Hellraiser
1987, UK, Directed by Clive Barker
Colour, Running Time: 89 minutes
DVD, Region 2, VCI, Video: Anamorphic 1.75:1, Audio: Dolby Digital 2.0
Having purchased a mysterious puzzle box from a foreign dealer in obscurities, Frank manages to solve it, unwittingly (or otherwise) opening a doorway to Hell through which a group of demonic creatures called Cenobites take his soul. Some time later his brother, Larry, and sister-in-law, Julia, move into the old family home to make a fresh start, the same house where Frank met his bloody demise. Unaware that Frank’s remains are rotting beneath the attic floorboards, Larry manages to cut himself while moving furniture in, spilling blood over the attic floor and supernaturally granting life to Frank‘s corpse once again. Brought back from Hell the unsightly Frank persuades Julia, who once had an affair with him, to help him completely reinvigorate himself by bringing men back to the house while Larry is out, specifically so Frank can drain their bodies of life thereby progressively recomposing his incomplete shell and allowing Julia to repossess her real passion, before the Cenobites come looking for him.
Clive Barker’s (feature-length) directorial debut followed a couple of ill-received ventures during the mid eighties directed by others (Rawhead Rex and Underworld), these also based on his own short stories. Hellraiser is a much better film though it’s clearly embedded in its era. Some of the performances are stilted (though I was quite impressed with Ashley Laurence) and, while the gore and prosthetic effects are for the most part excellent, the optical effects are very dated. Barker’s screenplay seems a little contrived but does work well enough to ensnare viewer attention. The Cenobites themselves are imaginatively monstrous and it’s interesting to retrospectively note that Pinhead, the creature who quickly became the staple of the series, is only onscreen for a few minutes. It’s inevitable through overexposure and marketing manipulation that they’ve since lost some of their original impact. What seemed quite an innovative conceptual world at the time now comes across as merely entertaining though admittedly quite dark in places, but there was clearly scope for further developing the rich mythos that Barker had created and, shortcomings aside, Hellraiser has proved to be something of a minor genre milestone.
One of the very earliest UK DVD releases, the VCI disc initially caused some uproar among home cinema fans because it was full frame only (something that plagued VHS for too long). They quickly repressed it to include a widescreen version on side 2 and the differences can clearly be seen from my screen captures above, although there is still a smidgen of information missing at the sides even in the wide version. Lacking vibrancy the picture holds up well enough given the period while the Dolby Surround, encoded at a measly 192 kbps, needed some loudness boosting from my amp to provide an acceptable aural experience. The VCI company were unique for including a sub-plot feature to take advantage of the new DVD technological capabilities: certain concepts could be chosen from the menu (e.g. Julia’s murders) and those sections of the film would be isolated and played in sequence. It didn’t take off but it was a nice try. Regardless, this disc has since been superseded by Anchor Bay’s superior release.