The 80's was perhaps the best time to be a Freddy/Jason/Michael. No matter how paper thin your plot was, people came to see blood and cheese and expected nothing but mindless entertainment from you and your hapless, screaming horny teens. However, an unexpected dark horse arrived on the scene: 'Hellraiser'. Nobody quite knows where he came from or what exactly he stood for, but shit, he goes around tearing people up with hooks dressed in S&M leather with sharp pins lodged in his face, he HAS to be part of the grain!
Well no, actually. While the subsequent sequels of the franchise were most certainly a wonderful excuse to show off some creative red stuff, the first film is quite a different beast. For one thing, it was directed by the very man who wrote the novel 'The Hellbound Heart' which the film was based on: Clive Barker. Secondly, although Pinhead is perhaps the most iconic figure of the series, he is only in the film for at least 15 minutes, and even then, the movie wasn't about him. This movie was, and still is, a drama first and foremost. A ROMANTIC drama.
English fish out of water Julia has just married the loving and kindly American Larry Cotton and has moved into a new house to start a new life, however, Julia is still in love with Frank, Larry's sexual deviant brother, who passed away under mysterious circumstances. Julia is trying to settle in to married life and is attempting to bond with Larry's daughter Kirsty when she makes a harrowing discovery- Frank is alive... yet not altogether whole.
Julia, upon getting over her shock, is overjoyed when he tells her that they can be together again if she promises to keep his existence a secret, and if she brings unsuspecting schmucks back for him to kill and absorb their bodies to help repair his own. This is all going dandy (well, as it can be) until Frank tells Julia to sacrifice her husband, his brother. After this final sacrifice, Frank will become whole again and they will be together forever more. However, therein lies a dilemma- the mysterious entity Pinhead and his Cenobites will come a huntin' for him because of his cheating death, because the way they see it, Frank is robbing them their eternal due.
There is no hiding the fact that this film boasts some truly off-the-wall, nightmarish shit with amazing visual effects. Bodies are blamelessly torn apart and Hell dimensions are opened, but believe it or not, it is the lead human characters who truly run this show. Clive Barker is no stranger to dealing with transgressions that plague humanity in his writings, and in this case, none of his notions are lost, a major rarity when it comes to horror films based off novels. Naturally, it all depends on how you view this film, but more often than not, 'Hellraiser' proves that horror, and it's characters for that matter, can be intelligent and relatable. The character of Pinhead himself isn't a wise-cracking asswipe, nor is he a silent momma's boy who wears a mask hacking up shrieking, big-breasted blondes. He is verbose, complicated and completely rational, you could almost argue he is perhaps the most sanest mind in the entire movie. Rather than coming across as an inefficient, single-minded killing machine, on the film poster, he's described as "... Demon to some, Angel to others" it's this kind of ambiguity that separates him from the typical boogeyman. In this movie, he actually comes off as a neutral force who just wants his payment, not bloody revenge. I would be remiss however if I didn't also mention the other actors, because they truly do carry the film. Andrew Robinson (yes, Scorpio from 'Dirty Harry') brings a likeable, affable presence to the film, Ashley Laurence, Kristy, really is a wonderful surprise. Her character comes off as completely natural and not once does she resort to bimbo behavior, I LOVED her. However, major credit must be given to Claire Higgins, Julia. The woman is absolutely formidable to watch. Her proper demeanor has a distinctly classical sense of sinister beneath it that is hard to ignore. She was hateful, but at the same time, you could still understand her reasoning for her more extreme actions.
While there is no denying you could put a time-stamp on this movie by merely looking at it (hellooooooo shoulderpads!), and while it is not an utter masterpiece in every sense of the word and it may even come off to some as utterly pretentious, 'Hellraiser' is a seminal part of horror cinema that is more inclined towards telling a story with a view to real characters rather than how much blood can be spilled and how wide their bodies can be torn apart.
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