Ideas for a Soft Reboot/Sequel for HELLRAISER...

A common complaint about the state of the film industry these days is that it's all sequels and reboots, with few original ideas. One film that's been subject to Sequelitis and has had a reboot in Development Hell for years is Hellraiser, the tale of an occult puzzle box that can be used to summon the grotesque Pinhead and his Cenobites, "demons to some and angels to others."

This subject was discussed on one of the horror-related Facebook groups I joined in order to hawk my novel The Thing in the Woods and so I posted some of my thoughts on what such a film should look like in response to a June 23 post. The following discussion is my ideas, expanded.

Much like J.J. Abrams' 2009 Star Trek, one could have a sequel that's also a "soft reboot." Ashley Laurence and Doug Bradley, who are both alive and in good health, could return as Kirsty Cotton and Pinhead respectively. The decline in the series began after Hellraiser 3, in which they have a completely new protagonist Joey Summerskill (Terry Ferrell), and it went straight to video after Hellraiser: Bloodline. They brought Kirsty back for Hellraiser: Hellseeker, but that was direct-to-DVD and had a plot that made no sense--there is no way in hell (hee-hee) that Kirsty would be stupid enough to touch anything resembling the Lament Configuration again. And they replaced Bradley with other actors in Hellraiser: Revelations and Hellraiser: Judgement and I've heard very little good about those films--they were very low budget and existed only so the production company could keep the rights. And Bradley wanted nothing to do with them. Fortunately Bradley himself is a good sport and is up for reprising his role.

However, both actors are a lot older than they were back in the 1980s--Laurence is in her mid-50s and Bradley is nearly 70--so it can't just be "Kirsty and Pinhead at it again." Since the original cast is aging and the idea is to reboot the series, this could be a means of giving the original cast their last hurrah before they hand off the torch to a new generation.

My idea would be take Hellseeker into account, but make it a nightmare Kirsty had or some kind of hallucination induced by a head injury from the film's car accident. Kirsty is older and married to Trevor (Dean Winters) and they have teenage children. Due to her experiences in the first two films, Kirsty has a lot of baggage and isn't the easiest person in the world to deal with, a contributing factor to her husband cheating on her.

(Obviously not to the degree he does in Hellseeker--in that one he was unfaithful to Kirsty with three separate women. However, Kirsty is likely a jumpy paranoid mess due to her backstory, so she might think it was more than just him venting about his marital problems to a sympathetic coworker and things just getting out of control from there.)

Kirsty, though she's understandably upset (especially given how she remembers Frank and Julia), doesn't file for divorce--yet. After all, she knows the pain a broken home can cause a child--she moved out of her father's home and lived in a nasty apartment rather than share a home with Julia--and doesn't want to inflict this on her own children, who aren't aware of his adultery. Furthermore, she recognizes Trevor strayed in part due to drama caused by her own issues. However, their marriage is in a very fragile state and more problems arise when a letter from a foreign bank arrives. They've been trying to find the next of kin for one Frank Cotton for twenty-odd years--a small amount of money he'd stashed away has, through the magic of compound interest, grown to a somewhat larger sum. Trevor would like to put the money for some useful purpose (perhaps a family vacation to make everybody feel better, or some needed renovations on the house), but Kirsty, suspecting the money was gained through crime--Frank in the novella The Hellbound Heart smuggles heroin and earns money through other illegal means--wants nothing to do it.

(In Hellseeker Kirsty was the beneficiary of both Larry and Frank's wills and didn't want to spend the latter's money, viewing it as dirty. However, it was apparently a large sum and Trevor was able to enlist a close friend in a plot to kill her to get his hands on it. However, Larry doesn't seem particularly rich in the first film and in the book Frank is always in debt due to his hedonistic lifestyle. More realistic that Frank had some bug-out money hidden somewhere and it's been slowly accumulating interest ever since.)

However, this isn't going to be a domestic drama however much the original Hellraiser came off as one at times. Pinhead is involved somehow, either to get his hands on Kirsty at long last or go after her children like Captain Hook threatened Peter's family in the film Hook. 

(Pinhead has shown a willingness to make deals, like sparing Kirsty to lead him to the escaped Frank in the first film and Kirsty's own bargain with him in Hellseeker. Perhaps someone from the bank had solved the Lament Configuration but Pinhead, upon learning he had found Kirsty, agreed to let him help take her instead.)

If the goal is hand off the franchise to a new generation, in the resulting confrontation Pinhead and Kirsty (and perhaps Trevor too) are all killed. That might be tricky given how Pinhead withstands gunshots and even futuristic laser cannon in some of the films, but maybe Kirsty could run him over with her car (something that would inflict a lot more damage than a single bullet or laser beam) and die in the process, defeating her old enemy at the cost of her own life. 

However, her sacrifice is in vain--the forces of Hell claim one of Kirsty's children as a new Cenobite. However, another manages to escape and vows to reclaim them for humanity, something Hellraiser II: Hellbound showed was possible with the Channard Cenobite reverting Pinhead to Captain Elliott Spencer before killing him. To save their sibling, the character would seek occult knowledge and we could use that to bring in concepts from the Hellraiser comics like the Harrowers, human warriors chosen by the hell-god Leviathan's sister-goddess to fight him. Subsequent films can get into the "war of the gods" angle with all-new Cenobites and human characters, much like the comics did.

Christian Themes in the Movie "Hellraiser"

In a couple previous posts I've made on the movie Hellraiser, I've discussed the character of Frank Cotton and the theme of godly versus worldly sorrow (see 2 Corinthinians 7:10). Seeking Biblical truth in a horror film centered on sadomasochism may seem quite strange--and many will see it as just as excuse to justify watching a movie with gross and immoral content--but there's actually a good bit of thought in there.

Below are some Christian themes I've noticed in the film:

Godly vs. Worldly Sorrow

2 Corinthians 7:10 states the following:  Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death. The article above goes into more detail, but I'll summarize a bit for the TL; DR crowd or for those who might not be interesting in visiting a Christian website. "Godly sorrow" is sorrow for the immorality of one's actions--the disrespect shown to God and harm done to others. "Worldly sorrow" is regret for the personal costs of sin only.

And in Hellraiser (and the novella it's based on, "The Hellbound Heart") "worldly sorrow" is epitomized by Frank Cotton. Frank is an unrepentant hedonistic pleasure-seeker who in the book describes having smuggled heroin and in both the book and film seduced his own brother's fiancee. The book elaborates by describing how the only reason he doesn't "snatch her from under her would-be husband's nose" is that he would soon tire of her and have his vengeful brother after him. He grows bored with "dope and drink" and endless fornication and seeks out the Lament Configuration, which promises wonders and pleasures beyond human comprehension.

Well, the ones bringing said wonders and pleasures have some very different ideas of what constitutes fun. Frank is abducted by the Cenobites and subject to gross physical and sexual abuse, which he escapes purely by accident. He regrets his involvement with the Cenobites--this early draft of the "Hellraiser" script shows how deeply the Cenobites have traumatized him--but not the immoral lifestyle he has led. This same early draft of the script depicts him attempting to rape his own niece when he sees her for the first time in years, and in both the book and the film he treats Julia as a means to an end, disposing of her when she is no longer convenient. In "The Hellbound Heart," he seems interested in applying some of what he learned about pleasure and pain in Hell to Julia if only she would set him free, which implies he intends to go straight back to sleeping around if not worse once he's fully reconstituted.

And in the end, Frank's worldly sorrow leads to death. In his desperation to rebuild his mutilated body, he and Julia murder several people so he can feed on them. When Kirsty threatens to expose him, he murders his own brother, and when he and Julia attempt to kill Kirsty, he accidentally stabs her and then feeds off her remaining life-force rather than trying to help her. He attempts to kill Kirsty (his niece in the film, a friend of his brother in the book) and is ultimately reclaimed by the Cenobites, dismembered alive and returned to Hell. In Hellbound: Hellraiser 2, he ends up getting killed by the damned Julia, who uses the exact same words he told her before he tried to consume her.

Conscience and Universal Knowledge of Morality

The first two chapters of Paul's letter to the Romans are something I have always had problems believing. Romans 1:18-32, which states outright universal knowledge of the nature of God and universal human rejection of what they know to be true, is what Carl Sagan would call an extraordinary claim needing extraordinary proof. Furthermore, many conservative Christians, especially Calvinists, have taken it so far as to claim that everybody knows the Christian religion specifically is true and simply rejects it out of desire to sin. Seriously, we're talking about people who call ISIS "God-haters," never mind that they're fanatics of a different religion rather than irreligious. Romans 2:12-16 describes how the laws of God are written on the hearts of Gentiles and in particular suggests the human conscience is divinely ordained. The conscience in my opinion is more malleable than that.

Frank's life before he's taken by the Cenobites is not discussed much in the film at all (beyond the whole "seducing/semi-raping his brother's fiancee" part), but the book describes his imagination as "fertile" when it comes to "trickery and theft" and among other things he smuggles heroin. He apparently owes a lot of people money, which he probably spent on "dope and drink" and prostitutes. However, and this is the important part, he knows what he's doing is wrong. The prologue refers to him growing bored and dosing himself with whatever opiate "his immoralities had earned him." This is from his point of view, not the narrator's, so even if he had "suppressed the truth in unrighteousness" (i.e. convinced himself superficially his behavior was not immoral despite knowing better), on some subconscious level he knows that his lifestyle is evil.

In Which Frank Quotes the Bible

In the film, when Frank is speared repeatedly by the Cenobites, his last words are, "Jesus wept" (John 11:35). That's the shortest verse in the Bible, in which Jesus mourns for His dead friend Lazarus, whom he later resurrects. I'm not sure what Frank is referring to in that context--according to some Googling, the line was ad-libbed by the actor and Barker decided to keep it.

An Early Draft of HELLRAISER: Script Review and Commentary

The other day I found this early draft of the script for Clive Barker's horror film Hellraiser. I read it and liked what I found, so here's some commentary...

The Good

*The opening is much better than in the canonical film. It's very scary and vivid, while at the same time leaving a whole lot up to the imagination. It also avoids the canonical film's problem of having Frank getting the hook-chain treatment as soon as he solves the box but Kirsty able to wander about and actually talk to the Cenobites. We don't see just what exactly happens, although once we meet Frank and he tells Julia what happened, we know that it was him who solved the box and is the particular victim you can hear screaming over the others. The opening script also keeps the Cenobites mysterious--you don't really see them at first, unlike in the canonical film where you see the Female Cenobite and Pinhead full-on.

*The Cotton family drama, like the canonical film, is shown rather than told. Neither Larry nor Julia say their marriage is unhappy, nor do Kirsty or Julia say they dislike each other.

*Frank's tale of his suffering at the hands of the Cenobites is much more interesting than in the canonical film. He's showing Julia the box and reflected in its shiny surfaces we can see what Frank experienced in Hell. The thing that comes to mind is the Nightmare Fuel flashback to the destruction of Sandleford Warren in the animated Watership Down film, and some kind of animation might have been the only way to really get some of the trippier aspects of it done. Accomplishing this with the limited special-effects budget Barker had might not have been possible...hence Frank's "pain and pleasure, indivisible" spiel with the images of him spinning around covered in blood.

*Speaking of Frank, he's more developed as a character. His evil is amplified in the attempted rape of Kirsty (his own niece!), but at the same time he's so clearly traumatized by what the Cenobites did to him that he's actually sympathetic. Also, that Julia is nothing more than a means to an end to him is made clearer much earlier in the film, foreshadowing how in the climax when she's accidentally mortally wounded Frank feeds on her rather than making any attempt to help her.

*Steve, Kirsty's British boyfriend, is much more useful than in the movie. In the script he visits her in the hospital and is, unknown to him, taken hostage by the Cenobites who Kirsty can see but he cannot. When they sneak her out of the hospital however it was they did it (I think they used the portal Kirsty opened to transition her out of the hospital), he finds her gone and takes the puzzle box for himself. He then makes his way to Larry and Julia's house and, however ineffectively, helps her battle Frank.

*I liked Kirsty's "what took you so long" take-down of the Cenobites. She's been at their mercy for a time, but now that she's fulfilled her end of the bargain, she can (to an extent) give them the what-for. And the Cenobites actually explain their rationale.

*There's no Puzzle Guardian character, whom I thought didn't really add to the story and whose sudden transformation into a dragon at the end of the film ate up money that could have been better spent elsewhere.

The Bad

*Some of Larry's discussion with the workmen goes on for a little too long. He doesn't really need to explain everything about his family situation to them. The workmen are also blatantly rude to him. Maybe British movers are a rougher crowd than I'm used to, but mouthing off to the guy who signs your checks is not a good idea no matter where you live.

The Verdict

Had Barker went with this, Hellraiser would have been an even better film than it already was. 9.0 out 10.

Book Review: Sherlock Holmes and the Servants of Hell (2016)

I first became interested in the Hellraiser horror franchise when I was in middle or high school, although I lost interest for a long time. Over the last few months my interest has been rekindled--I watched the original Hellraiser for the first time and read the novel that inspired it, The Hellbound Heart. At some point along the way I saw that Rebellion Publishing had a Hellraiser/Sherlock Holmes crossover entitled Sherlock Holmes and the Servants of Hell coming out.

So how was it? Let's see...

The Plot

Sherlock Holmes, the world's greatest detective, and his physician partner John Watson are called into action when a libertine disappears from a locked room. Their investigation draws them deeper into London's underworld, where the powerful and influential cast aside their Victorian uprightness indulge in a plethora of perversions. They discover the machinations of the mysterious "Order of the Gash" and a mysterious puzzle box.

Soon Holmes and Watson find themselves faced with a foe not of this world that deals in fates worse than death...

The Good

*As I mentioned earlier I've been interested in the Hellraiser universe for a long time. Crossing it over with the realm of Sherlock Holmes is pretty creative. Someone who solves the box and is taken by the Cenobites sets up a classical "locked room mystery," especially since a philosophical materialist like Holmes is not likely to consider a supernatural cause like, well, a gang of extra-dimensional BDSM enthusiasts who drag people through portals opened by a supernatural Rubix cube.

(Wow, I just made the whole franchise seem really ridiculous, didn't I?)

*I was able to read the novel in a few hours on the elliptical and it made my exercise time go by pretty quickly. It's an absorbing read and a fairly quick one. Definitely very entertaining, which is why we all read books in the first place.

*Author Paul Kane has clearly done his research into the Hellraiser franchise. This is not really a surprise considering he'd written The Hellraiser films and Their Legacy and had the assistance of Barbie Wilde, who played the Female Cenobite in the first two films and wrote the introduction to the book. In particular he's clearly studied The Hellbound Heart, since he knows the smell of vanilla accompanies the Cenobites and those who seek their attentions sometimes offer their dove's heads and their own urine. A character is very strongly implied to be the ancestor of Clive Barker's occult detective Harry D'Amour, who appears in some of Barker's other works before facing off against the nefarious Pinhead in the recent Scarlet Gospels. The acknowledgements section at the end of the book reveals influences from anthologies of stories set in Barker's universe written by other authors as well. The climactic battle even draws on both Hellbound: Hellraiser 2 and Hellraiser 3: Hell on Earth.

*Per the above, Kane knows not to bring in Pinhead. Pinhead would have been "born" in the 20th Century and this far too early for him. However, Hell had servants well before Pinhead, so he's not really needed.

*Sherlock Holmes' deductive talents are on full display in this one. He deduces several interesting facts about one Laurence Cotton and his second wife Juliet (more on them later) upon meeting them and he's able to discern the presence of the Puzzle Guardian vagrant and just how those who've gone missing after the solving the box died. Kane has written in the Holmes universe as well, including stories in The Mammoth Book of Sherlock Holmes Abroad and Gaslight Arcanum: Uncanny Tales of Sherlock Holmes.

*I was initially displeased to see characters from earlier Holmes works popping up, but Kane makes the whole situation work out and paves the way for a very entertaining climax.

The Bad

*The author's knowledge of the Hellraiser universe proves to be a bit of a creative crutch when Holmes and Watson first begin investigating. The first missing person is a mischievous "Francis Cotton" and the people who seek out their help are his brother Laurence and his new wife Juliet, who live on Lodovico Street in London. Laurence has a daughter named Kirsten, with whom Juliet doesn't get along. Does this sound a bit familiar? It's the triangle of Larry, Frank, and Julia from the first Hellraiser, transplanted into the late 19th Century.

However, another missing person is one Lt. Howard Spencer and he has a son nicknamed Ellie, whom Watson thinks will go into the military for all the wrong reasons. The implication is that this is the young Elliott Spencer, who will someday solve the puzzle box in India and be transformed into Pinhead.

If the story had been a pure prequel to The Hellbound Heart, this would not have been a problem at all, and if Kane had just transplanted the tale of the Cotton family for a 19th Century reboot, I might not have liked it but I wouldn't have been that upset. However, the prequel and the reboot aspects sit uneasily side by side. And since Hellraiser is not public domain like Sherlock Holmes is, Barker and friends have to have approved this.

It would have been better if Holmes and Watson merely met the ancestors of the Cottons--perhaps they had a boarder in the upper room of their Lodovico Street house who disappeared? It might be a nice hat-tip to the mythology.

Per my point about the Cotton family reprise, some characters' fates in hell are more akin to the torments depicted in in Hellbound: Hellraiser 2 than The Hellbound Heart. For example, Barker's original novella implied those taken by the Cenobites experienced "pleasures" more physical than psychological that reduced Frank Cotton to a mutilated mess and bore at least a passing relationship to sex. The punishments of Francis Cotton, the elder Spencer, etc. are more psychological and spiritual in nature. Furthermore, they stem from the idea of the Cenobites dispensing justice upon the wicked, as opposed to Barker's original vision of them as a band of amoral experimenters in pleasure and pain. That's something that appears in the later Hellraiser films (especially the awful direct to video ones), but not in The Hellbound Heart or the original Hellraiser. The idea present in The Hellbound Heart that the damned, when not "enduring pleasure," are able to see into the worlds they've left behind is abandoned entirely.

So is this a prequel to The Hellbound Heart and some of Barker's other works, the Hellraiser film series, or both?

*Some of Watson's actions after the climax of the novel don't fit in with his character, don't fit in with the existing Hellraiser mythology and might not work with the Holmes canon overall. I'm not going to go into detail for reasons of spoilers.

The Verdict

An interesting book and a fast read besides. 8.5 out of 10.

Book Review: The Hellbound Heart (1986)

I've recently become interested in the Hellraiser franchise after many years, writing a review of the first movie and how I would have done the movie. The first movie, for those not familiar with the franchise, was inspired by the novella The Hellbound Heart. Recently my friends James R. Tuck and Danielle Tuck started a new podcast and they gave a glowing review to The Hellbound Heart. Danielle strongly recommend I buy it, so here goes...

The Plot

A solid but boring man named Rory (Larry in the film) and his bored wife Julia move into a house previously owned by Rory's late grandmother and now jointly owned by Rory and his brother Frank. Frank, however, has been missing for some time. A selfish hedonist, Frank had grown bored with the usual debauchery and sought out a certain puzzle box rumored to contain wonders and pleasures beyond human comprehension. Unfortunately, he should have been careful what he wished for, because the demonic Cenobites' idea of pleasure and his don't really overlap.

Freed from Hell by an accident--albeit as a skeletal skinless monster--Frank manipulates Julia (with whom he had a brief affair before her wedding to Rory) into murdering people for him to feed on and regenerate his body. Unfortunately for him, Rory's friend Kirsty is onto them...

The Good

*Barker is very good at writing vivid, descriptive scenes. The story opens with Frank solving the mystical puzzle box has a lot of really good descriptive imagery, including a bare light-bulb pulsing with the mournful toll of the bell that heralds the Cenobites' arrival. Another scene from Frank's point of view in which he recounts his year of sensual torment at the Cenobites' hands is also well-done.

*The multiple scenes from Frank's point of view confirm my earlier observations from my film review. Frank is so totally depraved that even a year of torment in Hell by beings he summoned thinking they'd bring him new extremes of pleasure hasn't turned him from his course. Rather than being sobered by the experience and wanting to turn over a new leaf, Frank definitely intends to resume his immoral lifestyle once he's freed. And some of his thoughts toward Julia suggest that the whole "pleasure that becomes pain and pain that becomes pleasure" that this story's Hell is full of have given him some ideas about what to do with her.

I'm reminded of the distinction commentators on 2 Corinthians 7:10 make over "godly sorrow" vs. "worldly sorrow." Frank regrets his bad decisions that lead to him being kidnapped by a bunch of extra-dimensional leather freaks but has no sorrow for his bad behavior generally. This behavior, among other things, caused great grief to his parents, included him cuckolding the brother from whom he was once inseparable, apparently caused him to run up a lot of debt, and even involved smuggling heroin and doing "small favors" to get his hands on the puzzle box. These "small favors" are implied to be immoral or criminal in nature, but he doesn't regret those even though he clearly regrets getting involved with the Cenobites. He is clearly, totally 100% selfish.

*I saw many scenes, concepts, etc. that I recognized as the nuclei of scenes from the movie. Obviously they'd be there since the movie is an adaptation of the book, but Barker, who was in charge of the whole movie, was able to develop his imagery, story, ideas, etc. more fully.

*The book introduces the idea that the prisoners of the Cenobites are aware of and interact with each other. Frank apparently learned of the possibility of escape from "whispers" of other inmates. I don't remember this in the original film, although you see a bit of in Hellbound: Hellraiser II (the only sequel Barker was involved with).

*At 164 pages long, it's a pretty quick read.

The Bad

*Some of the scenes are far more bony and could easily be elaborated on. This is especially disappointing considering the vivid description he employs elsewhere in the story. Contrast the opening damnation of Frank Cotton with Kirsty's initial confrontation with the Cenobites in the hospital. The former scene is very vivid and well-described, but the latter is, well...

“You can’t do this,” she insisted. 

It moved toward her nevertheless. A row of tiny bells, depending from the scraggy flesh of its neck, tinkled as it approached. The stink it gave off made her want to heave. “Wait,” she said. 

“No tears, please. It’s a waste of good suffering.” 

“The box,” she said in desperation. “Don’t you want to know where I got the box?” 

“Not particularly.” 

“Frank Cotton,” she said. “Does the name mean anything to you? Frank Cotton.”

The Cenobite smiled. “Oh yes. We know Frank.” 

“He solved the box too, am I right?” 

“He wanted pleasure, until we gave it to him. Then he squirmed.” 

"If I took you to him . . .”

"He’s alive then?” 

“Very much alive.”

"And you’re proposing what? That I take him back instead of you?” 

“Yes. Yes. Why not? Yes.” 

The Cenobite moved away from her. The room sighed. “I’m tempted,” it said. Then: “But perhaps you’re cheating me. Perhaps this is a lie, to buy you time.”

“I know where he is, for God’s sake,” she said. “He did this to me!” She presented her slashed arms for its perusal. 

“If you’re lying”— it said—“ if you’re trying to squirm your way out of this—” 

“I’m not.” 

“Deliver him alive to us then . . .” 

She wanted to weep with relief. 

“. . . make him confess himself. And maybe we won’t tear your soul apart.”

Compare the above, in which I only got the vaguest notions Kirsty was frightened or the Cenobite was something terrifying, with the movie adaptation below. The Cenobites make their appearance at around five minutes in...



The movie scene displays Pinhead in his dark grandeur and shows Kirsty's visceral terror. The sequence in the books is so monotone, especially in comparison.

*It has some of the same flaws of the film, including a lack of on-screen confrontation between the undead Frank and his brother.

*The e-book is rather expensive for a novella, around $6 or so. I've gotten full-length novels like Marko Kloos' FRONTLINES novels Terms of Enlistment, Lines of Departure, and Angles of Attack for a fair bit less. Is Barker's talent worth the higher price? It's good, but worth that much? The Hellbound Heart isn't even a full novel.

*I liked the film's dynamic of Kirsty as Larry's daughter and Julia as her stepmother better than Kirsty as a platonic friend of Rory (who seems to have romantic feelings for him) who doesn't like Julia. Kirsty knowing Frank as her uncle is a lot less forced than Kirsty having met Frank during the preparations for Rory and Julia's wedding four years before. The familial dynamic also makes Frank even more revolting, as in the films he seems to have incestuous intentions toward his own niece.

The Verdict

Generally good and a worthy seed for which the very creepy tree known as the film Hellraiser grew. However, it's not as good as its reputation, even though it does have a surprisingly high amount of reread value.

8.0 out of 10.

Movie Review: Hellraiser (1987)

A few days ago I got rather interested in the Hellraiser franchise of films, in which people who toy with a magical puzzle-box summon the leather-clad Pinhead and friends, "explorers of the farther reaches of experience," whose idea of fun involves torture and sadomasochism (in which a good time is not had by all). So I decided to give the original Hellraiser a watch. Combined with my recent watch of Gremlins, it's turning into a very 1980s horror movie December.

Here goes...

The Plot

Married couple Larry and Julia Cotton move into an old house formerly owned by Larry's ne'er-do-well brother Frank, with whom Larry has not been in contact in some time. The reason for that is that Frank has solved a mysterious puzzle box and been dismembered. A moving-day accident spills blood on the floor of the upstairs room where Frank was taken and soon he's back as a flesh-eating skinless monster intent on restoring his human body with other people's blood. Trouble ensues, and Larry's daughter Kirsty soon finds that someone else is looking for Frank...

The Good

*The characterization is quite good. Within the first fifteen or so minutes, we know that the Cotton household isn't exactly a happy one and nobody says "I'm unhappy." Instead Larry and his wife Julia argue about moving into the new house, Larry and his daughter Kirsty argue about her decision to live on her own and have a job rather than living at home, and when she comes to visit we see some subtle hostility between her and Julia (whom a brief conversation between Larry and some workmen reveal is Kirsty's stepmother, not her mother). Julia's boredom at Larry's party just before she learns that Frank isn't quite as gone as she thinks shows that this is not a happy marriage and sets her up to be tempted by her back-from-the-dead brother-in-law.

However, though Julia is one of the villains of the piece, we see some sympathetic actions on her part--in flashback she initially resists Frank's advances (advances that come off as kind of rapey, no matter how much we later see her enjoying the results) and she quickly sees to Larry's welfare when he's injured. And when Frank wants to finish his resurrection by killing Larry, Julia is willing and able to fend him off. At least initially. And Frank--Frank is the Calvinist principle of total depravity in its most extreme form epitomized. Years in Hell haven't turned him off the path of selfishness, depravity, perversity, etc. and he's willing to commit all sorts of sins to ensure that he doesn't go back.

*The movie is genuinely creepy throughout, starting with the weird doings that start when Larry bleeds on the floor and then when the bored Julia returns to the room where Frank was taken to Hell and encounters, well, you'll have to see it. And then when Kirsty solves the box herself, things start getting scary again.

*Though the special effects are a bit dated in places, mediocre practical effects are, as a general rule, much better-looking than mediocre CGI. Frank's resurrection from the floorboards does look a bit puppety, but at least the viewer knows something is really there. And it's appropriately gruesome. Skinless resurrected-Frank looks pretty realistic.

*Although we don't see the Cenobites until rather late in the film--the resurrected Frank and Julia are the primary villains--it's still a suspenseful and well-done film regardless.

*Doug Bradley, the actor who plays Pinhead, has an amazingly deep voice and excellent delivery. No wonder they kept him on for the near-generation of sequels that followed.

The Bad

*The film shows its budgetary limitations in places. When Frank solves the box and the hooked chains come out, we see very little of what they do to him--only before and after shots. In contrast, when Capt. Elliott Spenser solves the box in the opening of Hellbound: Hellraiser II, we see a lot of hooked-chains-into-flesh and his transformation into Pinhead. According to Wikipedia, the first film had a budget of only $1 million (albeit in 1987 dollars), which could explain it.

*The movie should have ended a few minutes earlier, once Pinhead and friends find Frank. Granted, the awesome, "We have such sights to show you" line would need to be placed elsewhere or removed entirely, but good writing is about killing your darlings. Obviously some kind of resolution would need to happen, but the way the Cenobites go from, "This is not for your eyes" to doing what they do doesn't really make sense.

*Why didn't Julia try to use her own blood to finish reassembling Frank rather than jumping to murder? She immediately jumps from "unhappy wife" to "kill people" without any intermediate step (other than fear/hesitation when she brings the first man home). If she tried to use her own blood and it didn't work (perhaps the blood had to be forcibly taken, perhaps like Harry's blood used to resurrect Voldemort?) or Frank was in a hurry due to fear of the Cenobites finding him again and needed a lot of blood immediately, that would explain why she jumped to more extreme measures.

*The film starts out slowly--although we know from the prologue (Frank solving the puzzle box) that supernatural doings are afoot, until Larry cuts himself and the blood starts disappearing into the floor, it seems like a domestic drama.

*The resurrected Frank and Larry eventually encounter one another, but it's never seen. Given how they're estranged and Frank clearly has a great deal of contempt for Larry, this would have been interesting to see. And the results of this encounter, which we do see, strain credulity. Not going to go into detail for spoiler reasons, but you'll know it when you see it.

*It's not clear why Frank freaks out when Kirsty gets hold of the box. Is he afraid she'll solve it and bring in the Cenobites? He gets angry rather than relieved when she throws it out the window. Is he concerned for her safety? It seemed like he was intent on either feeding off her to finish his resurrection or molesting her, plus he was willing to kill his own brother for his blood, so familial loyalty isn't exactly his strong suite.

*There's a scene where Frank cuts up a rat with a knife where the rat looks like a toy. I'm not sure what the point was. And on the matter of rats the room where Frank was hiding was crawling with them, but he never tried to use their blood to restore his body. Given how he's desperate to get away before the Cenobites come looking for him, this could be shown by him chasing down and feeding on rats for what little regeneration something that small could provide. If only human blood will work, his trying and failing could give him a more rational reason for driving Julia to kill.

*There's a doctor character later in the film (just over an hour in) whose actions seem like their whole purpose is to drive the plot rather than something a doctor would realistically do. And Kirsty's actions soon afterward verge into horror-film-character stupidity. At the very least, I would expect a lot more hesitation mixed in with the curiosity once, you know, a gateway into what looks like another world appears in the wall!

*Kirsty's British boyfriend isn't well-developed. He's not in very many scenes and the movie might've been better off without him at all.

The Verdict

Creepy and generally well-done, but with some storytelling flaws. 8 out of 10.