What's your pleasure, Mr. Cotton?
Hellraiser (1987), Clive Barker. June 14, 10pm. View count: between six and ten? I used to watch this in high school.
Hellraiser II: Hellbound (1988), Tony Randel. June 15, 10pm. View count: similar to Hellraiser I?
In high school, these were a couple of our favorite movies (along with The Abominable Dr. Phibes, A Clockwork Orange, and whatever the hell else we watched all the time). They don't exactly hold up as shining examples of the medium, but it's nice to be able to say that (all skeletal dragons aside) the first one is not bad. To me it feels like some of Clive Barker's body horror leaks through into the movie, and I respect the idea of pretty much everyone in a horror movie being a small-scale grotesque (Julia's too-white makeup, Andrew Robinson's incessant sweatiness, Frank's everything). The characters are all pretty broad, but they do have definable arcs. This is a movie that starts from no-horror (except the generalized british humanity kind) and ramps up to significant horror. (This escalation (at least) surpasses the second one, which starts in second gear, lurches into third or a listless fourth, and just kind of sits there.) The effects are up and down, but the Frank-reconstitution scenes especially are clever and inventively gooky. (On the bad side, this time I noticed the little cart that the Engineer was mounted on. Hoo boy.)
The second one is worse, but more gory. The good parts are not many, really, but Dr Channard chewing the scenery (and being chewed by it) is usually good for a laugh. However, all the rules that held true (or seemed to) in the first movie are not necessarily in play in the second, so if you're, you know, me, and you care about the rules of the Hellraiser universe, you will be annoyed with this movie. And probably all of the subsequent ones, but, hey, who isn't. This one is significantly more brain-dead horror than the first one, which is a shame. And if anything, the effects are worse, although there is a second skinless-suit. There is also a girl named Tiffany (1988, everybody) who looks like a thirteen-year-old female Brad Pitt, if you can imagine that. All of the characters are flattened out, though, into normal horror tropes (except for maybe Pinhead?), and it's really barely worth sitting through as a result. Hellraiser III, however, is SO much worse than II that I'm going to watch it again soon to see if it wraps back around to hilarious. All I can really remember about it is that there is a cenobite that spits CDs (in a deadly fashion, I assure you), and that we thought it was a travesty in high school. WE'LL SEE!
BONUS! The Hellraiser Song, by Entombed, with liberal samples from Hellraiser I!
Hellraiser II: Hellbound (1988), Tony Randel. June 15, 10pm. View count: similar to Hellraiser I?
In high school, these were a couple of our favorite movies (along with The Abominable Dr. Phibes, A Clockwork Orange, and whatever the hell else we watched all the time). They don't exactly hold up as shining examples of the medium, but it's nice to be able to say that (all skeletal dragons aside) the first one is not bad. To me it feels like some of Clive Barker's body horror leaks through into the movie, and I respect the idea of pretty much everyone in a horror movie being a small-scale grotesque (Julia's too-white makeup, Andrew Robinson's incessant sweatiness, Frank's everything). The characters are all pretty broad, but they do have definable arcs. This is a movie that starts from no-horror (except the generalized british humanity kind) and ramps up to significant horror. (This escalation (at least) surpasses the second one, which starts in second gear, lurches into third or a listless fourth, and just kind of sits there.) The effects are up and down, but the Frank-reconstitution scenes especially are clever and inventively gooky. (On the bad side, this time I noticed the little cart that the Engineer was mounted on. Hoo boy.)
The second one is worse, but more gory. The good parts are not many, really, but Dr Channard chewing the scenery (and being chewed by it) is usually good for a laugh. However, all the rules that held true (or seemed to) in the first movie are not necessarily in play in the second, so if you're, you know, me, and you care about the rules of the Hellraiser universe, you will be annoyed with this movie. And probably all of the subsequent ones, but, hey, who isn't. This one is significantly more brain-dead horror than the first one, which is a shame. And if anything, the effects are worse, although there is a second skinless-suit. There is also a girl named Tiffany (1988, everybody) who looks like a thirteen-year-old female Brad Pitt, if you can imagine that. All of the characters are flattened out, though, into normal horror tropes (except for maybe Pinhead?), and it's really barely worth sitting through as a result. Hellraiser III, however, is SO much worse than II that I'm going to watch it again soon to see if it wraps back around to hilarious. All I can really remember about it is that there is a cenobite that spits CDs (in a deadly fashion, I assure you), and that we thought it was a travesty in high school. WE'LL SEE!
BONUS! The Hellraiser Song, by Entombed, with liberal samples from Hellraiser I!