Review #95: Hellraiser (1987)

This review was originally written in October 2020.

October Movie Review #12- Hellraiser

This is the only one of the Hellraiser movies I've seen before; I saw it a few years ago but never followed up. I always assumed this was a long-running old-school horror franchise (like Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween, Child's Play, etc.) but now that I'm actually getting into it I see that I was quite mistaken. The vast majority of the movies in this series have been within the last 20 years, with the most recent being in 2018 (!), so I guess what I'm getting at is that I have no idea what to expect in the entries to come.

This film was incredibly enjoyable, if incredibly bizarre. Compared to your typical slashers (where some big killer guy just goes around killing unwary teens), this one follows no formula I've ever seen. The story explores the question of, what if there were a dimension of pain and pleasure so intense that it was worth having your body and soul torn apart to experience it? The idea of it is so twisted, so terrifying on an existential level, that I can't help but be intrigued by this story and where it's going to go.

The film definitely felt like there was a ton of backstory and worldbuilding done beforehand, so all we're seeing is the tip of the iceberg; that's simply not something you find in movies like the Halloween series, where the plot is pretty self-explanatory and shallow, relatively speaking. I'm curious as to whether that's going to continue as the series goes on, or (much more likely) it's going to thin out and break its own rules as each entry sees fit. I guess we'll find out!

I should say, the practical effects in this movie were fantastic, and the creature design is mind-blowing. The cenobites each looked terrifying in their own way, and although I know through osmosis that the lead cenobite ("Pinhead") is the series mascot or whatever, I hope the rest of them (and possibly others) make more appearances too. Some of the action sequences in this were a little lackluster (as tends to be the case in older, non-action movies) and the last half hour or so really kind of dragged- each scene felt like it went on about twice as long as it needed to be- but overall it was intriguing from beginning to end, it left me with a lot of questions I feel like will get answered, and you seriously can't discount the effects and the creature design.

Overall Rating: 7/10 Yummy Crickets

Advice I'd Give To Frank: Stop wearing suits, they're just going to get disgusting