Pwaters' Month of Terror Day 18: Hellraiser

Hello ladies, gentlemen, and creatures lurking in the shadows!  This month, October, is a favorite among horror fans, such as myself.  My goal for the next 31 days is to share with you the scariest and best of the genre.  The films will range from old school classics to modern day gorefests (they won't be in any particular order).  So scout these movies out, grab a bag of popcorn (or a blood bag) and enjoy!

Hellraiser (1987)
Dir. Clive Barker

It seems as though certain horror movies like to take it slow and apply the "less is more" approach; I don't think Clive Barker gives in to that mentality.  Hellraiser is a tale about a puzzlebox - housing inside it endless pain and suffering via the black-wearing demonoid "Cenobites," a group of supernatural creatures whose only goal is to put you through agony!  A guy named Frank finds this out the hard way while traveling in Morocco and gets sucked into the puzzlebox.  Later, we see Frank's brother Larry moving into a new house with his second wife Julia (who happens to have had a highly erotic affair with Frank) and his daughter Kirsty. When Larry accidentally cuts his hand on an exposed nail in the attic, the blood somehow rejuvenates Frank - but only so much (he works his way up from a skeleton to a guy with only the muscle exposed).  It's up to Julia to kill people and give the victims' blood in order to give Frank his life back.  All the while, Frank is telling Julia about the puzzlebox and how it opened a world of new pleasure through pain - and in the process the Cenobites find their way out and chaos commences.

Hellraiser is sometimes really tough to watch.  It was one of the first films (at least one of the first popular films) to toy with the idea of sadomasochism.  The box is a way for people to act out their sick desires and to torture themselves as a way to "get off."  It's really disturbing stuff, made all the more eerie by state-of-the-art make-up effects.  The "Cenobites" are all really creepy, and of course, the "leader" of the pack, Pinhead, is one of the horror genre's most iconic figures.  Doug Bradley, who played Pinhead, brought a simple, but completely dead-on performance to the table.  Some of the acting can be seen as pretty weak - even to an 80's horror standard - but Bradley is frighteningly committed to freaking the audience out with a deep, commanding voice that sounds nothing but demonic.

Another great character is the re-incarnating Frank.  I've never seen a film come close to what they did on this film; almost in a way that evokes old pictures of Boris Karloff putting on his Frankenstein make-up, Frank acts as if he's not a hideous exposed corpse.  He wears a shirt, smokes a cigarette, and has normal conversations with his lover (well...maybe not normal conversations, but he doesn't have a creepy voice).  If anything, this film is a remarkable showcase of what prosthetic effects are capable of.  It may not be a good movie to watch with the folks (or most people for that matter), but for gorehounds and enthusiasts of practical, elaborate effects (something we see less and less of nowadays due to computers) it's a go-to title.  I also have to say the score by Christopher Young is amazing!  It sounds more like an epic summer blockbuster than a dirty dingy horror flick about torture.  So if you can handle it and want to be scared, seek out Hellraiser. It's a work of art that will tear your soul apart!