Despite my grumblings that there’s not enough gore and violence in horror films these days (‘Freddy vs. Jason’ and ‘Final Destination 2’ did a
little to rectify that, much to my delight), I’ve never been a fan of the
gory, fetishistic ‘Hellraiser’ series. You see, I prefer horror films with
a bit of a sense of humour, or at least with one or two characters I
liked. However, I recently decided to give this, the original Clive Barker
film another go.
The plot is weird, but here goes…It’s about a family (Andrew Robinson, Ashley Laurence, Claire Higgins), a creepy new house, an adulterous wife
(Higgins- bonking her husband’s brother), a fellow adulterer who is now in
a semi-skeletal, semi-gelatinous state (he lives in the attic craving
human flesh) etc. Oh, and a gate to hell being opened, unleashing nasty,
S&M loving, rather wordy demons. And then there’s Satan’s Rubik’s cube.
Oh happy day! Exceptionally unpleasant, with chilly characters to match the dreary atmosphere, this is a masterwork in many people’s eyes, and it
is indeed well-crafted. But…yuck…and brrrrr for that matter. The film
is unpleasant and freaky for no real purpose. I admired it from a
distance, and I’ve always felt that head Cenobite Pinhead (Doug Bradley)
could’ve been a horror legend were he not so horribly wasted in all of
these films. Robinson is the best of the performers, with Higgins a poor
man’s Joan Collins, neither likeable nor interesting.
OVERALL SUMMARY
Well-done, if this is your thing, you’ve probably already made a shrine to
it. Some arresting visuals, but with no one to care about, and not much
fun at all, in my view. Decent rating reflects the declining quality of
the sequels more than anything else.
