10/3-Hellraiser (1987)

Oh man, Hellraiser...

As a kid, I always wanted to see this movie.  That dude on the VHS cover with the pins in his head, aptly named Pinhead, looked so cool to me.  I'd grab it in Blockbuster and bring it to my parents to rent and they would inevitably respond with some form of, "We've already got one hellraiser in the house, we don't need two," or some other equally clever response.  For as many inappropriate movies that my parents let me see, there were a few they didn't want us to see.  Or rather, they didn't want to spend money on it.  In retrospect, I could have rented it at a friend's house, but whatever, I've seen it now.

And frankly, I think kid me would have been disappointed.  Not in the horror and thrills, but in Pinhead's screen time.  I mean for a movie where both taglines and arguably the title itself are about Pinhead, and the poster is literally just him, you'd expect him to be in more than five minutes of the movie.  And perhaps do more than use telekinetic chains.

I'm getting ahead of myself.

The movie opens Frank buying a puzzle box (the one in the poster!) from a mysterious man in a foreign market.  Frank is next seen sitting in a square of candles in an empty room, opening the box.  Once successful, hooked chains appear from nowhere and begin pulling Frank's flesh apart.  Pinhead then appears to pick up the pieces.

You complete me.

Next thing you know, everything is happy and Frank's brother, Larry, is moving into the house with his wife, Julia.  During the move, Julia finds some lewd photos of Frank and pockets them.  She is then drawn to the attic, where Frank met his demise, by spooky whispers and chattering.  Again, these get my goosebumps going.  While in the attic, she begins to have flashbacks to meeting Frank for the first time and their subsequent love-making.  Now, I hesitate to call it love making, as it was borderline non-consensual and very uncomfortable to watch.

Meanwhile, Larry is attempting to move a bed upstairs and the shot lingers menacingly at an exposed nail.  The scenes switches between Larry's hand getting closer and closer to the nail and the flashback sex getting closer and closer to climax.  As you may have imagined, the two seem to happen simultaneously,  And Larry runs upstairs to seek help from his wife for his bleeding hand.

These kinds of injuries in movies sometimes make me feel more uneasy than full deaths.  Maybe it's because I can actually imagine what the pain might be like.  I mean, a few weeks ago, I cut my hand open on a zip tie.  Sure, it's not a nail and I didn't need stitches like Larry did, but it was sharp and it did hurt, so you know, basically the same.

Anyway, Larry's blood gets all over the floor, but as the leave, the blood seems to be vacuumed into the floorboards.  And in the next prolonged and disgusting scene, a creature forms up out of the floor to become this monster:

To make a long story short, it's Frank and he realizes that the blood brought him back to life, but he needs more so he doesn't look like a raisin soaked in Vaseline.  He convinces Julia to help him return to his human self.  She reluctantly agrees and begins seducing men and luring them to the attic, where she proceeds to beat them with a hammer and gooey Frank drinks their blood.

The Cenobites (Pinhead and his demon crew) end up getting involved because they're pissed Frank came back to life, and yadda, yadda, yadda, the movie ends with a new person buying the box from the same mysterious guy in same foreign market.

The cyclical nature of this movie, ending where it begins, provides a real sense of dread, that this whole incident is doomed to repeat itself ad naseum with more and more victims.  In addition, the practical effects in this movie are top-notch for the level of camp in the movie.  Incredible visceral feelings, from the nail cutting Larry's hand, to Frank's rebirth, to the hooks piercing skin, it all made me feel uncomfortable in my skin.  And I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the single scariest part of the movie, the Chattering Cenobite:

It's not the same without sound.

Rating on the Spook-o-meter: 5 out 10 boos