Review of Hellraiser (1987) by Jose M — 20 Nov 2010

"We'll tear your soul apart!".

Depicted straight from the horror novella "The Hellbound Heart" by Clive Barker, who also directed the film adaption known as Hellraiser.

This film is not a simple and formulatic slasher film with gore and gallons of bloodshed (not that there isn't any blood in this film...). It goes further than that. It's goes as far to explore themes of sadomaschism, morality under fear and forbidden pleasures. It is a story about forbidden love and the consequences befalling those who seek after the greatest pleasures and thrills beyond their limits.

Despite the film's deep consepts and it's interesting antagonists, it suffers from plotholes, some clichè's, the acting which I personally think could have been better and scenes that doesn't seem to make sense. But if you're not looking for a film of, say, The Godfather material, your best reason to see Hellraiser is to witness Doug Bradley's performance as the menacing character, Pinhead. He's one of my favorite film characters of all time simply because he doesn't look like any clichè or recognizable type of demon or monster i've seen before. He is uniqe that way and that is certainly how he has received a deserved place among other memorable horror icons.

The film is overall fascinating, enjoyable and morbidly grotesque, yet not flawless. It has an interesting storyline, but it wasn't executed well enough. This was Clive Barker's directing debute and he didn't have much experience with filmmaking, so that can be forgiven. I've made myself able to look past these issues and it remains as a favourite film of mine to this day, standing in the middle ground between my least favourites and my biggest favourites.