Review of Hellraiser (1987) by Eytan D — 22 Mar 2013

Hellraiser is a great Horror film from the master of darkness Clive Barker. I really enjoyed watching this film and I remember when I watched this film I totally enjoyed it and since I read Clive Barker's novella and I re watched this film I still love it even though there's just a few changes from Clive Barker's novella The Hellbound Heart.

The plot of this film is about Frank a man who has an interest to explore the extradimensional realm where after he opens the box the Cenobites rip him apart from limb to limb. Frank's brother Larry and his daughter Kirsty along with Frank's lover Julia move into the house where Frank stays and after Larry gets a cut on his hand and his blood drips on the floor Frank comes back to life and he tells Julia to lure some men in the house so that he can kill them and regenerate his flesh with their blood and soon when Kirsty discovers the whole thing and after she opened the puzzle box that she took from Frank and she met the Cenobites she must take the Cenobites to the person who escaped from them in order not to be taken as Hell's new victim to feel pleasure and pain.

To be honest I seriously love this movie and the film has a lot of dark imaginations and I love how Barker managed to create such a wonderful but compelling and shocking Horror film that gives the audience an exploration in sadomasochism, sadistic pain, torture and suffering.

For the most part Hellraiser is very unique and original and I enjoyed the movie a lot and the whole film is very dark and gritty at the exact same time. What's great about Hellraiser is that the whole film has a really disturbing and creepy atmosphere which gives the whole film an eerie feel and I love how everytime the Cenobites are about to arrive and there are like lights on every wall and a pillar of dead people shows up always appears whenever the Cenobites arrive it was a great idea and it gives the movie an unnerving feel and I did like the ideas of this film a lot.

The other things I like about Hellraiser is that the whole film has a lot of impressive visual and special effects and the effects look great in this movie. I love the skinned Frank Cotton special effect and I did like how the effects look really good and they truly stay close to Clive Barker's description from the novella and I also like the other special effects even the Cenobites design is so impressive from the leader Pinhead until Butterball and overall the effects in this movie look great.

The last things I like about Hellraiser is that the whole film is also full of gore effects. And the movie is undoubtedly and extremely gory in a lot of parts from the film and there are gallons of gore used on certain parts of the film.

The opening scene is extremely graphic and disturbing even the rest of the parts where Julia lures a lot of men so that Frank can regenerate his flesh I did enjoy those parts from the film and they are extremely gory and painful at the same time and Julia's death was tense and thrilling and Frank's limb to limb ripping in the finale is one of the most painful scenes in the whole film and overall every death scene in this film is extremely gory and sadistic and painful as well.

Now the acting is great the performances of the casts in this film is very impressive Claire Higgins did a good job with her role in the film as Julia. Ashley Laurence did a good job with her role also in the film as Kirsty Cotton and she looks so gorgeous and pretty in this movie a lot and I also love how she played her character really well and Doug Bradley did a very good job with his role as the Cenobite leader Pinhead and Doug Bradley really did a good job in playing the character really well even on the later on sequels he was just as good as the other actors who played in Horror films like Robert Englund as Freddy Krueger and other actors as well.

Director and Writer Clive Barker did a really good job with his work on this movie and I love his work on both the movie and the novella and he really did a good job with adapting his novella even though there were changes from his novella it is still a great movie a lot because the only changes in this book is the ending and The Engineer being the leader of the Cenobites rather than Pinhead in the movie.

Overall Helraiser gets a 10/10 because this is an impressive gory and atmospheric Horror film that delivers the goods and it is an impressive sadomasochistic Horror film that has a lot of dark tones and themes as well.