Out of Sadomasochistic Horror Comes Religion
Recently, one of my favorite youtubers, ellimacs sfx makeup, has been doing Hellraiser related looks/Halloween costumes recently (and as with most of her work, it's very creepy and amazing). So I was thinking about the Hellraiser franchise after watching her videos, because it's alway been a franchise that I want to like. As far as villains go, cenobites are pretty interesting IMO. Most are former human being who transform into unrecognizable monsters after undergoing a unique-to-the-individual type of sadomasochistic torture and mutilation that then dooms the person to being devoted to perpetuating this pain on yourself and others. And while some characters think, "SOUNDS WONDERFUL SIGN ME UP PLZ," the way one is chosen to become a cenobite is to solve a puzzle that looks like a Saddam Hussein-designed Rubik's Cube and then these creatures come and decide if you're worthy to join them. This concept of worthiness is one perfect for horror. Because in theory, you could trigger your own torturous transformation without any awareness of you doing this but with the eventual understanding that you were only able to solve this puzzle, because deep down, this was something you wanted. It's fucked up for sure, but the idea of self-destruction being the basis for a horror franchise inherently interests me. BUT when something is overtly sexual, it very easily can turn into something that seems idiotic and laughable (see Demi Lovato tbh). And when one of the cenobites is named BUTTERBALL -- BUTTERBALL -- and he looks like the clay baby of CeeLo Green and Michael Chiklis, how can I take that seriously? It doesn't scare; it's just stupid.
But anyway, after watching those makeup videos, I wanted to see how many films were left in the franchise that I had not seen (a lot it turns out cause I gave up after the second film). So I was on the Wiki page and noticed this little tidbit: "Super 3D Noah's Ark" is a Christian videogame for SNES that was originally intended to be a licensed game for "Hellraiser." Somehow the game went from what I just described in my last paragraph to drugging goats on Noah's ark because they won't stop kicking you. There's also a crossover novel of this franchise with Sherlock Holmes? WTF?