Review of Hellraiser (1987) by Dawdlingpoet — 27 Nov 2021

As a gross out video nasty type film, this is ok. It has its fairly gross out moments, with excessive blood loss and peoples skin being stretched and ripped to an extraordinary extent and so on. The plot I felt was a bit too thin on the ground - I got the main gist of it but I can't say I was perhaps as scared as I maybe might have been, if I'd fully understood the context of everything but then again, its probably not the kind of film to be entirely overly analysed to (pardon the pun) death and back, as it were.

The plot is perhaps a little slow to build up but then maybe it's more like riding a rollercoaster, as you know there's going to be something quite visually shocking about to appear around the proverbial corner but you don't know precisely when. I was a bit frustrated somewhat towards the end, when the daughter appeared to have somehow escaped the hospital she'd been confined in. If your really into these kind of films then I suppose you'd likely quite enjoy aspects of it. I've tended to avoid slasher/overly gory horror films but I saw this film was recommended by a film review group called Wittertainment, so I thought I'd give it a go out of curiosity more than anything, I suppose. I felt that if it had been a bit less fantasy based, it may have been more scary.

For what it is, it's an ok film but for me it wasn't an entirely memorable film. I wouldn't particularly recommend it, no.