31 Days of Fright, Day 4: Hellraiser

Welcome to day 4 of 31 Days of Fright here at Road To The Movies! In today's episode, Jonathan dissects the agony and the ecstasy that is...

HELLRAISER
1987
Rated R

When I was about 13 I saw bits and pieces of a Hellraiser movie. I can't remember if it was the first one, the second one, or one of the many that followed. I just remember it scared the crap out of me. And, after watching the first film, I can see why. Considering the decade, it was very unique. Masked killers slicing up half-naked college kids at summer camps were everywhere, and extreme campiness (while fun to watch) was bleeding them of everything that makes a movie genuinely scary. Then Hellraiser came along. It truly stretched the boundaries of horror, introducing many new and chilling ideas of what really scares us. Horrifying images mixed with even more horrifying concepts made this whole movie chill to the bone. The intricate (and extremely messed up) "love" story meshed very well with the "torture of the body and mind" theme and the philosophical aspects. Now, that doesn't mean it's entirely unlike other '80s horror movies. The gore in this movie is abundant and raw. It's obvious a lot of care was put into every scene and that a very clear vision was being represented.

That being said, there were a few things that didn't have me fully convinced. I can see what Clive Barker was trying to accomplish, and I can definitely appreciate the story and concept of the whole movie, a lot of it just got lost on me. The special effects were revolutionary I'm sure, but many of the characters and images were just too fake and goofy looking for me to stay in that feeling of sinister darkness he was trying to convey throughout. Most of the time it's easy to look past it, and get lost again in the beautiful imagery and storytelling, but it overwhelms quite a bit of the movie. Especially the end. The last half-hour is brief moments of creepiness and panic surrounded by cartoony effects and terrible puppets. It's extremely distracting, but it does get the point across.

Don't let any of that deter you from seeing it, though. I know there are a ton of people out there who completely adore this movie, I simply don't consider myself one of them. It's a good movie, not a great movie, in my opinion, but I'll admit it did make me curious about what some of the sequels are about. A clear vision and creative ideas, both in imagery and story, make this a fun movie to watch, but poor special effects and bad puppetry lower it a little on the scale for me.

7/10

-JONATHAN


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