| Overall Grade: |
A- |
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| Story: |
B+ |
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| Acting: |
B- |
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| Direction: |
A- |
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| Visuals: |
A- |
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Hellraiser-A modern horror masterpiece
by ryan (movies profile)
Oct 29, 2007
8
of
9 people found this review helpful
After watching Clive Barker's "Hellraiser" for about the 10th time last night, i have realized that it truly is one of the great horror films of its generation. This film was made on a budget of 1 million dollars only- and at the time brought new types of visual effects to the screen that the horror genre had not seen before.
What makes "Hellraiser" a good film are the characters. This is a film that deals with emotions of family; and the villians of the film have some substance to them. The cenobites (demons in the film) are not silent killers such as Friday the 13th's Json Voorhees or Halloween's Michael Myers, rather they have a voice, spoken dialogue in the film in which they explain the nature of themselves and why they are what they are. Villians in a horror film are much more scary and convincing when you know about them; when they kill for reason and purpose, not just at random and unnecessarily.
Hellraiser begins with Frank Cotton purchasing a puzzle box from a run-down market. A life long pleasure-seeker, Frank is determined to unlock the pleasures that the box offers within. When he begins to solve the box, it is forshadowed that the pleasures within might not be so pleasurable after all as boards creak with eerie noises and rays of blue light creep throught the cracks of the walls.
Franks brother Larry moves into the house where Frank opened the box and met his fate. Larry injures himself movig a bed and the blood on the floor allows Frank to be reincarneted. When Larry's wife, Julia,finds Frank as not much more than a skeleton, we learn that Julia and Frank had an affair together. Frank explains he needs more blood to put more skin on his body and Julia obliges by luring men into the house then killing them for frank to take their blood to form skin.
When Frank completely heals, he explains to Julia the mystery of the puzzle box. When the puzzle is solved, the box summons demons called the cenobites. The pleasure the box provides is Pain. The cenobites teach Frank this pleasure as they rip his body and soul apart. When he escapes hell, they come back for him.
Clive Barker's vision of hell is very creepy indeed. There is a scene where a wall opens and the heroine of the film, Kirsti (Larry's Daugher) walks through it. A labyrinth featuring dark corridors and a scorpion type monster is dark and eerie, but it fails in comparison to Barker's key villians of the story, the cenobites. Barker slowly builds tension by showing you very little of the cenobites till the end of the film. As Frank is becoming more regenerated, the cenobites are coming more close to the realm of earth to collect him from escaping the depths of hell. Barker saves the best visual effects for the end of the film, wanting you to hold out till the final conclusion-which is the most amazing scene i have ever seen in a horror film. Clive Barker's characters, story, and visual imagination are unmatched in "Hellraiser". This film takes horror to a new level |
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