Watching Hellraiser is a demystifying experience, especially if the movie’s Pinhead poster was a staple of your youth. Turns out that ghastly visage—chalk-white, with needles poking out every few inches—barely appears, as part of a backstory that’s only slightly less ludicrous than the narrative proper. The movie opens with the grisly death of steamy hedonist Frank Cotton (Sean Chapman), who unwisely opened a mysterious box that promised great pleasure. Frank’s lover (Clare Higgins), who happens to be married to his brother (Andrew Robinson), can bring Frank back, however, by dripping fresh blood from the men she murders on his dismembered corpse, which grotesquely begins to reassemble with each victim. (Oliver Smith plays “Frank the Monster” beneath a lot of goop and grime.) As for Pinhead (Doug Bradley)—not named as such in the credits—he leads the mysterious, leather-clad, sadomasochistic beings who are summoned whenever the box is opened. Writer-director Clive Barker adapts his own novella, The Hellbound Heart, but it’s hardly a seamless transition. The onscreen characters are paper-thin, with flimsy motivations, while the handling of the suspense scenes in the house that serves as the main setting are maddeningly illogical. Overall, the movie seems impatient to get to the gory set pieces, which read less as horrifyingly inevitable consequences of the story at hand and more like standalone, gross-out art installations.
(6/9/2022)
