(I’ve fallen a few posts behind because of work, so I’ll be posting a few extra posts in the next few days to catch up)

One of my favorite horror movies of all time has always been Hellraiser. It’s a lower budget British film from 1987, the era of the Jason and Freddy movies. It was written and directed by Clive Barker, one of the most popular horror authors besides Stephen King.

This film spawned one of the most creative serial killers of any horror film: Pinhead (played wonderfully by Doug Bradley who creates a performance and character so commanding you believe he IS Pinhead). But Pinhead is different. He doesn’t kill you unless you “call” him using the puzzle box, an antique toy puzzle cube which, when opened, calls forth demons from hell (hence the title Hell-Raiser). Also different about Pinhead, he doesn’t really kill everyone, he takes them to Hell and creates demons out of some. He’s a more refined killer with discriminating tastes. What does put him in the same category as the other movie serial killers of the time is his look. His name is apt. When he was taken into the puzzle box, his face was lacerated and several nails pounded into his head, points out.

So, now why would anyone want to open the puzzle box if demons come and take you away in more and more ingenious and painful ways: the most common being chains which fly out of nowhere and rip you apart? Well, some people believe they will gain the powers of hell. Of course, it never works out as in this, the first in a series of 9 Hellraiser films.

The story of this one: A woman (Clare Higgins) who is cheating on her husband (played by Andrew Robinson who also achieved some fame in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine series) attempts to hide her lover, the husband’s half-brother (played by Sean Chapman) in an upstairs room of their house. Sounds tough to do, but the lover is also dead because he opened the box and had it ripped away by Pinhead and his legion of Cenobites (demons, or as Pinhead puts it, “Demons to some, Angels to others”). What can give his body back? Blood, of course. Very soon the wife is killing other people to bring her  lover back to her. The thorn in her side? The husband’s daughter who discovers the betrayal and gets in the way (Played by Ashley Laurence who also returns for the next two Hellraiser sequels).

How does it turn out? Well, you will just have to watch it to see, but considering there are many sequels and that the demons are already dead, you know Pinhead and his Cenobites will survive. It’s a great film in the style of slasher killers, but with a definitive twist which will want you wanting more. (The immediate sequels also stack up pretty well, some of the later ones don’t turn out as well.)

(Sequels: Hellbound: Hellraiser II, Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth, Hellraiser: Bloodline, Hellraiser: Inferno, Hellraiser: Hellseeker, Hellraiser: Deader, Hellraiser: Hellworld, Hellraiser: Prophecy, Hellraiser: Revelations)