Next Sunday, August
2nd, the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood will be play a double feature of
Hellraiser and Pumpkinhead. If you enjoy violent horror movies and you haven’t
seen Hellraiser, I strongly recommend you catch it.
Hellraiser has an interesting production history. Writer
and director Clive Barker is best known as an author of horror novels and short
stories; Hellraiser began as a novella called “The Hellbound Heart” which
Barker published in 1986. Barker decided to adapt his novella personally rather
than option it to a studio; this is largely the result of his displeasure with Underworld, a film
adaptation made of a previous Barker story.
Barker’s decision to shoot Hellraiser as an independent film was a wise one;
it’s hard to imagine a major studio like Universal or Warner Bros making a
film as gory or sexually explicit as Barker’s finished film.
Barker, while inexperienced as a director, has an
excellent sense of both tone and pacing, the plot moves from one terrifying
scene to another. The performances are also quality throughout the film; the villains are particularly memorable.
The film begins with a man buying a small and mysterious-looking box. Later, as he tries to open it, metal hooks attached to rope suddenly
jump out of the box, hooking and tearing into his flesh and sucking him inside
the box. With his screams of pain, we are introduced to the world of
Hellraiser.
In a lot of ways, Hellraiser is emblematic of 80’s horror
movies in general. Like most horror movies, it is low-budget, but nearly every
dime of that budget must have been spent on fake blood and gory special
effects. It has a strong sexual undercurrent, which was de rigueur for a cult 80’s
horror movie. Lastly, it introduces a trio of great villains in Frank, Julia,
and the infamous Pinhead.
The primary villain is Frank, an escapee from a horrible
hell dimension. He comes back as a ghastly monster, an incomplete skeleton
with flesh, but comes closer to his regaining his human body with every victim
he eats. He teams up with Julia, his sister-in-law and lover, to seduce and
murder scores of businessmen for him. Julia’s split role as both a seductress
and murderer are symbolic of the movie’s assertion that pleasure and pain are
intertwined.
The most iconic element of the Hellraiser franchise (though ironically, they only appear in a few scenes) are
the Cenobites, who are heavily influenced by BDSM culture. They are masochistic demons that can no longer differentiate between intense
pleasure and pain; they live in alternate dimension just to
torture themselves and anyone else foolish enough to open the box from the
film’s introduction. Of the Cenobites'
wardrobe, Barker later said that their costumes were inspired by "punk,
Catholicism, and by the visits I would take to S&M clubs in New York and
Amsterdam."
The leader of the Cenobites, Pinhead, is one of the best
villains in horror history. His face is covered in perfectly spaced and
arranged nails in his head and that he has drilled in personally, which speaks
to his masochism. But he is more than just a scary face. Brilliantly played
by Doug Bradley, Pinhead has an unusual sophistication, especially compared
with many of the silent slasher villains from the era. Watching Doug Bradley
chew scenery is a horror fan’s delight.
Ironically, Doug Bradley didn’t want to play Pinhead
because he considered the role too small. Bradley was new to acting and wanted to
have his face seen without heavy makeup, so he actually auditioned for a small
part as one of the movers. Luckily, Bradley found the required aspect of terror and
turned a flat character into the star of the franchise.
Hellraiser plays August 2nd at 7:30 at the Egyptian
theater, and horror fans everywhere owe it themselves to see the classic on the
big screen.
- Joseph Belzberg