Film
Hellraiser
- Director
- Clive Barker
- Certificate
- 18
- Running Time
- 93 mins
Clive Barker‘s 1987 directorial debut is an unholy horror movie that doesn’t mess about, a gory story involving adultery, murder and spirits from another dimension, unleashed when Frank Cotton (Sean Chapman) plays with a puzzle box he bought in the East. Said spirits are Cenobites, not the most philanthropic folk in the fourth dimension; after getting their hooks into him (literally), they leave Frank to fester under the floorboards of his ancestral home. But this is by no means the end of Frank, a nasty bastard whose 101 uses of a switchblade include cutting up rodents and slicing through his sister-in-law’s bra strap in a display of malevolent sexual desire. Accidentally rejuvenated by his brother’s blood, he comes back to life a shadow of the man he was.
What follows is both bizarre and gruesome, though Hellraiser isn’t as excessive as an early Raimi or Romero movie. It just seems that way. Its real strength is that it dares to take itself seriously; it’s not just a playful pastiche, there are very few moments of light relief, and the real monsters are human beings, whose decadent sins reap retribution in spades. The relentless nastiness of it all builds to a crescendo of true vileness that Dario Argento would be proud of. If it doesn’t cscare you shitless, it’ll at least make you squirm in your seat.
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