Hellraiser will get its hooks into you
Jan. 9th, 2019 02:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nozomi604I've been on a horror kick lately, so I rewatched the first two Hellraiser films, which I hadn't seen in many years, but remembered enjoying. The first one was better than I remembered it; 2 was worse than I remembered.
What stood out for me this time was how much Hellraiser is the story of a dysfunctional family. You can see where later directors (ahem, David Lynch) would take some of their cues from in depicting the claustrophobia of an abusive household, and the shock when a beloved family member drops their mask to reveal something monstrous underneath.
Typical for a horror film, a number of people act very stupid in Hellraiser, and without that, you wouldn't have a story. But interestingly, they're believably stupid. One of the things I enjoyed about The Girl Who Leapt Through Time was how much the MC behaved like a real teenager, using her power for dumb things like getting the last dessert or avoiding some minor embarassment at school, and how much the romance seemed like actual romance teens might have, full of awkward crushes, miscommunication, and self-doubt. It's a weird analogy to draw, but I felt that way about the antagonists in this film, who seemed self-absorbed in a very mundane, middle-aged Tory kind of way.
There's definitely an element of class satire to the film, with the series of foppish, upper-class English men that Clare Higgins seduces in order to bump off and rejuvenate the body of her lover. There's a dryly British humor to the whole thing, and I can't help thinking that Clive Barker, who used to work as a hustler, sometimes fantasized along similar lines about some of his clients.
Roger Ebert gave one half of one star to Hellraiser, calling it "a movie without wit, style, or reason". The reason part is debatable; the story definitely operates according to its own dreamlike logic, which is somehow compelling in spite of not making a whole lot of sense when I try to explain it. When a homeless man steps into a pit fire and transforms into a skeletal dragon (an effect pulled off for a whopping $700), it just works, even though there's no rational explanation for it. Scenes like that fire up the imagination, making the film's world seem much bigger and more mysterious than what our eyes have seen. As for wit and style, I totally disagree. Yes, there's some flat direction here and there, and some of the scenes of exposition drag a little. But overall, I find it charming. Even the studio's attempts to suggest a New York setting, redubbing some of the British voices with American accents and adding in the line "it's better than Brooklyn", can't cover up how the film's atmosphere is steeped in the mysticism of London.
And Ashley Laurence is fantastic in it, probably one of the best Final Girls in horror. Initially way in over her head, again in a way that's believable, she quickly finds her footing in this new, weird world. I love the scene where her boyfriend, with fumbling hands, tries to reset the Lament Configuration while a monster is charging at them, and she grabs it from him to do it properly.
Hellbound: Hellraiser 2 is... kind of a mess. It expands on the lore of the first film, taking the metaphysics and culture of the Cenobites in some interesting directions. But there are so many ideas in play that they trip over each other. The film's tone is all over the place, vacillating between grimness and campy humor. At one point the film's main bad guy, an amoral neurosurgeon, undergoes a transformation into a Cenobite; it's visually striking, shot with interesting camera angles, and at first he comes off as genuinely fearsome. But then he's flying around spouting silly, Freddy Kruegeresque one-liners like "the doctor is in!" and "I recommend... amputation!". Much of the movie is like this, and as a result, it never quite gels.
At its best, it's a violent fairy tale; an overdecorated, day-glo dark fantasy lit up like an 80s music video. Kirsty's adventures through Hell almost come off as an R-rated version of Jim Henson's Labyrinth, while Leviathan, the abstract geometric object that the Cenobites worship, feels like a stylistic precursor to Evangelion. The endless vista of the labyrinth itself reminded me a little of the Utena movie, though it's not quite as impressive.
Hellraiser 2 would work best as a midnight movie, or something seen in a rowdy social group. Its shock value is undercut by its goofiness and internal inconsistency, but it's still fun, and for a mainstream 80s horror film, gets pretty surreal at times. Also, it's been sampled ad nauseum by techno, industrial, and trance artists, mainly the "mind is a labyrinth" speech.
And I still have to watch the director's cut of Nightbreed. I saw the original, cut-down version long ago (on cable TV, so probably even more cut down), and remember thinking it was great. The monsters' transcendent abilities -- including immortality and shapeshifting -- weren't regarded as sinful for going against "natural" limits, but as just another way to be. I imagine that's kind of the point of the film. It's an interesting counterpoint to 2017's The Shape Of Water, which also used its monster as a metaphor for an oppressive society, but stopped just short of a critique of Nature.
It's not a Clive Barker film, but speaking of monsters, I loved 2016's Colossal. It took a very risky premise, which threatened to tip over into cultural insensitivity, and did something unexpected and powerful with it. The film spoke to the battle that activists -- whether advocating for other people, other animals, or our environment -- face on a constant basis when trying to convince others to care about the lives outside their monkeysphere. That's what I took away from it, at least.
Nightbreed on IMDB
Colossal on IMDB
What stood out for me this time was how much Hellraiser is the story of a dysfunctional family. You can see where later directors (ahem, David Lynch) would take some of their cues from in depicting the claustrophobia of an abusive household, and the shock when a beloved family member drops their mask to reveal something monstrous underneath.
Typical for a horror film, a number of people act very stupid in Hellraiser, and without that, you wouldn't have a story. But interestingly, they're believably stupid. One of the things I enjoyed about The Girl Who Leapt Through Time was how much the MC behaved like a real teenager, using her power for dumb things like getting the last dessert or avoiding some minor embarassment at school, and how much the romance seemed like actual romance teens might have, full of awkward crushes, miscommunication, and self-doubt. It's a weird analogy to draw, but I felt that way about the antagonists in this film, who seemed self-absorbed in a very mundane, middle-aged Tory kind of way.
There's definitely an element of class satire to the film, with the series of foppish, upper-class English men that Clare Higgins seduces in order to bump off and rejuvenate the body of her lover. There's a dryly British humor to the whole thing, and I can't help thinking that Clive Barker, who used to work as a hustler, sometimes fantasized along similar lines about some of his clients.
Roger Ebert gave one half of one star to Hellraiser, calling it "a movie without wit, style, or reason". The reason part is debatable; the story definitely operates according to its own dreamlike logic, which is somehow compelling in spite of not making a whole lot of sense when I try to explain it. When a homeless man steps into a pit fire and transforms into a skeletal dragon (an effect pulled off for a whopping $700), it just works, even though there's no rational explanation for it. Scenes like that fire up the imagination, making the film's world seem much bigger and more mysterious than what our eyes have seen. As for wit and style, I totally disagree. Yes, there's some flat direction here and there, and some of the scenes of exposition drag a little. But overall, I find it charming. Even the studio's attempts to suggest a New York setting, redubbing some of the British voices with American accents and adding in the line "it's better than Brooklyn", can't cover up how the film's atmosphere is steeped in the mysticism of London.
And Ashley Laurence is fantastic in it, probably one of the best Final Girls in horror. Initially way in over her head, again in a way that's believable, she quickly finds her footing in this new, weird world. I love the scene where her boyfriend, with fumbling hands, tries to reset the Lament Configuration while a monster is charging at them, and she grabs it from him to do it properly.
Hellbound: Hellraiser 2 is... kind of a mess. It expands on the lore of the first film, taking the metaphysics and culture of the Cenobites in some interesting directions. But there are so many ideas in play that they trip over each other. The film's tone is all over the place, vacillating between grimness and campy humor. At one point the film's main bad guy, an amoral neurosurgeon, undergoes a transformation into a Cenobite; it's visually striking, shot with interesting camera angles, and at first he comes off as genuinely fearsome. But then he's flying around spouting silly, Freddy Kruegeresque one-liners like "the doctor is in!" and "I recommend... amputation!". Much of the movie is like this, and as a result, it never quite gels.
At its best, it's a violent fairy tale; an overdecorated, day-glo dark fantasy lit up like an 80s music video. Kirsty's adventures through Hell almost come off as an R-rated version of Jim Henson's Labyrinth, while Leviathan, the abstract geometric object that the Cenobites worship, feels like a stylistic precursor to Evangelion. The endless vista of the labyrinth itself reminded me a little of the Utena movie, though it's not quite as impressive.
Hellraiser 2 would work best as a midnight movie, or something seen in a rowdy social group. Its shock value is undercut by its goofiness and internal inconsistency, but it's still fun, and for a mainstream 80s horror film, gets pretty surreal at times. Also, it's been sampled ad nauseum by techno, industrial, and trance artists, mainly the "mind is a labyrinth" speech.
And I still have to watch the director's cut of Nightbreed. I saw the original, cut-down version long ago (on cable TV, so probably even more cut down), and remember thinking it was great. The monsters' transcendent abilities -- including immortality and shapeshifting -- weren't regarded as sinful for going against "natural" limits, but as just another way to be. I imagine that's kind of the point of the film. It's an interesting counterpoint to 2017's The Shape Of Water, which also used its monster as a metaphor for an oppressive society, but stopped just short of a critique of Nature.
It's not a Clive Barker film, but speaking of monsters, I loved 2016's Colossal. It took a very risky premise, which threatened to tip over into cultural insensitivity, and did something unexpected and powerful with it. The film spoke to the battle that activists -- whether advocating for other people, other animals, or our environment -- face on a constant basis when trying to convince others to care about the lives outside their monkeysphere. That's what I took away from it, at least.
Nightbreed on IMDB
Colossal on IMDB
no subject
Date: 2019-01-09 04:17 pm (UTC)Somehow I was a little fond of the third Hellraiser movie.
Sure some will protest what's so good about it, but I liked the story part going further down on Elliot Spencer, who Pinhead originally was.
The part of "having gone insane through WWI" is quite close to real stories, I think.
no subject
Date: 2019-01-10 01:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-01-10 01:51 am (UTC)But, for me that part somehow was emotionally linking which told more about Elliot Spencer's past in detail. (Normally I'm not that into splatter or horror stuff. Exceptions are those pieces which stand out or which combine different elements that standardly don't appear together.)