Hellraiser
Tags: boring, gothic, murder, stupid, cult, violence, horror, flashback, good versus evil, sadist

Plot synopsis:
Somewhere in North Africa, Frank Cotton (Sean Chapman) purchases an antique puzzle box from a dealer. Back at his house in England, Frank solves the puzzle box and hooked chains immediately fly out of the box and tear into his flesh. Demons called Cenobites from another realm appear to inspect Frank's remains. Their leader, Pinhead (Doug Bradley), searches among the shreds of flesh and blood and reassembles the pieces of Frank's face. He finds the mysterious box and twists it back into its original state, and the room appears empty as if nothing ever happened.Frank's brother Larry Cotton (Andrew Robinson) soon moves into Frank's abandoned house with his second wife, Julia Cotton (Clare Higgins), who previously had a secret affair with Frank. The house is a mess, leftover food rots in the kitchen & they both assume that Frank is off on one of his notorious adventures. Larry's teenage daughter Kirsty Cotton (Ashley Laurence) chooses not to live with her step-mother and moves into her own place. After cutting his hand on a nail (while moving a mattress), Larry goes upstairs to the room where Julia is, the same room where Frank was killed. Larry's blood falls on the floor & mysteriously disappears through the floorboards as they leave the attic, Frank's minimal remains have been hidden under the floorboards. Julia takes Larry to the ER to have his hand stitched. Frank uses Larry's blood as nourishment to partially regenerate his body. Down below the floorboards, Frank's body bursts out and emits a sustained shriek of pain and his body begins to regenerate.Later, Julia finds Frank (Oliver Smith -- plays Frank as a monster) alone in the room, his body only partially regenerated and grotesque. She's repulsed by his appearance but Frank convinces Julia to help restore him to his full physical form, reminding her that while she was his secret lover and she promised to do anything for him. Julia succumbs to Frank's entreaties and agrees to help him by seducing men and luring them up to the empty attic where Frank hides. After having Julia incapacitate them, Frank is able to move in and drain them of their blood, which allows him to further regenerate his body. Frank tells Julia about the puzzle box and explains that by reclaiming his body he has broken his deal with the Cenobites. He wants to fully restore himself and then run off with Julia before the Cenobites can track him down.Kirsty, already suspicious of Julia, eventually sees Julia bringing a strange man home and sneaks into the house to investigate. In the attic Julia beats the man, allowing Frank to feast on his body. Kirsty approaches the attic unaware of what's happening within. Suddenly, the bloody man stumbles out of the attic, soon followed by the skinless Frank who confronts Kirsty. Before Frank can grab her, Kirsty picks up the puzzle box as a weapon. When she realizes it holds value for Frank, she throws it out the window and escapes from the house, picking up the box as she runs down the street. A disoriented Kirsty awakens in the hospital where she tells herself it all was a terrible dream, until the doctors hand her the puzzle box. Kirsty begins to play with the puzzle box and inadvertently solves it. The walls of her hospital room open a dimensional door with a long tunnel behind it. A large, hideous monster begins to chase her and she escapes; when she looks back at the wall, it's sealed up, though she can hear the beast's roaring behind it.Suddenly, the walls of the room begin to change again and the Cenobites appear. Their leader, Pinhead, tells Kirsty that she has summoned them, and therefore they must take her to their world of pleasure, pain and suffering. She then begs them to spare her, offering to lead them to Frank in exchange for her freedom. Kirsty escapes the hospital and races to her father's home to warn him about Frank. Larry informs Kirsty that Frank has been taken care of, and Julia shows Kirsty a bloody body in the attic. The Cenobites reappear, demanding the man responsible for this death. Kirsty believes they want her father and she runs to warn him. However, she soon realizes that Frank has murdered her father and stolen his skin and worn it like a suit to fool Kirsty into believing that he was her father.Frank comes after Kirsty, accidentally stabbing Julia in the process. Frank then drains Julia of her blood, further nourishing himself. He then goes to the attic where Kirsty is hiding. Kirsty weeps and accuses Frank of murdering her father. Frank reveals to Kirsty that her father was already "dead inside" anyway. Having heard Frank's confession, the Cenobites appear. Frank tries to kill Kirsty for setting him up, but dozens of hooked chains grab him and tear him apart, his last words are "Jesus wept." Kirsty runs through the house, eager to escape, but the Cenobites want to take her as well. Kirsty finds the puzzle box clutched in the hands of Julia's chained corpse on a mattress. One by one she banishes the Cenobites back to their realm by reversing the solution to the puzzle box.Afterward, Kirsty tries to burn the box in a fire outdoors, but the strange vagrant appears and picks it out of the flames. As the man is consumed by the flames he transforms into a winged, skeletal creature that flies away into the night. In the final scene, the box is shown in the hands of the merchant who originally sold it to Frank, asking another prospective customer, "What's your pleasure, sir?"

Review: The story picks up when Frank's brother and his girlfriend, Julia, move into the house where Frank was taken...The main reason Hellraiser stands out among horror films is because of its themes.
This is what annoys me about non-horror fans - films like this are dismissed by them because they're "too gory" or "stupid" - but Hellraiser breaks the mould because it's a truly original story and the way that Barker implements a macabre love story amidst a plethora of shocking horror is extremely skilfully handled, and more than challenges many of the so-called 'A-class' films.A writer directing his own work tends to ensure that it will get proper treatment, and this is mostly true here.
This was Clive Barker's directorial debut, and at times, it's clear that this is the case; but Barker makes the best of his locations, and while his camera sometimes feels enclosed; it fuses with the tragic music brilliantly, and all this helps the film to create that fabulous atmosphere so convincingly.Overall, I have pointed out a couple of flaws here; but I really can't bring myself to give this masterpiece any less than full marks.
Contrary to what one might conceive in their minds BEFORE watching this classic horror movie, it should be said that Clive Barker has delivered us a real gem of a horror story, packed with intensity, both emotionally, as well as physically.
I first saw this brilliant shocker when I was only ten years old and it scared the hell out of me!I still think that this is a really effective horror filled with gruesome imagery(for example rats nailed to the wall)."Hellraiser" reminds me a bit such Italian horror movies like "The Beyond"(1981)and "The House by the Cemetery"(1981),mainly due to its surreal atmosphere of total dread.Add also plenty of gore and some really gruesome special effects made by Bob Keen("Proteus")and you have a winner!I like "Hellraiser" series in general(especially "Hellbound:Hellraiser 2" which is,in the unrated/uncut version a nasty gorefest!),even Part 5("Hellraiser:Inferno")that almost only get bad reviews.It surely is the lowest budget film of the series so far,but it tells a gripping story of one's personal hell with Pinhead involved."Hellraiser:Bloodline" is the only one I really don't like,although it's quite interesting too,because you can see that post production was a mess(making it a Alan Smithee film in the end)..
The characters were very interesting characters from the humans right up to the cenobites.There was a lot of gore in this movie and it was quite sick at times-not a film to watch if you're eating.The storyline of the film is a very intriguing one and very original indeed.But those cenobites didn't half scare me particularly when that pinhead said, "We will tear your soul apart!" Then again, that is what a good horror is all about-scaring the you know what out of it's audience.If you're looking for a quality horror movie of the 80's then check this one out.
I highly recommend this horror classic.Not only does this film has some scary elements but it has some classic lines."What's your pleasure sir?""If you cross us your suffering will be legendary, even in hell!""Come to daddy" Frank's mac daddy line."Jesus...wept.".
All we have this time is a cube, that opens doors to hell and unleashes the bringers of pain; Pinhead and friends, who want to play with you forever.But even that story is being somewhat pushed to the background and it focuses more on a family, of which the wife falls madly for the the no good brother of her soon to be husband.
This film however, was the last of it's kind to give us some good late 80's slasher craze which was still born and still very fresh with horror freaks.I won't go into the plot because I believe everyone should have seen Hellraiser by now, if not, well GO SEE IT!
Frank ends up paying the ultimate price in his search for new pleasures and to his everlasting discomfort, inevitably discovers the real meaning of the film's tag-line "He'll tear your soul apart." This leaves Frank's ex well and truly home-alone and she takes up with his wimpy brother Larry, crawlingly played by Andrew Robinson.Things might have worked out for Julia (Higgins) and daughter Kirsty (Ashley Laurence) had not Larry cut his hand badly and the blood run beneath the floorboards where Frank's decimated but undead corpse responds dramatically well to the corpuscled cocktail!
Barker proved himself to be something of a talent and one who would end up directing very little else unfortunately.Hellraiser is a story about the occult but like no other film of that sub-genre.
there are some gory scenes in the movie,and there are some scenes that are disturbing and even repulsive.but the gore and guts are done much more tastefully here than in most 'horror' movies.and there is actually a story that all of this fits into.i didn't find it gratuitous at all.there are some things in the movie that could certainly be offensive to some people.there is some religious themes that some people would find less than positive.and there a lot themes and images in this movie that i don't think had been explored much before,if at all.in my mind,the main villain in this movie(though i don't think he's really a villain in the usual sense) dubbed Pinhead(for obvious reasons)is possibly the most iconic(or at least should be)character of at least the last thirty years.that may sound like an exaggeration,but the other big name screen villains don't hold a candle to this character.there was just so much more thought gone that went into the character.the others,not so much.anyway,if you are able to throw away all any preconceived notions and see this film for what it is,i think you will get something out of it.what that something will be is hard to say,but it might be different for each person.this is all just my opinion,but for me,i have to give this movie a perfect 10,for being a true cinematic achievement..
Although, based on today's movie-watching trends, the average film-buff has probably never taken a wander up and down the aisles of a Blockbuster store and therefore has never seen 'Pinhead's' screaming face in all its glory.The basic premise of 'Hellraiser' revolves around a supernatural puzzle box that, when opened, unleashes a quartet of mutilated demons, known as 'Cenobites,' who want to tear your flesh from your body – simply for their enjoyment!
Now, that in itself may be enough to put people off watching it, however, as I said, it's the Cenobites who are the real stars.For some they may not be in the film for as long as audiences may have liked (a fact that was somewhat rectified in the sequel), but, when they're there, they do steal every scene (and possibly your soul).
Character relationships, like the unusual connections between the step-mother and uncle and how the daughter is treated, make this film a little more human then what a normal story about opening the gate way to hell could have been if the focus was on the Cenobites and their arrival.
Clive Barker and company do a lot of great things on this film, including character development, flow, set designs, and of course the horrific special effects, but what makes Hellraiser such a great experience is the little things.
Hellraiser is one of the greatest Horror films ever made,an excellent,scary and unforgettable Horror classic that combines terrific direction,a fine cast,great special effects and an amazing score.
All of those elements make Hellraiser Clive Barker and Horror movies at their best.Based on the novella The Hellbound Heart by Clive Barker,Hellraiser tells the story about Husband and wife Larry(Andrew Robinson)and Julia Cotton(Clarie Higgins)who have moved into Larry's childhood home.
While there Julia discovers the skinless but alive body of Frank Cotton(Sean Chapman,Oilver Smith)Larry's brother and Julia's former lover who has escaped the clutches of monsters called Cenobites who exist in a puzzle box that when opened unleashes pain and Horror.
Frank decides to use Julie to help him get some blood and skin which leads to terror and chaos.Released in 1987,Hellraiser is a brilliant and unforgettable Horror film that was the directorial debut of novelist CLive Barker and was the movie that introduced Barker and one of the all-time iconic characters in Pinhead to the world of Horror.
Hellraiser is a truly depraved but incredible work of Horror that is like a nightmare coming to life that is ugly,bleak and is a movie that offers no salvation for viewers and puts viewers who are watching the movie through hell and back.
Hellraiser is unique because it was the film where S&M was combined with Horror and Fantasy showing viewers a frightening world where somethings are turned on it's head:torture is fun,pain is good mixing together with themes such as murder,death,sex and lust.
Despite Pinhead being on the poster and being the face of the Hellraiser franchise the movie is really about the human characters and the things they go through as well as their interactions with one another and how they deal with the chaos going on in the film.
Most Horror movies are never without memorable monsters and in Hellraiser the memorable monsters come in the form of Pinhead(in this film he listed as Lead Cenobite)and the Cenobites.
While the Cenobites are only in the movie for a short time(5 to 10 minutes)they add to the movies nightmarish tone because what sets Pinhead and the Cenobites from other Horror villains in the first Hellraiser is that while they are not really good they are not always evil they are Demons to some,Angels to others.
Doug Bradley is brilliant and frightening as Pinhead,Lead Cenobite,one Horror films all-time great characters.
Clive Barker's "Hellraiser" is a 80s horror classic with gore effects that still hold up today.
It has great music, a powerful love story, a great cast, it has a mysterious tone to it, and it is filled with dark and nightmarish scenes that are unforgettable.Something that you don't see in a lot of horror movies is passion and love which Clive Barker manages to hit perfectly with this film.
And although it has a love story, that doesn't mean it won't pack great scares and intense gory moments for all of the horror fans.The casting was superb in this film and the acting was outstanding by all of the actors on the screen.
It's a film that is as much about the ugliness of death as it is about human nature and the evil that lurks within each and every one of us.In the film, Larry (Andrew Robinson) moves into a new house with his new wife, Julia (Clare Higgins), and daughter from a previous marriage, Kirsty (Ashley Laurence), without knowing that the soul of his seedy brother, Frank (Sean Chapman), is trapped within the house after solving a mysterious puzzle box.
The Cenobites are led by Doug Bradley as Pinhead, who, despite not being given a name until the sequel, cemented himself as a horror icon along with the Freddys and Jasons of the time and gets perhaps the best lines of the entire film.
Clad in leather the Cenobites themselves resemble mutated entities from The Matrix (and remember this was twelve years before that movie was even made) and just like that movie, this one also has a similar fetishist quality about it.Andrew Robinson, who plays Frank's brother Larry, has certainly done his share of menacing characters in his time (The Scorpio Killer in Dirty Harry for example).
Likewise, Ashley Laurence, with her acting talent and stunning good looks playing the role of his daughter Kristy, creates a more sympathetic and interesting character than all the expendable bimbos from countless horror movies.
HELLRAISER (1987) directed by: Clive Barker starring: Andrew Robinson, Clare Higgins, Ashley Laurence, and Sean Chapman plot: Frank Cotton (Sean Chapman) is a man who seeks the greatest pleasures of life.
Soon, the Cenobites discover that Frank has escaped their grasp and Larry's daughter Kirsty (Ashley Laurence) is caught in the mix.my thoughts: This is one of the most original and shocking horror films out there.
Especially Clare Higgins as the cold and conniving Julia, Ashley Laurence as the cute innocent Kirsty, and Doug Bradley as the Lead Cenobite Pinhead, who is one of the most popular horror movie monsters ever created.I loved how in this film, the Cenobites were left lurking in the shadows while the movie mainly focused on the Cotton family.
It is truly one of the great masterpieces in the horror genre of its time.Hellraiser (1987) is a film adaptation of Clive Barker's self-written novel, The Hellbound Heart.
Along with that flaw was Kirsty's useless boyfriend which leaves me liking the rest of this movie a lot.Clive Barker's first film is a classic that should not be passed up.
Like most horror movies, Hellraiser goes bananas in the climax, but that is when all the artistic creativity and special effects come into play.
as a horror movie,I felt disgusted.It's nice to look back on the 80s and see movies like Hellraiser which can certainly chill a few frigid souls.For all those Clive Barker fans out there,this is a must see!.
Seen this again last night, one of best horror movies to come out in the 80'sAn unfaithful wife encounters the zombie of her dead lover, who's being chased by demons after he escaped from their sado-masochistic Hell.This movie as some bloody moments but stand out the the most was really nasty gory death scene at the end of the movie, that make pinhead and his friends look scary.The acting in this movie was outstanding from everyone in the cast.I think this movie great, however I found Hellraiser 2 even better then this movie.
Clive Barker comes up with some of the most original and fascinating (as well as probably the most recognizable) characters in horror history with the Cenobites, particularly Pinhead.
There is not much to be said about the story, acting, or even the direction (an area in which I expected more from Clive Barker, having read many of his books, despite the fact that this was his directorial debut), but Hellraiser is a horror film that is not soon to be forgotten.
Because of that, Hellraiser works best as an all-out gory horror film, the kind of movie that you would watch with your buddies late at night just to have a good time.
The crux of "Hellraiser" is the American Dream gone wrong: Larry Cotton (Andrew Robinson--"Dirty Harry") and second wife Julia (Clare Higgins) move into an inherited house, where Larry's brother Frank (Sean Chapman) tinkered with a mysterious puzzle-box that unleashed a sadomasochistic group of beings called the Cenobites (led by Doug Bradley's iconic "Pinhead"); Julia had an illicit affair with Frank, and when Larry spills his blood on the attic floor, it resurrects the grotesque, skinless brother.
And Barker's own affinity for torturous imagery (including some spectacularly gruesome scenes of hooks piercing flesh) acts as an extreme contrast to the facade of "normality" that quickly disappears from the Cotton household (the attic room becomes a abattoir for Frank's bloody sustenance); and the Cenobites become the confirmation of the family's transgressions, waking proof of a reckoning, and shatter the illusion of a soul's safety in an afterlife (in the film's most chilling line, Pinhead proclaims his ability to tear a person's "soul apart").
And Clive Barkers best if you're looking for gore then look at another title like braindead but Hellraiser has gained enough reputation to be the most respected horror movies ever."JEEEEESSSUUUUSSSS WWWWWEEEEPPPTTT".
All in all there are a few good moments in this film but it is purely gore driven and, in the end, a man's entrails spilled across the floor does not make a scary horror movie.3/5.
Film Review: "Hellraiser" (1987)Remarkable original in its conception of art direction on just a budget of roundabout even one million GB Pounds, produced in season 1986/1987 for a world-premiering midnight screening at Cannes Film Festival in its 40th edition, author director Clive Barker fulfills his vision on the world in a daring image system of sadomasochistic chambers in a small-town house, prepared by a mystical box puzzle, solved by Morroco-traveling main character Frank, giving in under his frenzies into an illusionary scenario of body- as mind-splitting family members under screams of daughter Julia, portrayed by actress Clare Higgins, while actor Dough Bradley as notorious character of "Pinhead" leads a group of dark pleasure demons, called the cenobites in order to fulfill the darkest dreams of Frank, the game initiator; all happening under light-shifting steamy cinematography that feels into morbid, chain-clinking sounds of high-tension atmospheres accompanied to a decisive soundtrack by composer Christopher Young, keeping the audience guessing what are stakes in the next scene to follow in a fast-forward and straight hardcore-horrors-sharing picture, which full-bodied tight grip on the spectre's senses may fascinate not genre fans only.© 2017 Felix Alexander Dausend (Cinemajesty Entertainments LLC).
Writer/director Clive Barker pulls out all the grisly stops in this first installment of what would become one of the most enduring horror series to emerge from the 1980s.In "Hellraiser," a bored wife makes a sort of pact with the devil when her husband's dangerous and sexy brother, with whom she had an affair, comes back from the dead and asks her to kill for him so that he can use human blood to become fully formed again.
You can't be a horror fan and not be familiar with Clive Barker's "Hellraiser" movies.
This is still scary and really does mess with your mind today, like The Shining did.Pinhead is an awesome horror icon, he is the man of demons.Great story, still good special effects.The gore effects are even still really stomach wrenching and cringing.
But when Kirsty (Ashley Laurence), Larry's daughter (and Frank's niece) realizes what is happening, she finds herself caught up in a bloody battle between the forces of good and evil, to try and save herself from the demons.One of the strangest horror films of the 1980s, "Hellraiser" is unlike any movie you've ever seen or likely will see.