Franchises: Hellraiser. Hellraiser (1987)

I've mentioned before that the horror section of Harold's Video Rental Store was a major source of nightmare fuel for me when I was a little kid, going back there and looking at the front and back of a number of VHS boxes I had no business looking at. Even if they're movies that I now know are anything but scary, to a kid who was very skittish, it didn't matter (for example, as I said back when I reviewed it, the image of that goofy-looking monster on the back of the VHS for TerrorVision absolutely freaked me out). But the imagery back there that profoundly scared me to my soul was on the back of the boxes for both Hellraiser and Hellbound: Hellraiser II. In the case of the first one, while the memorable front cover, with Pinhead glaring at you while holding the Lament Configuration, was already pretty intimidating, the back was completely terrifying, as it showed images of a man who had no skin, as well as an utterly terrified young woman. Adding onto it were a couple of critical blurbs, one of which proclaimed, "Makes Nightmare on Elm Street look like Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm!", which was especially affecting to me, as the box artwork and images for those movies already looked really freaky. The plot synopsis was additionally unnerving, as it didn't give me much of an identifiable villain or monster to latch onto. While I learned the backstories of characters like Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees (or thought I did, but that's neither here nor there), and Chucky thanks to those video boxes, Hellraiser came off as much more ethereal. I think I might've learned through my friends and the kids at school, who were all seeing these movies long before I ever did, that the guy on the front was called Pinhead, but the back of the box made no reference to him, nor did it show any other pictures of. Instead, it ominously proclaimed, "From beyond the Outer Darkness. From the blackest corners of a family's past. From the nightmarish realm of imagination comes HELLRAISER," followed by, "An old family home holds untold mysteries... and horrors for Larry Cotton and his wife, Julia. Floorboards that rattle. Rooms that absorb blood. The heavy and haunting air of things long past." Worst of all was when they described how Larry's brother, Frank, was, "Halfway between this world and the next, between extreme pleasure and excruciating pain." Even the title was taboo, as the first four letters were a word that was considered profanity within my family, and definitely not something I was allowed to say. It all felt so unsavory and absolutely nightmarish, and even when I got into contemporary horror when I was in my early teens, Hellraiser wasn't a movie I was eager to see any time soon.

Over the years, I did learn snippets of information about the movie and the franchise as a whole. The first time I ever saw any clips from Hellraiser was in a promo for an airing of it on Sci-Fi Channel when I was maybe twelve, and what I saw and heard just from that was enough to convince me that this definitely wasn't for my eyes (the shot of pieces of a face and the line, "We'll tear your soul apart," particularly stuck with me). Then, when I was still fairly young, around fourteen, I saw and heard Clive Barker for the first time, as he hosted AMC's MonsterFest in 2001, which, that year, went for a trivia format styled around You Don't Know Jack (thanks to him, I learned that Vincent Price and Christopher Lee shared a birthday). I also gradually learned that, while the guy on the cover was indeed dubbed Pinhead, he was never actually called that in the movies, and that the first couple didn't really center around him, anyway. In 2004, on Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments, I saw a scene from Hellraiser for the first time, namely when Kirsty first meets the Cenobites. That same year, my aunt got me the DVD of Boogeymen: The Killer Compilation for Christmas and there, I saw the scene where Frank gets outed while wearing Larry's skin and the Cenobites completely tear him apart. While those moments were definitely memorable, and I got a sense of how Christopher Young's music for it may sound when I saw The Fly II in 2002, I didn't become interested in actually seeing Hellraiser until 2009, when I was 22. Despite hearing how the franchise had gone downhill in recent years, ever since it started going direct-to-video fairly, everything I'd seen and heard about the first one, especially the resurrection of Frank, which I first watched on YouTube out of curiosity, made me decide that it might be worth checking out. As look would have it, I ended up seeing it for the first time that October, when it was on one of the Starz networks... and not too long afterward, I scooped up the Anchor Bay 20th Anniversary DVD at Wal-Mart.

Yeah, if you read my post on my 101 Favorite Horror Films, you'd know that I ranked Hellraiser quite high, at number fifteen, and I doubt that will ever change, even when I finally get around to updating that list. While the series as a whole is a real roller-coaster in terms of quality, with some massive dips, as we'll see, this original is just awesome. As I said in that list, "It's sick, twisted, taboo, and I love it for that," but besides the grotesque yet well-done imagery and makeup effects, the iconic Cenobites, and Young's amazing music score, what really makes it work is the compelling and tragic story, the memorable, well-acted characters, and Barker's deft direction, which makes it hard to believe that this is the work of a first-timer. That's not to say that the movie is perfect, as there are some flaws, most of which come down to budget, but on the whole, it's truly excellent and easily the best of this series by a landslide.

In North Africa, Frank Cotton buys an antique puzzle box from a dealer and takes it back to his family home in England. In the attic, he attempts to solve it, and as he gets closer to doing so, the box slowly opens the doorway to another realm. When he does solve it, hooked chains suddenly fly out of the box's center, tearing him to pieces, and the room becomes a portal to a grisly and horrific world where several dark figures reassemble Frank's remains, before resetting the box, making everything disappear. Some time later, Frank's brother, Larry, moves into the house with his English wife, Julia. Their marriage has become strained as of late and that's because, unbeknownst to Larry, Julia and Frank had a passionate affair right before the wedding, and Julia has been obsessed with him ever since. At the same time, Kirsty, Larry's daughter from a previous marriage, moves into an apartment nearby, as she and Julia don't get along. While moving in, Larry badly cuts his hand on an exposed nail and goes to Julia up in the attic, his blood dripping on the floor. As Julia and Kirsty take him to the hospital, the blood revives Frank, but in a grotesque, partially regenerated form. That night, while they're having guests over for dinner, Julia heads up to the attic upon hearing something and finds Frank. He begs her to help him, saying he needs more blood to be fully restored, and Julia, despite her initial revulsion, agrees to help him. She goes to the local bar and lures back men, murdering them so Frank can feed on their blood. After two such feedings, Frank is nearly completely reformed, and explains to Julia that he sought out the box because he thought he'd experienced everything life had to offer. Upon solving it, the beings in the other realm, the Cenobites, came for him and subjected him to a sadomasochistic experience where pain and pleasure were indivisible. Now, Frank plans to run off with Julia once he's fully restored. However, Kirsty soon blunders into the ghoulish situation, running into Frank after he finishes draining another would-be victim and getting her hands on the box. Solving it, she unwittingly summons the Cenobites, but before they can take her back to their realm, she offers to trade Frank for herself. Though the Cenobites seem amicable to her offer, they threaten to tear her soul apart if she attempts to trick them.

By the time he made Hellraiser, Clive Barker was already a well-known author, thanks mainly to the publication of the Books of Blood in the mid-80's, which prompted Stephen King to famously label him as, "The future of horror." He was actually no stranger to directing, at least in some capacity, as he'd directed plays in his 20's, most notably within his theater group, the Dog Company, and had also done some short films, but he'd never made a feature film before. However, his displeasure over Underworld and Rawhead Rex, both of which he'd written the screenplays for, with the latter being an adaptation of one of his short stories, made him decide that if he wanted it to be done right, he had to do it himself (and unlike King when he directed the entertaining but very messy and ridiculous Maximum Overdrive, Barker would prove to have a real knack for it). Deciding to adapt his book, The Hellbound Heart, he and his producer, Christopher Figg, managed to get backing from New World Pictures in America, and although they were initially given only $900,000 to work with, they would later be given a little bit more to improve some scenes and effects. Barker has always spoken fondly about making the film, despite his relative lack of filmmaking know-how, saying that the cast and crew were very patient with him, and the latter was made up of some veterans that helped him along. And it paid off, as the movie was quite successful for its budget, making $14 million, and spawning a franchise. Unfortunately, Barker's other shots at directing didn't pan out so well, and over the years, he grew despondent with where the franchise went (can't really blame him), especially the treatment of Pinhead, and also just seemed to get tired of being associated with and talking about it for a time.

While we're on the subject of Barker, I want to say that, while I'm not a big reader of fiction, I actually have read some of his work, including The Hellbound Heart and much of the first three volumes of the Books of Blood. It goes without saying but, this guy really is an amazing writer, with a very fertile, and nightmarish, imagination (the paintings he makes are unreal, as well). Unfortunately, it also makes me sad to think about the health problems he's experienced later in his life, with his awesome voice being nearly destroyed due to all of the smoking and the throat polyps he developed as a result. I actually have met Barker, specifically at the Texas Frightmare Weekend in Dallas in 2011, but because his voice sounded so bad, and his head was slumped to his right, as if he'd had a stroke, I didn't force him to speak. He just signed my cop of the Books of Blood and sent me off with a smile.

I'm kind of ashamed to say this but, when I first saw Hellraiser, I knew Andrew Robinson best from Child's Play 3, where he appeared as the hair-obsessed Sergeant Botnick and gets his throat slashed by Chucky. I didn't see Dirty Harry for the first time until I was in my late 20's, and so, was unaware of what a varied career he'd actually had. And since, thanks to Boogeymen, the only scene from Hellraiser with him that I knew of for a while was when Frank is wearing his skin and wielding a switchblade, I didn't know that, for the majority of the movie, he's actually playing very much against type as Larry Cotton. Larry is a really pitiable character, as you can tell he's a truly nice, well-meaning, warm-hearted guy, i.e. the exact opposite of his sadistic, hedonistic brother. He can be a bit of a dork at times, with some of his attempts at humor coming off as corny and him trying too hard, like when he's asked if his cut hand hurts and he remarks, "Only when I drink," and when he's checking on Julia, asking in a forced, creepy voice, "You want a cookie, little girl?" But on the whole, he's a really good person, being very affectionate towards his daughter, Kirsty, and desperately wanting to make his wife, Julia, happy. And therein lies the real tragedy with Larry. You get the sense that he's had a bit of a rough life, given who his brother is, that he was married before but his first wife and Kirsty's mother is dead, and now, his marriage to Julia isn't going so well. Since things didn't work out for them in Brooklyn, he's moved them into his old family home in England, thinking that bringing her back to her home country would help things. Little does he know that nothing he ever does will be good enough for Julia, as he simply can't satisfy her the way Frank did in their tryst right before her marriage to Larry. Things only grow worse when Frank is brought back to life and Julia begins helping him restore his body. Though he doesn't know what's going on, Larry notices how she's growing even more distant than before, later telling Kirsty that she doesn't even want to leave the house nowadays, adding, "It's like she's... waiting for something," (he's so naive that the idea she may possibly be having an affair never seems to cross his mind). Despite knowing that Kirsty and Julia don't get along, Larry asks Kirsty to try to make friends, thinking Julia may just need someone to talk to. Little does he know that she already has that, and when he returns home that night, unaware of what Kirsty had discovered, it proves to be his demise.

Kirsty (Ashley Laurence) clearly adores her father, but doesn't like Julia at all, to the point where she opts to get an apartment rather than move in with them. And when she visits them as they're moving into the house, it's hard not to see why. At Larry's urging, Kirsty does try to be polite to Julia, but Julia, caught up in the memories of her passionate encounter with Frank, is creepily distant and aloof towards her. Things get even worse that night when Kirsty runs into her after she's first encountered the revived Frank, and Julia acts downright menacing. Thus, she's more than happy to leave with her boyfriend, Steve, but those uneasy feelings linger, to the point where she has a grisly nightmare that makes her think her father might be in danger. While Larry proves to be perfectly alright, Kirsty still has a feeling that there's something strange going on, as she continually runs into this creepy vagrant, at one point having a truly unsettling encounter with him at the pet shop where she works. Then, Larry pleads with her to try to make friends with Julia, hoping she might be able to help him salvage their deteriorating relationship. Kirsty obliges, only to arrive in time to see Julia bringing a man home with her. Obviously suspecting an affair, Kirsty enters the house and heads up to the attic, where she discovers the poor man after Frank has fed on him, and is then threatened by Frank himself. Fortunately, Kirsty proves to be anything but helpless, as she fights back against him and escapes with the Lament Configuration, much to his horror. She soon collapses from physical and mental exhaustion, and awakens in a hospital. After being locked in her room and told that the police want to speak with her, Kirsty, out of curiosity, manages to solve the puzzle, and meets the Cenobites. Frightened beyond belief, she tells them that she didn't realize what she was doing and begs them to leave her alone. When they're unswayed, she makes the bargain to return Frank to them in exchange for herself.

In the documentary, Leviathan: The Story of Hellraiser and Hellbound: Hellraiser II (great and in-depth stuff, by the way), Ashley Laurence's performance as Kirsty is rather harshly criticized by some of those involved, with Geoff Portass from Image Animation describing her as, "The weakest-written character," while cinematographer Robin Vidgeon says he felt she could've been more "controlled" and was a little too "skittish." I won't lie, like Heather Langenkamp in the first

Nightmare on Elm Street, there are moments where Laurence's acting is a bit rough, especially early on, when she's interacting with Steve, and her forced-sounding reaction of, "Oh, my God," when she sees the vagrant eat a handful of crickets at the pet shop. But during the latter half of the movie, when she begins experiencing and seeing the grisly, freakish stuff, she really sells the terror and lack of rational thinking, while also proving to be anything but a helpless victim. I especially like

how, as scared as she is when she first encounters the Cenobites and is restrained by Chatterer, she tells them, "You can... go to hell!" After that, when she returns to the house, she runs to "Larry" and hysterically tries to explain what's going on, only to be confused at how he's acting, especially when he maliciously describes killing Frank. Horrified when Julia shows him a bloody, steaming corpse up in the attic, Kirsty becomes doubly hysterical when the Cenobites appear and demand the man who committed the act. Thinking her father is in

danger from them, she runs downstairs and tries to get him and Julia out of the house, only to then make the horrifying discovery that Frank is now wearing Larry's skin. Her realization at this is delivered beautifully by Laurence, and again, I love that she puts up a fight, ripping a bit of flesh off of Frank's face, then dodging his stab to where he gets Julia instead. After hiding from and seemingly eluding Frank, you can see the anguish as she starts processing what's happened, only for Frank to corner her in the attic, causing to fall right beside

her father's skinned corpse. Fortunately for her, Frank outs himself to the Cenobites, but when she tries to escape after they deal with him, they try to take her as well. And again, Kirsty proves to be a fighter, managing to send Pinhead, the female Cenobite, Chatterer, and the Engineer back with the box, while also eluding and running from them. By the end of the movie, when she's fighting with the Engineer, ferociously screaming at him and smacking Steve when his attempts at helping just get in the way, she's become a real badass.

Speaking of Steve (Robert Hines), there really is no reason for him to even be in the movie, as he doesn't do anything at all. Even as Kirsty's reasonably nice and occasionally concerned boyfriend, he takes no part in the action until the climax, when he shows up at the house as the place appears to be coming down, and even then, he's completely ineffectual. He nearly gets killed by Butterball, who's only stopped by some falling debris, and when he and Kirsty are then confronted with the Engineer, Steve's attempts to help do nothing. When Kirsty is fiddling with the Lament Configuration, trying to banish the Engineer, Steve attempts to help but she has to smack him away, as he's only being a hindrance. It's small wonder why Steve is barely ever commented on when people talk about the film, why he never appears in the sequels, and why Hines himself never discusses the movie, as he was reportedly unhappy with his role and his experience during filming.

Though Julia (Clare Higgins) is definitely a very beautiful woman, the attitude she carries with her is one of intense unhappiness, cold aloofness, and a barely concealed disdain for both Larry and Kirsty. She's not at all impressed with the old Cotton home or the idea of moving in there (though, honestly, I can't really blame her on that point), nor does she seem to have any faith that it will make her any happier than she was when they were living in Brooklyn. It's only when she discovers some of Frank's belongings that she agrees to move in, and even then, it doesn't keep her from being miserable to the point of tears as she remembers the unforgettable time she had with Frank, something Larry has never come close to replicating for her. On the day they're moving in, she doesn't even try to hide that she has very little use for Larry or the moving men, making the former go get the latter some beer when they're in the middle of moving the mattress upstairs, which is proving to be near impossible. Even though the moving guys are coming off as sleazy in the way they leer at Julia, you can tell that this woman despises just about everyone around her. Even when Kirsty tries to be nice and make small-talk when she shows up, Julia is having none of it, slipping away to be alone in the attic. However, that said, when Larry ends up badly cutting his hand on the nail, Julia does come off as concerned at the sight of it and attempts to help him, while also telling him to get a hold of himself, as he's very squeamish about blood. She then has Kirsty drive them to the hospital so they can stitch it up. That night, after they've returned and are having a dinner party, Julia encounters the resurrected Frank in the attic. At first, she's absolutely horrified and revolted, and can't get out of there fast enough, despite Frank pleading with her to heal him with more blood. But once she gets over the shock, her lingering obsession with Frank drives her to agree to help him, luring men back to the house and murdering them so he can feed on their blood.

Though she doesn't exactly hesitate with the first victim, Julia still comes off as somewhat reluctant and unsure about what she's doing, and is quite disgusted when she sees the aftermath of Frank's feeding. She's also reluctant to do it again, but her desire for Frank pushes her to it, and after she's murdered the second man, she's much more casual about cleaning herself up. Afterward there's a prolonged moment of her sitting with a drink, as her expression changes from still somewhat unsure

to a chillingly satisfied smile, suggesting that she's beginning to actually enjoy it. Still, there's one line that Julia is, at first, unwilling to cross: she doesn't want Larry to die. She tries to stop him from investigating the attic at one point, and when she tries to distract him by coming onto him, only to then see Frank approach with his switchblade, she becomes hysterical and pleads with him not to do it. The next day, Julia still refuses to allow Frank to kill Larry and thus, brings him another victim, only

for Kirsty to come across what's happening. Afraid that she'll tell the police, and with no other recourse, Julia finally allows Frank to kill Larry and take his skin. Whatever qualms she had about it are now totally gone, especially given how she, very disturbingly, has sex with Frank one he's got the skin on. And when Kirsty shows back up, Julia goes along with Frank's plan to deceive her, even restraining her so Frank can stab her. But then, when Kirsty causes him to accidentally stab her instead, Julia realizes that Frank never truly loved her, as he drains her without any remorse.

The sad thing about Julia is that, while we only see a little bit of her before she was with Frank, there's a sense that she was actually a good, innocent, pure soul at that point. When we see the moment where she first met Frank, greeting him at the door, she comes across as a genuinely lovely, sweet, elegant woman, welcoming him into the house with a smile when she realizes who he is, telling him, "You're very welcome." When he then mockingly asks, "What shall we drink to? Wedded bliss?", and

she answers, "I'm very happy," it seems like she means it. Unfortunately, that's when he moves in on her, and because she's clearly a very meek woman who likely hasn't had that much sexual experience, he corrupts her, giving her a sense of euphoria she's never felt before, nor would she ever with Larry. This leads her to promise Frank that she'll do anything for him, just so long as he'll keep her as fulfilled, leading to the horrific deeds she commits.

Frank Cotton (Sean Chapman) is just a scumbag. A hedonist with a capital "H," he lives only to satisfy his monstrous appetite for perverse and sadistic sex. There is a tiny bit of pathos in how, after he and Julia do it for the first time, he says, "It's never enough," in frustration, as nothing ever completely satisfies him, but other than that, there's nothing sympathetic about him. Mocking the idea of marriage, he doesn't at all hesitate to take Julia for himself, unbeknownst to Larry, then tosses her aside and moves on. Later, having exhausted every experience there is to have, Frank seeks out the Lament Configuration, later saying he didn't care if its pleasures were from heaven or hell. But when he solved it and was put through endless sadomasochistic torture by the Cenobites, he took the first chance he got to return to the Earth, even if it meant he would be resurrected as a ghoulish creature with no flesh (Oliver Smith). Fortunately for him, Larry and Julia have moved into the house and Frank, knowing he still has sway over her, demands that she help restore his body and promises that, once he's completely reformed, the two of them will run off together before the Cenobites come looking for him. But despite his saying that they belong together, "For better, for worse. Like love... only real," you know he's only using her and would drop her in an instant if it suited him. He's such a creep that he also has a lust for Kirsty, and he's apparently had it for a while, as he uncomfortably says her name to himself long before the two of them meet face-to-face. When that does happen, he makes an aggressive sexual advance on her, despite still not being completely restored, cornering her against the wall and telling her, "I used to... try and pretend I was dreaming all the pain. But don't you kid yourself. Some things have to be endured. And that's what makes the pleasures so sweet!" 

Though Frank is distraught when Kirsty manages to escape with the Lament Configuration, he later becomes preoccupied with the need for a new skin. Having already suggested that he go ahead and kill Larry to complete his resurrection, when Julia finally allows it, Frank literally takes his brother's skin and wears it like a suit, even adjusting it to where it's just right in certain places. He then proceeds to have sex with Julia again, finally giving her the pleasure she's desired since their first

time, and pretends to be Larry when Kirsty returns, telling her that he killed Frank and obviously intending to have his way with her when her guard is down. But when Kirsty tries to leave, Frank decides to drop all pretenses, coming on to her with his signature line of, "Come to Daddy." And then, she rips a chunk out of the side of his face, prompting him to whip out the switchblade and prepare to kill and feed on her instead, growling, "Well, so much for the cat and mouse shit." After accidentally stabbing Julia but coldly feeding on

her regardless, telling her, "Nothing personal, babe," he stalks Kirsty throughout the house, managing to corner her in the attic. When she's absolutely devastated at the sight of her father's skinned, steaming corpse, Frank cruelly sums up how he felt about his brother: "No, don't mourn him. He was dead long before we ever touched him." Not knowing that the Cenobites are nearby, he then outs himself to them, and they appear, knowing that they've found their fugitive soul. Enraged, Frank tries to kill Kirsty once and for all, but the Cenobites rip him apart yet again.

Like the Cenobites themselves, Frank is a walking, talking example of the amazing makeup effects work that Bob Keen and his team were able to pull off with little money. After he's first resurrected (an amazing sequence in and of itself), Frank is completely skinless, with just a little bit of light brown organic matter and some patches of white goo on top of the bones, and can't even walk. Upon feeding on his first victim, he becomes akin to those anatomy drawings you often see in medical

books and doctor's offices, with blood, muscles, and veins atop a still mostly exposed skeleton, particularly the cheekbones, brows, and rib-cage. He's also really slimy, with goo constantly dripping from him, and his footsteps are squishy, the sound of which always makes my skin crawl. As if that weren't bad enough, he says he can start to feel pain, as his nerves begin to heal, which also makes me wince. In his third stage, Frank has even more blood, muscle, and tendons, and he also starts wearing clothes, staining them red as a result.

Despite feeding on the third man whom Julia brings to him, he doesn't really change that much when he confronts Kirsty. The last time we see Frank, he's skinned Larry and is wearing his flesh, with blood around his hairline where the flesh is attached and bandages used to cover up other parts. Just for an added bit of gruesomeness, we see him fiddling with his flesh when he first comes downstairs, getting everything into place, and later moves his eye a bit while looking in the mirror. And Kirsty manages to rip out a chunk of his cheek, revealing just how finite it is, and setting up what the Cenobites have in store for him.

While Clive Barker may not have had much filmmaking experience at the time, he was able to work with veterans like cinematographer Robin Vidgeon and production designer Mike Buchanan, ensuring that Hellraiser would come off as anything but amateurish. It's very well-shot, with Vidgeon managing to do wonders inside the actual house where they shot most of it, always making it look kind of eerie, even during the daytime and when Larry and Julia are hosting the dinner party after they've moved in. Visually, what comes to

mind are a lot of shadows, patches of creepy blue lighting, and a brownish look to the attic, with its papered back window always causing the light to give it a tan color. The house especially looks creepy during the scene where Larry, hearing a thud upstairs, goes to investigate and Julia tries to distract him, all while a thunderstorm rages outside, with the flashing lightning illuminating spots like some eerie paintings on the bedroom wall and Frank when he emerges from the closet, threatening to kill Larry. Going back to the attic,

the scene at the beginning when Frank opens the Lament Configuration is especially spooky, with how it's pitch black, save for the large square of candles he's sitting in the center of (the shadow they cause him to cast on the wall behind him makes it look as if there's someone else in there), and the cutaways to the shafts of light suddenly coming through the walls as he gets closer to solving the box (I always like that effect, as it suggests that the Cenobites' world is literally

bleeding into ours). Similarly, our first look at Frank when he's resurrected, a quick glimpse of him crawling in the darkness towards Julia, is a really freakish one. The Cenobites themselves are always shot very well, either obscured completely or partially in the shadows, or, when Kirsty meets them, in a harsh, white light that's virtually blinding. Similarly, the first scene with the Engineer is shot quite well, as we only see him as a creepy figure in the dark at first, and the shots of

him right behind Kirsty as he chases her feel genuinely tense to me. Speaking of Kirsty, not everything in Hellraiser is shot to be unsettling, as her introductory scene makes her look almost angelic, and the moment where she makes the vagrant leave the pet shop, in spite of the disgusting thing he just did, has an eerie beauty to it in how brightly lit that last shot of him is. And while it wasn't easy because of how cramped the

house was, Barker and Vidgeon were able to create some nicely slow shots panning up and down the stairs, as well as going down beneath the attic's floor when Frank starts to come back to life, and shots from his POV, like when he watches Julia bring home his first victim and when he watches her and Larry together.

Hellraiser also really proves that Barker is just as skilled at creating unforgettably eerie, grotesque, and yet, in some instances, beautiful imagery, as he is at depicting it in the mind's eye in his writing. Examples include those initial shots of the Cenobites and their domain, along with Frank's grisly remains and that image of the female Cenobite putting his face back together like a puzzle; the downright disgusting way the Cotton house interiors look when you first see them (I don't think that shot of maggots eating rotting food

in the kitchen, as well as that big cockroach crawling out of the meat, was necessary, but it still helps get the point across); Frank's resurrection scene, as well as the lead-up to it; the nightmare Kirsty has about her father; those shots of Frank backlit against the attic's papered-up window; those aforementioned cutaways during the scene between Larry and Julia in the bedroom; that one horrific shot of rats nailed to the wall in the attic; and the way the Cenobites often look during the third act, particularly when they appear to Kirsty in that brightly lit hospital room, when they're in front of the attic window, and the way they slowly emerge from the darkness after Frank has outed himself, among many others.

The film's use of editing is not only skillful but quite artistic and poetic at times. When Julia remembers when she first met Frank, she's looking at a picture of him, when we hear his voice asking, "Can I come in?", and it cuts to him standing in a doorway, with rain falling outside, as Julia stands in front of him. It cuts back to her in the present, looking forward, and with the sound of the rain falling, before going into the flashback, as Julia's younger self invites Frank into the house. But during the flashback to when the two of them had

sex, things become truly symbolic, as it's happening at the same time Larry and the movers are trying to get the bed up the stairs. While Larry is grunting and straining as they're pushing the mattress, we cut to Frank thrusting into Julia, the two of them groaning, gasping, and yelling in carnal pleasure, with a tattoo on Frank's back filling the screen in one shot. And right at the moment they orgasm is when Larry cuts his hand on the nail, causing him to spill the blood that will bring Frank back to life. When he heads upstairs

into the attic to find Julia, the significance of his blood dripping on the floor is shown in rapid close-ups to the drops, with the sound of it amplified. Later, following Kirsty's escape from Frank, we get a sense of the physical and emotional toll this experience has had on her, as we see her mind flashing back to when she ran into Frank, whose voice is distorted. After she collapses, the image onscreen dissolves from a shot of his face to a red flower blossoming, which we then see is on the

television in the hospital room where she awakens. A similar image is on that screen when she fiddles with the Lament Configuration and when the Cenobites begin to appear, with the flower possibly meant as symbolic of the box's way of opening itself, as well as how it opens doors. And at the end of the movie, after Frank is dead and the Cenobites have been vanquished, it dissolves to a shot of the picture of him that Julia had burning away. Sometimes, though, the editing is a tad confusing.

The dissolve from Frank's first encounter with the Cenobites to Larry and Julia first arriving doesn't give you much of an idea of how long it's been, and when, at the end, it transitions from Frank's picture burning to some landfill with flames around, where Kirsty attempts to burn the box, it can make you think that the house burnt down.

Speaking of which, that house is the classic kind of place that, if it's not haunted, looks as though it should be. Following Frank's opening of the box and his getting decimated, we see that it's definitely seen better days on the inside, with rotting food in the kitchen, cobwebs everywhere, and a disgusting makeshift bedroom for Frank himself, with a mattress, pillows, and sheets, a trunk full of his depraved, sexual photographs and other items, booze and cigarette butts on the floor beside it, and strange symbols and objects on the wall. The place

is also infested with bugs and maggots, there are a bunch of rats up in the attic, and when Larry and Julia first arrive and enter the living room, you not only see covered bits of furniture but also some sacrilegious-looking items atop the fireplace mantel, including a small statue of a woman with a man's head in her hand. Even when they move in and kind of clean it up, the place still has an uncomfortable aura about it, as it continues to feel old and musty, and despite how big it looks on the

outside, it feels really claustrophobic inside. We only see a few of the rooms, mostly the foyer and the staircase (which is like a half-turn staircase, only it twists around), the upper landing, and particularly the attic, with occasional scenes set down in the dining room, the living room, and Larry and Julia's bedroom, and it all comes off as oppressive and uncomfortable, as the ceilings feel kind of low, and those stained glass windows with the roses are downright ugly. The most expansive space in the house is the attic, and even that's just a big empty room, with one lone light hanging from the ceiling, a papered-up back window, and lots of nasty-looking wooden boards and rats.

Some fans have wondered where exactly Hellraiser is set, given the unusual mixture of American and English characters, with the Cottons being American, along with other characters like the moving men, their dinner guests, Steve, the people who Kirsty deals with at her workplace, and even one guy wearing a New York Yankees cap(!), and yet, Julia, along with the men she lures back to the house for Frank, are most definitely English. For me, given what Larry says about Julia being back on her "own turf" and the English accent he

gives to the doctor he saw after he cut himself, as well as the look of the house and what little we see of the nearby city, this is definitely the outskirts of London, and there just happen to be a lot of Americans living and working here. Also, most of the cast is actually English, but New World Pictures felt the movie needed to be Americanized in order for it do well in the United States and so, a number of the minor characters were dubbed over

with American accents. I'm actually more confused as to where the movie's opening is set. I know I said it was in North Africa in the synopsis, and some sources even specify it as Morocco, but because the movie itself never makes it clear, I could only guess (in the original novella, Frank buys the box in Dusseldorf, which this place very clearly isn't).

Due to the low budget, we don't get to see much of the Cenobites' domain, the Labyrinth, but we definitely see enough to feel that, even if this place isn't really hell (the Cenobites wouldn't actually be concretely linked to hell until later on in the series), it might as well be. Not only does their world appear to gradually seep into ours when somebody is fiddling with the Lament Configuration but, when they do appear, they turn the box's current location into a surreal nightmare. Frank's attic, for instance, becomes filled with hundreds of hanging

chains with pieces of meat on their hooks, and these rotating wooden pillars with bones and body parts attached to hooks on them. Kirsty's hospital room, on the other hand, becomes connected to a long, dark corridor in the Labyrinth, filled with the sound of a crying child, where she runs into the Engineer. And when she makes it back to her room, only for the Cenobites to appear to her, a series of eerie phenomena portend their imminent arrival: the room's wall momentarily changes into

what looks like a negative version of a photograph, with steam billowing out from between the tiles, the television starts experiencing a lot of static, an IV bag fills up blood until it bursts, a light explodes, and the room becomes both blindingly bright and filled with a gust of wind.

None of the other Hellraisers ever came close to matching the eerie, unsettling atmosphere that Clive Barker pervaded throughout this original. His directing, combined with Christopher Young's score, makes it so disquieting that even a scene as simple as Kirsty and Steve kissing at the bottom of a flight of stairs leading down into a subway tunnel doesn't feel safe, given how the camera pulls back away from them in an uncomfortable fashion, not to mention the very notion that, unbeknownst to Larry, his brother's ghoulish, resurrected form is

hiding out up in the attic. There are also things you get in this first one that you don't really get again in the others, like that surreal nightmare Kirsty has, where she's in a dark room lit by two large candles, the air is filled with feathers, accompanied by the sound of wings flapping, and she looks at a sheet-covered figure on a bed, only for blood to seep through it, and when she pulls the sheet back, the brutalized corpse of her father sits up. The other movies would have their fair share of bizarre and

disturbing imagery, that's for sure, but nothing like that. The same goes for the scenes with the Engineer, and the mysterious character of the vagrant who stalks Kirsty throughout the film and becomes some sort of winged demon that retrieves the box at the very end. You would never have anything akin to those in the other movies, and what keeps them from feeling completely random is how they imply some connection between Kirsty and the Cenobites before she meets them, as the sounds in her nightmare are also heard in the vagrant's presence and when Kirsty opens the corridor in the Labyrinth.

Though you could argue it's because the franchise very quickly went downhill, I think the main reason why Hellraiser still, to this day, remains on the fringes, especially for non-genre fans, is because the main themes have to do with wanton desire intermixed with sadomasochism. That's definitely what kept me from watching this first movie for the longest time, especially the latter. The imagery I saw of a skinless man on the back of that VHS box, coupled with that glimpse of a face split into pieces, all those shots of hooks and chains

piercing into flesh, especially when I saw that one scene in Boogeymen, and the look of the Cenobites whom I wasn't as familiar with as I was Pinhead, really made my skin crawl, and even now, no matter how bad some of the later movies are, there's always at least one scene or image from each of them that makes me wince and cringe. I especially recoil when I see somebody solving the Lament Configuration while their shirt is off, knowing what's coming. And just the thought about how the Cenobites subject you to sensations so

potent that the line between pain and pleasure dissipates makes me shudder, not to mention how it's intermingled with the notion of people seeking supremely satisfying, often sexual, experiences, like with Frank's insatiable hedonism and Julia desperately wanting to re-experience what Larry could never give her, only to often get more than they bargained for when they meet the Cenobites. Finally, as if it wasn't already taboo, you have Frank lusting after his own niece, having clearly

been interested in her for a long time, and intending to have his way with her both before his body has been completely restored and when he's later wearing her father's skin, making his line, "Come to Daddy," even creepier in that context. Like makeup effects artist and uber Hellraiser fan Gary J. Tunnicliffe said when he was interviewed by Midnight's Edge, this series is anything but mainstream (which is why it sucked that it fell into the Weinsteins' hands for so long, but we'll get to that presently).

When he was interviewed for the 20th Anniversary DVD, Andrew Robinson correctly stated how one thing that makes Hellraiser so palpable is that it's rooted in the relatable scenario of an unhappy marriage. In fact, I would go one further and say it's also about a very dysfunctional family. Not only has Julia been unfaithful to Larry even before they were officially married (the fact that she and Frank had sex atop her wedding dress on the bed is as symbolic as it gets) but it's with her brother-in-law, of all people. Said affair may have had much more

passion to it than her actual marriage, but it's an unhealthy, toxic relationship, one that Julia can't bring herself to break off, no matter how bad of a person Frank is, something else a lot of us can relate to, even if it's not firsthand. As for Kirsty, not only does her depraved uncle have his eye on her, but she and her father have a closeness that Larry doesn't have with his own wife, with their going as far as to give each other a quick kiss on the lips at one point and have dinner together at a

restaurant. That's not to suggest there's something incestuous about them, but that sense of tenderness is definitely not there between Larry and Julia. In fact, when Larry cuts himself and goes to Julia, the dynamic between them is more akin to an injured child seeking out his mother, especially given how Larry is freaking out because he's so sensitive about blood. And finally, while their relationship in this film is mostly just one of mere distance and aloofness, Julia is most definitely the typical not-so-nice stepmother to Kirsty, which she even expounds in Hellbound.

The whole mythology of Hellraiser is definitely an interesting one, and in this first movie, unlike the original novella, you don't get any backstory about the Lament Configuration or the Cenobites. The former isn't even given a name other than just "the box" or "the puzzle box" (in fact, I think the only movie in which it's called the Lament Configuration is Hellraiser: Inferno), similar to the individual Cenobites here, and you don't know how Frank even learned about it in the first place. All you know is he heard it was supposed to open

doors to otherworldly pleasures and thus, paid a great deal of money for it when he tracked it down. The box itself is definitely an iconic object in its design and the way in which you get it to work by pressing and turning some of its sides, making sections of it rise up and able to twist into different shapes. It also seems to be able to sense the person's intentions, as while Frank, in his search for all new experiences, is immediately subjected to the Cenobites' sadomasochism, Kirsty, who solves it out of mere curiosity, opens a direct door

into the Labyrinth (these "rules," if you will, would become more and more inconsistent as the series went on). As for the Cenobites themselves, while most would describe them as demons, Pinhead himself says they are, "Explorers in the further regions of experience," and whether they're demons or angels depends on those who summon them. And like I said, at this point, it's not made clear if the place they come from actually is hell or, at the very least, part of it, or if it's some freakish

alternate dimension that most would see as hell. Either way, while they're presented as more morally ambiguous in the book, in this film, when you solve the puzzle, regardless of your intentions, the Cenobites sadistically intend to take you with them so you can taste their "pleasures." They're also not interested in bargaining, as when Kirsty offers to trade Frank for herself, they make it clear that they're more interested in her. At the same time, they, especially Pinhead, hate the idea of anyone escaping them, and when Frank unknowingly outs himself to them, they gruesomely reclaim him. That doesn't stop them from attempting to take Kirsty as well, though.

While each Cenobite has their own distinctive design, what all of them have in common is how they're dressed in black leather, have exposed areas of flesh with nasty wounds, as well as, in some cases, spots where the flesh and clothing appear to be interlaced, and often wield butchery implements. They come off as much more intimidating than in the original novella, and there are unnerving sounds associated with them here that you don't get in any of the other movies, adding more to this film's unique, unsettling nature.

But what's most fascinating about the Cenobites, particularly Pinhead, is how they didn't start out as the focus of the franchise. In this first movie, they only have like seven minutes of screentime total and, until the third act, are in the background, as the story is truly about the Cotton family. Barker has said he never intended for the Cenobites to become major characters and that it just happened by accident due to fan interest, kind of like how Jason Voorhees went from simply being the

motivation behind the events of the original Friday the 13th, and a gag at the very end to the main draw of that series. And yet, even though it's likely just a case of hindsight being 20/20, like Doug Bradley once said, it's crazy to think that horror fans wouldn't take to monsters as cool-looking as the Cenobites, despite how thinly-drawn they are as characters here.

Since he was the focus of a lot of the marketing, including the main theatrical poster, it's especially not surprising that Pinhead (Doug Bradley) became another popular horror icon from the 80's. Again, you don't get much time with him here, but when Kirsty unwittingly summons him and the other Cenobites, he immediately establishes himself as the leader of this small group, doing most of the talking in that deep, unearthly voice of his. He also proves to be completely without empathy, coldly telling Kirsty that she must come with them back to their realm, and when she starts to cry, groans, "Oh, no tears, please. It's a waste of good suffering!" Though he's initially uninterested in her bargaining for her life, he does appear incensed when she suggests that Frank escaped them and declares he wants to hear Frank admit it himself. He makes no promises that they'll go through with the deal even if they find she's right, only a, "Maybe," and adds that if she tries to cheat them, "We'll tear your soul apart!" There is also something of a sense of melancholy about Pinhead, as when Kirsty asks if they've done this before, he answers, "Many, many times," in an indifferent-sounding voice, heavily suggesting that he's kind of bored with his own existence after doing this for however long it's been. Regardless, when Frank outs himself, Pinhead is quite pleased that they've found him, and we also see that he and the other Cenobites are still very eager to take Kirsty with them, as he tells her, "We have such sights to show you." This would be expounded upon in further movies, helping make Kirsty this franchise's version of Laurie Strode and Nancy Thompson.

Pinhead's design and costume, of course, are classic, with his pale skin, that grid pattern running across his bald head, and the pins, which are nailed in at every spot where the lines cross, along with his black, leather suit and skirt, with the torso having spots where the leather does appear to be interlaced with the flesh and a bit of his stomach revealed. While in The Hellbound Heart, the character is described as androgynous, with a light, airy, feminine voice (a concept the movies wouldn't get to until the 2022 reboot), Bradley's Pinhead is well-known for having a deep, demonic voice, not unlike that of Freddy Krueger, only without the wisecracks. And in this first film, he tends to breathe in a very ragged, high-pitched manner that you don't hear in any of the others.

While she doesn't do much, the female Cenobite (Grace Kirby) actually creeps me out more than Pinhead. She's so unsettling-looking, with that wire frame going through her cheeks and opening up her neck, that one piercing in the bridge of her nose, her sunken-in facial features, pale skin that's similar to Pinhead's, and bits of hair on her, otherwise, bald head, and the way she sounds isn't much better. Her voice is a raspy whisper, and she tends to make really disturbing rattling sounds and squeals that sound like an angry cat! And unlike Pinhead, she actually makes threatening gestures towards Kirsty, like when she stops her from escaping during the climax, coming up the stairs at her and menacingly asking, "Not leaving us so soon, are you?", before forcing her into a room where she's confronted by Pinhead. In fact, the female Cenobite seems especially interested in Kirsty, telling her when she's trying to trade herself for Frank, "Perhaps we prefer you."

My personal favorite Cenobite of the entire series has always been Chatterer (Nicholas Vince), as he's the most immediately visually striking of the original four, with his hideously disfigured, eyeless face, with a bloody wound on the back of his head, permanently exposed mouth, and, naturally, his constantly chattering teeth. While he has no dialogue and doesn't get to do much, you get the sense that he's the enforcer of the group, with how he restrains Kirsty when she summons them, putting two of his fingers in her mouth, and stops

Frank from leaving the attic during the climax. That's more than I can say for Butterball (Simon Bamford), who may look interesting, with his massively fat body, split stomach, toe-shaped head, and black, round glasses, which cover his stitched up eyes, but, in both this film and Hellbound, does little else besides stand around and look menacing. I actually feel kind of bad for Bamford, as not only was that makeup and costume torturous but he did originally have dialogue, as Butterball is the

Cenobite who speaks the most in The Hellbound Heart, but it was all given to the female Cenobite because he couldn't speak in the mask he had to wear; as a result, all Butterball does here is occasionally growl. Bamford does manage to exude an uncomfortable grossness, though, with how he tends to lick his lips, thinking thoughts you likely don't want to know about, but aside from that, all he really gets to do is attempt to attack Kirsty and Steve during the climax, only for some of the ceiling to cave in on him, which was a lame way for him to go out.

Another character who was changed drastically from book to film is the Engineer. In the book, he's the unseen leader of the Order of the Gash that the Cenobites follow, appearing as flashes of light and speaking through both dead and living people; in the film, the Engineer is this bizarre monster who Kirsty runs into the Labyrinth corridor she manages to open with the box. When I talk to people who've never seen Hellraiser, I'm at a loss at how to describe this thing. I often say he's like a large, very ugly lizard, only suspended upside

down in the corridor, using his "feet" to move himself down it by pushing his weight against the walls. His vaguely reptilian face has a big, often crunching maw full of sharp teeth, and his two, rather stubby arms have very sharp claws that he uses to swipe at his prey, while his prehensile tail has a barb at the end akin to a scorpion stinger. And his vocalizations are these wheezing screeches. The Engineer is often one of the more criticized aspects of the film, given how the effects

used to bring him to life, admittedly, aren't the most convincing, as you can clearly see the people operating the puppet from behind, as well as its rig, in the shots of the Engineer running down the corridor. Still, being a sucker for practical creature effects, I have a soft spot for him, and I think his design is still rather cool.

While it's not confirmed until the very end of Hellbound, it's suggested here that the creepy vagrant (Frank Baker; no, despite what a certain idiot from Brookhaven would make you think, this isn't Alan Moore) who spends the movie stalking Kirsty may be connected to the merchant who sold Frank the Lament Configuration. He appears twice before the ending, most memorably when he shows up at the pet shop and eats a handful of crickets, before Kirsty makes him leave. Though he was already unsettling in his first appearance, where he

stares at Kirsty and Steve from the darkness, this second scene proves that there's something unnatural about him, as he vanishes into thin air between cuts, accompanied by the sound of flapping wings. Then, at the end of the movie, he appears when Kirsty and Steve attempt to burn the box and takes it from the fire, setting himself aflame as well. That's when he transforms into a winged, skeletal, dragon-like creature, then flies off and the movie ends with the merchant preparing to

sell the box to another potential buyer. Like with the Engineer, this final monster isn't the greatest effect and was done at the very last minute, forcing them to only show it in quick cuts, with its taking flight shot entirely through its POV, but it works fine for what it is and definitely ends the movie on a massive WTF?

For the most part, however, the effects in Hellraiser by Bob Keen and Image Animation are absolutely amazing and gruesome, with the greatest being Frank's resurrection. According to Keen, this sequence was attempted once before but wasn't entirely satisfactory. When New World, liking what they saw in the dailies, decided to give the production more money, they went back and did the sequence again; the end result is an amazing example of pure nightmare fuel in motion,

starting with Larry's spilled blood on the attic being absorbed down through the boards, causing a heart right beneath them to begin beating. After Kirsty and Julia have taken Larry to the hospital, the floorboards begin to rumble and steam, with the nails getting pushed up from beneath and thick slime then oozing up through the holes. It really begins, though, when Frank's emaciated arms suddenly emerge from the slime and flop to the floor, and they push up what looks like a headless torso, with two stalks at the base of where the neck 

would be. At the same time, a brain forms on the floor in front of the torso, and when it's almost complete, the torso lunges forward and the stalks attach to it. With a rib-cage and tailbone forming behind it, the torso pushes itself up, fingers emerge from the hands, his ribs and bones become more defined, with a coating of rotted flesh atop it, and his head appears. The sequence ends with Frank leaning back and letting out an agonized scream.

Not surprisingly, Clive Barker had some ratings problems with the movie, but they actually had more to do with the eroticism (the sex scene between Frank and Julia was much more graphic originally) than the violence, although some of that did have to be trimmed. And yet, even though this was during that period where the MPAA was really cracking down on gore and violence in horror films, Hellraiser still managed to get away with a lot of gruesome imagery. Less than five minutes in,

we get nasty close-ups of hooks piercing into Frank's flesh,his grisly remains on the attic floor afterward, and the pieces of his face, which the female Cenobite assembles like a puzzle, not to mention those pillars with chunks of flesh attached to them and our first look at both the female Cenobite and Pinhead. Less than fifteen minutes after that, we see Larry get the back of his hand sliced open by the exposed nail and we get plenty gruesome close-ups of the profusely bleeding

wound, all of which really makes you wince. The same goes for Julia's murdering Frank's intended victims, as she bludgeons them to death with a hammer (one of these needed to be cut back, as there was a close-up of the hammer sticking out of the guy's scalp; ouch!), and then, while we only get brief glimpses of Frank feeding on their blood (accompanied by very gross-sounding slurping noises), we get a good look at the aftermath, with their shriveled bodies, the first of which Kirsty blunders into during the climax while hiding from

Frank, with maggots pouring out of the mouth. The poor third guy, whom Kirsty runs into before Frank has finished him off, is especially hard to look at. We get more shots of Frank's flesh being penetrated by hooks when he uses the box to show Julia what he was put through, and during the sequence while the storm is raging outside, we see a couple of rats he nailed to the attic wall, the nails going through their throats, and Frank slices through another's carcass as a threat towards Julia when she's with Larry. Speaking of poor Larry, we

see the end result of Frank flaying him for his flesh, as his skinned, steaming body lies on the floor in the attic. And as loathsome as she's proven to be by this point, Julia's death, with her getting stabbed in the gut and Frank then feeding on her, can still make you cringe, and you later see that she attempted to solve the box with her last bit of strength. There's even a moment where the damn wall bleeds when the female Cenobite runs a hook along it.

Fittingly, Frank gets the worst death in the entire movie. We get a hint of what's in store for him when Kirsty rips a chunk of Larry's flesh off his face, and when he runs into the Cenobites up in the attic, we know he's in for it. They hook into his right hand when he tries to attack Kirsty, pull him back, hook into the palm of his left hand, pulling him into a crucifixion pose, and then go to town on him. Hooks stab into dozens of spots of his body, pulling and stretching it, and for good measure, a

big chain goes up his back, slicing into his spine. By the end of it, his face is hideously stretched and pulled, and he licks his lips, adding to the grossness (I can still remember how much all of this got to me when I first saw it on Boogeymen). After he says, "Jesus... wept," he literally gets torn apart, although that was another effect the MPAA truncated, as there's a quick, awkward cut in-between shots.

While they're not very prominent, the movie does have a fair number of old-fashioned visual effects and bits of animation, particularly during the third act. These include blue-colored bits of energy that surge through the Lament Configuration, as well as some magical dots that come out of it while Kirsty is fiddling with it, and one of its faces opening up with a bright flash; white, electrical flashes that accompany the Cenobites when they appear to her; and orange-colored electric arcs that engulf them and the Engineer when Kirsty banishes them during the climax.

Speaking of which, I've always had very mixed feelings about the climax. On the one hand, I think it's cool how, once Frank has been dealt with, Kirsty still has to contend with and banish the Cenobites one by one with the Lament Configuration. By the same token, however, the house starts acting like it's falling apart, with chunks of the ceiling caving in, yet there's no explanation given for it. It's suggested that it might have something to do with the box itself but it's

never made clear, and in the end, the house is still standing, so it was pointless. This is also where Butterball has his undignified demise, and Steve shows up to come to Kirsty's aid, only to prove himself to be absolutely useless, including when he tries to help her fight the Engineer. And like I said before, after they've escaped, the transition from the exterior shot of the house to the random landfill where they attempt to burn the box is confusing, as it makes you think that the house burned down (which Hellbound would prove wasn't the case). But these are just minor quibbles.

Just as integral to the movie's success as Clive Barker's writing and directing, the characters, and the acting is the amazing score by Christopher Young. This music fits perfectly with the visuals, tone, and nature of this story, managing to come off as eerie, horrific, creepy, and Gothic, but also beautiful and with a definite element of tragedy about it. The main theme especially manages to encompass all that, not just in how it sounds over the opening credits but also when you hear it during the flashback to Frank and Julia's first meeting, where it starts off with a rather sad little flute bit before launching into the actual theme. There's a downright epic-sounding version of it at the very end, when the vagrant takes the box, but when you hear it over the ending credits, it's much softer and more tragic-sounding than it was before, alluding back to the horrific tragedy you've witnessed destroy the Cotton family. Going back to the scene with Frank and Julia, their sex scene is scored by an absolutely incredible string/piano theme that builds as it goes on, coming to full fruition, fittingly enough, when they both orgasm and when Larry cuts his hand. It's incredibly beautiful, getting across the amazing experience this was for Julia, and yet very painful and tragic, as we now not only know why Julia's marriage to Larry isn't working but also realize that it never had a chance. Similarly beautiful but also horrific is the waltz theme that plays during Frank's resurrection, starting out as low and eerie, then exploding into pure majesty when Frank's arms first burst up through the floor and going on from there (strangely, when Kirsty fiddles with the Lament Configuration, you hear a little music-box version of this theme). As Young himself said, as hideous and nightmarish as the actual scene is, this music is something you could dance to, fitting perfectly with Barker's aesthetic. 

But, make no mistake, there are parts of the score that are meant to do nothing more than terrify and make you feel uneasy. My favorite is the Cenobites' theme, where their presence is alluded to by an ominous, tolling bell, accompanied by very creepy, synthesizer sounds, used most effectively in the scene where Kirsty first meets them. The scene where Julia first comes across Frank after he's been resurrected is extremely dark and hard-hitting, getting across the horror she's facing when she first sees him, and the music that plays when she murders for him and he feeds on their blood is absolute horror, accentuating both what he's doing and the horrific line that she's just crossed, all for love. The same goes for the scene where Julia tries to stop Larry from going into the attic, building and building into tension as Frank stalks closer towards them on the bed, threatening Larry with the knife and the rat's carcass. Both of the scenes with the Engineer are scored with a piece of music that makes me think of some of the action cues from James Horner's score for Aliens (not really my favorite part of the score but certainly not bad, either). And there are other, miscellaneous bits that add just a little more to the movie's feeling of unease.

Clive Barker's Hellraiser is most definitely among the best horror movies of the 80's and also one of the best ever made in England. It has unforgettable characters played by truly great actors, iconic monsters in the Cenobites and an interesting mythology surrounding them, an eerie main setting in the Cotton house, gobs of nightmarish imagery brought to life through amazing makeup effects and art direction, well-done cinematography and editing, a truly incredibly music score, and an unsettling aesthetic to it overall, as it delves deep into subject matter and thoughts you often don't want to even consider. There are some flaws, with the low budget sometimes showing through, some instances of rough acting on Ashley Laurence's part, Steve being a completely useless character, and the climax being something of a mixed bag, but other than that, this film is a real gem. The franchise as a whole may often falter on what it's meant to be, but this first one does it all too well.