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Monday, October 21, 2013

31 Days of Halloween - Day 21 - Movie 1


An unfaithful wife lures men home in order to murder them so that their blood will help her dead lover, who has escaped from hell, regenerate. Meanwhile, the creatures he escaped from, the cenobites, want him back and the woman's stepdaughter is only too happy to help them.

It's been a while since I've watched Hellraiser (1987), and with the exception of some of the hairstyles and wardrobe, it holds up really well. While the movie is full of blood, violence and other gross out visuals that were to be expected in films of that era of latex rubber special effects, Hellraiser differs from them by actually being about something. The plot is pretty simple and straight forward, but its physical and spiritual melding of s&m trappings, it's unique monsters, its unconventional take on hell, family, and the forbidden notion of incest kept just out of reach fill this movie with well constructed ideas, and an implied backstory and supporting universe that makes the viewer hungry for more glimpses into Clive Barker's suggested world.





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