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VER THE COURSE OF EIGHT FILMS, CLIVE BARKER’S HELLRAISER FRANCHISE HAS brought a gothic aura to a series of morality plays entrenched in body horror and the occult powers of that familiar puzzle box, the Lament Configuration.
Serving as our guide to the other side are the demonic Cenobites, in particular their bald, blue-skinned, nail-faced leader, Pinhead. The impartial judge for a cast of human monsters, Pinhead makes sure the sinners get schooled in the consequences for indulging their darkest desires. If one thing is certain in the ever-changing Hellraiser universe, it’s that the pleasures of the flesh eventually get balanced with a destiny of pain. Lots and lots of pain. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
HELLRAISER(1987) The only film in the series to be written and directed
by Barker himself, Hellraiser begins in Morocco, where a man named Frank Cotton acquires the fa- mous antique puzzle box. Upon solving it back home in America, his flesh is immediately pierced by long, hooked chains until he’s nothing but a pile of viscera. Pinhead (Doug Bradley, credited only as “Lead Ceno- bite” here) and his pierced pals materialize to close the box, and the room reconstitutes as if nothing hap- pened. Cotton’s brother Larry then moves into the digs with his second wife, Julia (Clare Higgins), who we learn once had an affair with Frank. A few mis- placed drops of blood later and Julia discovers Frank has returned, albeit as literally half the man he used to be. She uses her sexuality to harvest the blood Frank needs to become whole again, but before she’s done, Larry’s daughter Kirsty (Ashley Laurence) runs into her skinless uncle, messes with the box and ac- cidentally opens the doorway to hell. Frank ends up double-crossing Julia, who gets shipped down to warmer climes, and Kirsty saves herself by selling out Frank to the Cenobites. Unsatiated, the demons try to reneg on the deal but Kirsty solves the box before they can, sending the whole lot of ’em back to hell. Gory but with a certain classy British sensibility, this is the finest Hellraiser outing to date.
RM 26 HELLRAISER II (1988) HELLBOUND: A bit about Pinhead’s back story kicks off this com-
petent sequel, followed by Kirsty waking up in a psy- chiatric hospital under the care of Dr. Channard, a long-time collector of artifacts related to the box. With a string of blood-drained murder victims and the help of one of his patients – a mute named Tiffany with a proficiency for puzzles – he resurrects Julia and opens the door to hell so he can experience it firsthand. Once there, Julia gets revenge for Frank’s betrayal, Chan- nard becomes a Cenobite, and with increasing power, kills all of the other Cenobites (including Pinhead), re- verting them to human form. While Channard spouts medically charged one-liners, Julia gets skinned and whisked into the ether, Kirsty dons Julia’s skin to dis- tract Channard long enough for Tiffany to solve the puzzle, Channard is somehow decapitated, and in a crescendo of magnificently inaccurate lasers, Kirsty and Tiffany are zapped back to reality.
HELL ON EARTH (1992) HELLRAISER III: Anthony Hickox (Waxwork, Waxwork II) helmed this
slightly Americanized third installment in which Pin- head and the box – trapped inside a grotesque totem pole acquired from the Channard Institute – are inad- vertently sprung from exile by an arrogant nightclub
maven. After the box takes its first victim (via a great exploding head gag), a plucky TV reporter in search of a story digs up dirt on the box, which leads her to the club. Meanwhile, Pinhead begins assembling a new family of Cenobites, intent on establishing hell on Earth – and he would have, if only that meddling reporter hadn’t researched her way into sending Pin- head back to the perverse netherworld from whence he came. Afterwards, she buries the puzzle box in ce- ment, foiling Pinhead’s plans... for now. Barker re- turned to direct a music video for Motörhead’s contribution to the film’s soundtrack, “Hellraiser,” which features Motörhead growler Lemmy Kilmister playing poker against Doug Bradley as Pinhead. A greater contribution from the author may have saved this disappointing entry from signalling the franchise’s imminent spiral into mediocrity.
BLOODLINE (1996) HELLRAISER: The final film to be released theatrically, Bloodline
begins in the year 2127, where a bald space messiah named Dr. Paul Merchant recounts the origins of the puzzle box to intergalactic police. Turns out his toy- making ancestor, Phillip L’Merchant, built the original cube hundreds of years ago for a wealthy aristocrat obsessed with that rascally gateway to hell. Once the toymaker gets privy to his creation’s nefarious capa-
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