Note: This is a post that focuses on horrors/thrillers made with a connection to the LGBTQIA community.
“I have seen the future of horror and his name is Clive Barker.” Stephen King quoted this praising Barker’s Book of Blood. This is funny because there really is only five years separating the two famous writers but when King said this back in the mid-1980s, Barker was just becoming a household name in the realm of horror fiction which had gotten a renaissance thanks to King’s popularity in the late 1970s.
Unfortunately, both writers were experiencing the same issues when Hollywood came knocking wanting to buy the film rights. Barker, who had experience in drama and theater had written the screenplays for two movies, Underworld and Rawhead Rex, only to be displeased with how the directors handled his work. So, he decided to take the reins himself and direct his own movie. King had done it with Maximum Overdrive, a notoriously bad movie that he made while at the worst of his cocaine and alcohol addiction.
King has said he was coked out of his mind and had no idea what he was doing. Well, Barker was about as confused as King too. He has said he was so gullible he went down to the library looking for a book on filmmaking only to discover all copies had been checked out. And remember this was the mid-1980s where you were out of luck if you didn’t have a reference book available at the library.
Well, surprise, surprise! Barker actually turned in a nice low-budget horror flick. While most people remember the Cenobites and their leader later named “Pinhead” (Doug Bradley), they are actually hardly in the movie. Yet, it still says a lot to how unforgettable they are. The Cenobites are basically a group of demonic other-worldly humanoid beings who can’t distinguish between pleasure and pain. Barker is well known for his affinity for BDSM.
Hellraiser based on Barker’s novella The Hellbound Heart is a variation of the haunted house/slasher genre. Frank Cotton (Sean Chapman) is visiting Morocco when he buys a puzzle box told to open the real to otherworldly pleasures. Being a hedonist, Frank returns to his house and solves the puzzle opening the box. Hooked chains emerge and grab his body parts ripping him apart. The female Cenobite emerges and resets the puzzle and the attic room goes back to normal.
Some time later, Frank’s brother, Larry (Andrew Robinson), moves into the house in hopes of living there with his second wife, Julia (Clare Higgins). But while doing some light repairs, Larry cuts his hand and blood lands on the floor where Frank’s body was ripped apart and vanished. This causes Frank’s body to be reborn from the blood in a ghoulish form.
Later, Julia discovers Frank who demands he brings her people that he can drain the life out of them to rebuild his body. In flashbacks, it’s revealed that Julia and Frank had an illicit affair and that she may have always liked Frank more for his wild side, opposed to Larry’s more straight standard life. Julia lures men into the house when Larry is away by pretending she’s going to have sex with them. Instead, she mortally wounds them with a hammer so Frank can feast on them.
Larry’s daughter, Kristy (Ashley Laurence), who’s had tension with Julia, notices her bringing a guy into the house under the presumption of sex. So, she goes into the house where she discovers Frank. It’s implied that Frank has had sexual fantasies about her or maybe even previously stepped over that line. Kristy discovers the puzzle box and eventually it’s true nature.
Despite having a small cast and limited location as a majority of the action takes place in the house, Barker managed to make a decent horror movie with great practical effects. The scene of Frank’s body emerging from the floor has some groady-gory-gooey effects for the mid-1980s. It just makes the CGI which has dominated too many horror movies look cheap, for lack of a better word.
While the ending doesn’t really hold up as much, which I think is to the limited budget, it still works. I think some criticism has to go with how Barker does a lot of build-up just to have a very rushed conclusion. The Cenobites are easily defeated by failing structure of the house which you know was just someone on a ladder off camera pouring soft debris items on the actors. Dan Aykroyd and producer Robert K. Weiss said they went to the movie expecting to see a horror movie but found the audience laughing. Aykroyd later wrote the script for what would become Nothing But Trouble.
But the movie did run into problems with censors over its violence as well as sexual content, which probably helped sell some tickets to younger audiences. Overall, the movie only made $14.6 million worldwide. Yet, the image of the Cenobites, particular Pinhead, became iconic. Barker would later comment that he got a lot of fan mail from women who wish they could bare Pinhead’s children.
The movie began a franchise which I really couldn’t get into, mainly because some of them looked cheap. There’s also been accusations, some thrillers were rewritten to include connects to the franchise just so the rights could remain. This has long been rumored the reason Hellraiser: Inferno was made as it was written originally not to have any connection with the franchise. Then in 2011, there was the infamous Hellraiser: Revelations which was shot within three weeks and the first not to feature Bradley as Pinhead. It was reportedly shown in one single theater mostly for the cast and crew to watch it. It was only made to retain the rights and is considered one of the worst movies ever made.
Barker famously tweeted, “I have NOTHING to do with the fuckin’ thing. If they claim its from the mind of Clive Barker, it’s a lie. It’s not even from my butt-hole.”
And maybe it was that greed and interference with movie producers that caused Barker to basically leave Hollywood behind as well. His follow-up to Hellraiser was Nightbreed, a horror/fantasy movie about monsters who are viewed in a more sympathetic light. The movie was notoriously taken away from him and re-edited against what he wanted. Some people have interpreted it to be a metaphor for how the LGBQIA community is viewed. Barker had intended Nightbreed to start a franchise but it never happened.
In 1995, he directed his last movie, Lord of Illusions based on the Harry D’Amour character he had created. Just as in Nightbreed, the movie received some good reviews from critics and mixed reviews from others. However, it also underperformed at the box office. Since the mid-1990s, Barker has been credited as a producer on several movies, but mainly focused on books, short stories and even comic books.
A remake of Hellraiser was released on Hulu in 2022 which I found ok, but I didn’t care for the performance by Odessa A’zion as the main protagonist. However, I did like Jamie Clayton’s performance as Pinhead. Even though the original is still rough around the edges, I still prefer it.
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 