking to buy the house (Larry tries to get his daughter, Kirsty, to movie in with them, but she has needs of her own). We soon learn that Larry is Frank’s brother, and that the house has belonged to the family for years. The scene showing the couple’s exploration of the house, with its gloomy atmosphere, felt to me like a proto version of David Fincher’s Se7en (especially the “Gluttony” scene). The house is, to put it lightly, falling apart, and while there is no sign of Frank, it still has plenty of habitants in the form of many bugs that crawl in every hole (and there are a few of those in the house walls).
 
One day, Larry accidentally cuts himself, and when his blood leaks to the floor, Frank is awakened from his slumber. We then learn that Frank used to be Julia’s former lover, and he urges her to bring his body back. Figuring out that the key to doing that is to acquire more blood, Julia goes to bars, picks up guys, and then brings them back to the house for Frank to his very gory work. Piece by piece, his body is reassembled, but as any with half a brain can tell you, it can only take so long before someone living in your house discovers that there is a half-dead man upstairs that suck on the blood of the living. And that’s when the real horror begins.
 
I was floored by Hellraiser. It is an incredibly well made horror film. Clive Barker tells his story with such a keen eye for mood and tension that one can’t help but be swept away by its gory genius. He knows exactly what shots to use and what music to score them with to create as much dread as possible. However, what I realized midway through the movie, was that Hellraiser isn’t just a triumph as a scary film, but also as a story. Yes, a story. How often do we see one of those in horror films? I have become so used to watching films in the genre that often feels like repetitions of the same situation over and over again that when I watched Hellraiser, I realized that one can be as easily swept away by someone telling you a story as by someone simply trying to scare you, if not more. By combining the two, Barker has created something extraordinary.
 
The film is not without its faults though. The special effects, impressive as they are on paper, occasionally feel so dated that I was distracted (more a fault of time than the makers of the movie, I guess). Some of the scenes felt far too abrupt as well, particularly the prologue (which feels like a lost opportunity, as it could have been really chilling had Barker given the audience enough time to consume it), and also the entrance of the Cenobites (which, sadly, really didn’t explain much of their nature).
 
Still, for whatever flaws the film might have, it is ultimately one that cannot be missed by any self-proclaimed lovers of horror. It reminds me of Pulp Fiction, really. Not in the sense that the stories in the films are similar, but because Hellraiser has the same kind of odd pair that Quentin Tarantino’s opus had, meaning that it manages to mix the arthouse genre with the grindhouse genre to create something that is both artistic and, at the same time, exploitative. It is in other words, a film that can stimulate your brain while you throw up. Now, that’s not an easy thing to do, is it?