Pinhead – Late to the Theater

Hell Week Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth

As I mentioned, Pinhead has become more villainous and displays more agency than he had previously. Doug Bradley really put in a wonderful performance and got to show some marvelous range.

October is Horror Movie month, where we let down our hair and celebrate all things macabre and scary! Not that we don’t during the rest of the year, but still… HORROR MOVIES! People who don’t like horror are encouraged to check back November 1st for less bloody and/or disturbing films. For everyone else, let’s put on our galoshes and WADE INTO THE MIRE!

Today’s post is about the Hellraiser series and unfortunately is NSFW – mostly because it’s damn near impossible to show work-safe images from the movies. Also LOTS OF gore, S&M, torture, physical, mental, and sexual abuse…

….Man… you start listing all the disturbing things in this series and wonder what you’re doing with your time…

ANYWAY! On to the review!

HELLRAISER III: HELL ON EARTH

Look familiar? It should! It’s the same image from the first movie, with some tweaks.

By the third Hellraiser film, Clive Barker’s influence has begun to wane big time. The movie might as well have been titled ‘Clive Barker’s Hellraiser: Hell On Earth Based on Characters Created By Clive Barker From a Story By Clive Barker’ so that the film makers could still ride the first film’s coat tails. Maybe I’m wrong, but I get the sense he was losing some of his enthusiasm for the series by this point, and not just because he was relegated to the position of Executive Producer. His original idea for the film dealt with exploring the Lemarchand Configuration (puzzle box’s) origins and connection to ancient Egypt and sounds MUCH more interesting than this. I hope that movie will still be made some day!

Hell On Earth begins with a slick 80s-type jerk entering what appears to be an abandoned building but is really a secret art gallery, the kind that only those In The Know know about. J.P. Monroe and his distracting hair and cigarette wander the art gallery, oozing arrogance so thick you’d have to scrape it off with a trowel.

He puts me in mind of that German expression: "Face In Need of a Fist." — He puts me in mind of that German expression: “Face In Need of a Fist.”

He comes upon a fascinating, rotating sculpture that is basically a distillation of the first movies as it contains the Lemarchand Configuration, twisting, tortured bodies, and the face of Pinhead himself. A mysterious art dealer appears, and makes arch comments about who the column really belongs to. Monroe waves a roll of cash and the art dealer takes it, saying that the column now belongs to Monroe.

There's an IKEA Joke in here somewhere that I'm too lazy to make. — There’s an IKEA Joke in here somewhere that I’m too lazy to make.

Meanwhile, we’re introduced to the movie’s real protagonist, news reporter Joey, played by Terry Farrell, who would go on to find fame as Jadzia Dax on Star Trek: Deep Space 9. Tall and statuesque, Joey is nonetheless annoyed to find herself relegated to the graveyard shift of reporting, and she’s looking for her first big break. Her father was killed in Vietnam and she is tormented by nightmares about him. While reporting on the morgue, she is startled when a team of EMTs bring in a young man who’s bloody and battered. Just as she runs toward the door to see what’s going on, hooks appear and rip him messily apart.

Having witnessed Some Shit, Joey begins investigating, and soon meets Terri, a club girl and ex-girlfriend of JP.

Meanwhile, JP is busy being a douche in his fancy club, The Boiler Room. Apparently he bought the place after he inherited a shitload of money from his parents. He bangs hot girls while smoking and flexing in his totally 90s apartment above the club.

The Pinhead of the column comes to life and begins talking to him, in a manner much more forward than in the previous films. We learn that JP murdered his parents for the money. Here, Pinhead appears as a tempter, as a devilish dealmaker who is actively trying to shape events. As we learn through Joey, Pinhead’s human side and his cenobite sides were cleft. Although he is trapped in the column, that won’t last forever, and he wants out. Pretty soon JP is killing people and feeding them to the statue in order to bring Pinhead into the world again.

And things go from there.

Although Hell on Earth had some truly ridiculous moments (one of the guest cenobites has CDs in his face, because again– 90s), it also has some very interesting character moments.

This wonderful moment being one of them.

As I mentioned, Pinhead has become more villainous and displays more agency than he had previously. Doug Bradley really put in a wonderful performance and got to show some marvelous range.

Why you saucy devil! — I See What You Did There, you saucy devil!

The relationship that develops between Joey and Terri was actually very progressive. Terri, a witness to some of the club’s insanity, is a homeless party girl whose entire life fits in her backpack, and was living with JP until he threw her out. She stole the Lemarchand Configuration before she went, and gives it to Joey.

Terri moves into Joey’s apartment and the very different women become friends. Terri is envious of Joey’s apartment and self-sufficient lifestyle, and their interaction doesn’t feel forced as they get used to each other’s funny little ways. I realized partway through the movie that it was actually passing the Bechdel test. A nice touch is the mess that Joey’s apartment becomes once Terri moves in; it’s never mentioned, but it’s just a neat little background detail that underscored their differences.

Another moment was when JP returns to the art gallery to ask about the column and finds the gallery abandoned and empty. I’m sure it was intended to be part of the Hellraiser mythos, but I laughed and wondered if the art dealer was actually some homeless guy in the right place at the right time to scam a dumbass rich kid out of some money. “Yeah, that mysterious column is totally… mysterious. *snickering* Oh I totally work here, I just wear dirty rags because I’m an edgy artist. Name your price, hotshot.” *pockets money, walks away laughing*

Pinhead slaughters his way through a crowd of Cool Club Kids and makes himself a new squad, and Joey must use the puzzle box to reunite him with his human side and defeat him. Once all is said and done, she shoves the puzzle box into wet cement, hoping it’ll be trapped for eternity and safe from human hands…

… OR SO WE THINK. As the other films have, this one left the ending open for a sequel.

Overall there were some good bones in this installment of Hellraiser, although the flesh (HA!) surrounding them was a hot mess. I thought the protagonist was interesting, particularly Joey’s subplot concerning her father, and Terri’s character and backstory were likewise compelling. I also prefer stories where Pinhead is manipulating a human agent, rather than doing things directly, but it was definitely great watching him go bonkers in the club. And seeing him reveling in his role as torturer and tempter was fun, as well.

And that was Hellraiser III: Hell On Earth! Before we conclude Hell Week, I’ll do one more post about the glorious, bizarre mess that is Hellraiser IV: Bloodline, or as I’ve been calling it, Pinhead In Space. Y’all have a great Friday!

Hell Week: Hellbound: Hellraiser 2

….Man… you start listing all the disturbing things in this series and wonder what you’re doing with your time…

ANYWAY! On to the review!

….Man… you start listing all the disturbing things in this series and wonder what you’re doing with your time…

ANYWAY! On to the review!

HELLBOUND: HELLRAISER 2

Pinhead's Driver License Photo — Pinhead’s Driver License Photo

I saw Hellraiser 2 first, at a girl’s slumber party when I was about 12… as one does. Suffice to say it scared the holy living balls out of me and I believe I had my eyes covered for most of the viewing. I wish I could remember whose party it was, because if it was mine GOD I AM SO SORRY OTHER LITTLE GIRLS PLEASE FORGIVE ME.

Hellbound begins with the creation of Pinhead, showing his human side fiddling with the puzzle box before being flayed by disembodied hooks. He’s a British soldier who physically survived the horrors of the Great War, but didn’t make it through mentally and he’s been searching the world for his next big thrill as a means to combat his PTSD.

"Dude, could you just... not?" — “Dude, could you just… not?”

The story begins in a mental asylum where Kirsty has been dumped. Due to her somewhat far-fetched story about a magic puzzle box that summons a gang of demonic S&M enthusiasts who skinned her uncle and father, and murdered her stepmother before burning down her house (although the house still seems to be standing, maybe I was drunk and missed something), she’s having a rough time. She’s under the care of Doctor Channard, the kind of mental healthcare professional who is not above experimenting on his patients, experimenting with the occult, or experimenting with large, bloody mattresses that act as gateways to hell.

Kirsty’s dad leaves a bloody post on her wall (HA!) begging for help as he is now trapped in hell.

Me, hungover — Also an accurate depiction of a hangover

Channard has a secret; he already knows about the puzzle box and has been trying to solve it himself, by exploiting a possibly autistic girl named Tiffany who saw her mother murdered. Once Channard has the aforementioned bloody mattress, he leaves a poor, disturbed man prone to self-harm on it and the man proceeds to butcher himself in a heart-wrenching scene that was deeply upsetting to me. The patient is hallucinating that maggots are burrowing into his skin, and when given a straight razor, ‘shaves’ the maggots off himself. The blood-soaked mattress becomes a door and a skinless Julia is resurrected, who wrestles the mental patient to the floor before messily slitting his throat. Imagine a piece of jerky with eyes coming to life, covered with strawberry syrup, and you’ve got Julia.

I am not finding an image of that and needed a break from Googling hellraiser jpgs so here is a corgi in pajamas. — I needed a break from Googling Hellraiser jpgs so here is a corgi in pajamas.

Kirsty realizes what Channard’s up to with the help of a handsome doctor who lasts barely into the first 3rd of the movie, and then she and Tiffany escape into a portal to try and release Larry from hell. Instead, Kirsty finds Frank, who has gone full creepy uncle while trapped in hell and makes disturbing moves on Kirsty. He was the one who sent the original message it turns out, because he and his brother bear a striking resemblance when they aren’t wearing skin. Kirsty escapes him, and she and Tiffany encounter The Leviathan, which is the inanimate master of the hellish labyrinth, and there’ s a lot of running down decrepit stone hallways. That is as close as I can get to explaining what was going on.

File under 'You Had To Be There ' — File under ‘You Had To Be There ‘

Meanwhile, Channard was duped into the labyrinth by Julia and turned into a cenobite himself, apparently a more powerful one than the other cenobites, as he kills them. Fun fact: Channard is played by Kenneth Cranham, who appeared as Pompey Magnus in HBO’s wonderful Rome. He does a wonderfully understated job in this film, playing Channard as a man who is not blind to the horrors he’s witnessing, but not put off by them, either. Although he’s the mad doctor in search of truth and it’s a familiar trope, his pursuit is much more earnest than other portrayals I’ve seen. Great job, Mr. Cranham!

"Is there something huge and penile stuck to the back of my head? You'd tell me, right?" — “Damn Caesar! Must he have everything?”

It’s at this point that I got really thrown by the rules of the world. The Leviathan of Christian Mythology is a giant sea monster that symbolizes many different things, but I always understood Barker’s interpretation of Leviathan to be a Prince of Hell. So you’d think it/he/she’d kind of be in control of things, but Channard runs wild, even going into the real world, and kills many of the cenobites. I suppose Leviathan is like a Roman Emperor, waiting to see which of his combatants will emerge victorious. Which makes me wonder, who is in control of the cenobites? The same four appear in both the first and second movies, then die, and then they come back in the third, establishing the pattern of Main Quartet + Guest Star Cenobites. It seems to be another way Barker was bucking the ‘slasher horror’ tropes in that his monsters were sometimes the antagonists and sometimes not. Or maybe there was an overbearing film executive who kept saying things like ‘Just do like in the first movie but more,’ even if it made no sense. Maybe I’m missing a huge chunk of the mythology.

Before He's Put His Face On — Before He’s Put His Face On

Pinhead’s human side is revealed, and he sacrifices himself to save Kristy and Tiffany. Perhaps since he and the other cenobites remembered their humanity they have become weakened and the Leviathan no longer lends them its power. Or something. Channard is pulled apart by the big phallic tentacle growing out of his head and dies, and Kirsty and Tiffany escape to find the puzzle box and close the portal.

All is right with the world, until it isn’t again and the bloody mattress is opened and the whole thing starts over.

Last Thoughts:

I suspect that the less creative input Clive Barker has over the movies the less cohesive their mythologies. In the first film, Pinhead was an enthusiastic enforcer of Hell’s torments. He and the other cenobites only appear to those who summon him, and since the summoners have usually been toddling down the road to self-destruction for some time before encountering the puzzle box, they’ve got some crimes to answer for. The cenobites fulfill a role in their victims’ punishment, and nothing more. In the second film, Pinhead experiences an existential crisis and loses his powers, or seems to. This splits his character into the human and the cenobite and sets up some of the conflict in the 3rd film, Hellraiser: Hell On Earth.

And that’s Hellraiser 2! Thanks for reading and join us on Friday for a discussion of the third installment. Hellraiser: Hell On Earth!

Hell Week: Clive Barker’s Hellraiser

Today’s post is about the Hellraiser series and unfortunately is NSFW – mostly because it’s damn near impossible to show work-safe images from the movies. Also S&M, torture, physical, mental, and sexual abuse…

….Man, you start listing all the disturbing things in this series and wonder what you’re doing with your time…

ANYWAY!

This week is Hell Week, where we’ll be focusing the Hellraiser series. Unfortunately these posts are NSFW – mostly because it’s damn near impossible to show work-safe images from the movies. Also LOTS OF gore, S&M, torture, physical, mental, and sexual abuse…

….Man… you start listing all the disturbing things in this series and wonder what you’re doing with your time…

ANYWAY! On to the review!

[DISCLAIMER: I recently watched the first 3 movies, and although I think I saw the “Hellraiser in Space” one, I don’t remember anything from it. I might watch the rest of the series over the month, we will see! Also, brace yourself for bad puns.]

HELLRAISER

I GOT YOU A PRESENT HERE OPEN IT — Fun fact: Pinhead’s real name is ‘Hell Priest’ or ‘Priest,’ and Clive Barker never liked him being called Pinhead. The crew began calling him that during the makeup process and the name stuck (HA!)

Clive Barker wrote and directed the first Hellraiser movie, which is based on his novella The Hellbound Heart. You can’t get much closer to the source material when it comes to realizing an artist’s vision, and that is probably why the first movie is one of the most respected horror films of the genre. When Barker’s good, he’s REALLY good. His characters are fleshed-out (HA!) and believable: boring, staid Larry is trying to rekindle romance with his second wife, Julia, who had an affair years ago with Larry’s hot, globetrotting scumbag brother Frank, who we saw murdered in the film’s opening after he solved a mysterious puzzle box– as one does. Larry and Julia move into Larry’s old childhood home, a BEAUTIFUL old house that Frank has been hiding out in. Thrown into the mix is Kirsty, Larry’s daughter from his first marriage, who doesn’t get along with Julia and has a place of her own. This pic below accurately summarizes Julia’s excitement about moving into the house.

Not Pictured: Thrills. In fact Julia's face tells you how excited she is to be moving into her husband's childhood home — Not Pictured: Thrills.

But surprise! After Larry has an accident that spills blood on the floor, Frank is reborn in possibly the most intense, gross, and visceral rebirthing scene in the history of cinema. The day that CG graphics manage to reproduce anything that stomach-churning, we’ll know it has finally arrived. Practical effects ALWAYS win when it comes to slime, blood, pus, and anything else the body can produce.

Although Frank’s back, he’s missing a few key accessories, like fat and skin, so Julia decides to help him by bringing home dudes she meets in bars and killing them. Frank absorbs their lifeforce and grows less-juicy by the day. She does this because Frank makes her feel alive in ways Larry never did, which is code for ‘he gave her orgasms.’ Fun fact: When the film was being made the name was still undecided, as The Hellbound Heart sounded like a romance. An older woman working on the crew suggested ‘What a Woman Will Do for a Good Fuck,’ which is actually pretty apt.

Aren't you going to invite me into your house and body? I've got exciting, sexy places to be and none of them involve dinner parties — Aren’t you going to invite me into your house and body? I’ve got exciting, sexy places to be and none of them involve dinner parties with my dud of a brother.

There are hints during their interaction at the dinner party that Julia and Larry used to be happy, but considering she hooked up (HA!) with Frank before she even married Larry I wondered what brought them together in the first place. Larry’s just so earnest and eager-to-please… I picture Julia, early in the relationship, having that moment of ‘Well, he’s got a good job and he’s a nice guy, I guess he’s the best I could do.’ Maybe this is clearer in the novella, it’s been 20 years since I read it. Anyway, she meets Frank and is instantly fascinated.

Kirsty makes a deal with the cenobites and manages to save herself and send Frank and Julia to hell, but unfortunately can’t save her father. I’ve always appreciated Barker’s embrace of the theme that people make the best monsters; sure, Pinhead will peel your skin off and nail your eyeballs to his big revolving flesh cabinet, but you EARNED it. Frank and Julia murder Larry for no reason other than they are assholes. The Hellraiser universe (or at least the first film) understands and embraces S&M better than the 50 Shades of Gray films, and I would expand on that idea in another blog post if I weren’t so lazy. Also, I’ve never read 50 Shades of Gray.

They can come in my house, but they're not sitting on my couch. Not without towels. — They can come in my house, but they’re not sitting on my couch. Not without towels.

Last Thoughts: Normally I can see actor’s faces under anything, or recognize them by their eyes and voices. Doug Bradley is the ONE exception to this. I have never been able to recognize him under the Pinhead makeup. Bravo on both makeup and acting! Fun fact: during the movie’s wrap party, Doug Bradley wondered why no one was talking to him, since he thought he got on well with the crew. Turns out they didn’t recognize him without the makeup.

I STILL don't see it! No idea why! — I STILL don’t see it! No idea why!

So that’s Hellraiser! Thanks for reading, and join us again on Wednesday when we discuss Hellbound: Hellraiser 2!