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As Above, So Below (2014) Mr. Jones (2013) Underworld series (2003-2017) Soulmate (2013) Spike (2008) Frankenstein (2015) directed by Candyman's Bernard Rose
That’s just the Labyrinth. There are other places within the “Hell,” which Barker explores further in some comic books. Yet, even within those, he eventually hands the story over to other writers, who eventually go with a more standard ongoing narrative.
The cool thing about the original is that the Cenobites really AREN’T the main villains. That’s Frank and Julia. The Cenobites are more just an “interested third party.” Also their entire concept is fascinating in general.
yep, they're not 'evil', they're entirely amoral, which was lost as the franchise progressed as the writers and directors just leant into the bdsm edgelord angle of pinhead and made him just another slasher film antagonist.
@@anyotherdayortime I would still describe them as evil. Just more closer to being neutral evil as opposed to intentionally going out of their way to be malicious just for malicious sake
@@CoOlKyUbI96 in both book and 1st movie they are explicitly not evil, just so removed from humanity that they no longer understand the differences between pleasure and pain. They’re alien and outside morality, not intentionally malicious.
Honestly, Hellraiser is a franchise that has suffered most from the popularity of its main villain. Things like Friday the 13th, Child’s Play and Elm Street either are self-aware enough to know their place as straight up bloody slashers with horny teens or by having a highly charismatic villain. Pinhead simply cannot carry a franchise on his own because his existence was always as a secret final boss to the actual human experience.
Agreed, but the few times he does appear, I'd consider Pinhead charismatic but in a Shakespearean sense, while Freddy and Chucky have a more smartass and charming flair to them. Jason, on the other hand, is a killing machine, but I wouldn't consider him charismatic in any sense, especially cause he never says a thing.
Pinhead isn't the type of character that can carry a franchise like other mentioned villains. Most others can work as a slasher to some degree. But the cenobites don't work as a straight up horror. The humans usually are the villains in hellraiser series.
Pinhead was never meant to be a lead villain but his candor and eloquence is what made him the iconic character he has become. Jason, Freddy, Myers, and few others films were character driven from the beginning. Pinhead is the leader of a group of "explorers" who grant perverse desires to whomever solves the box.
Kinda reminds me of what happened with Pyramid Head in the Silent Hill franchise. He was originally meant to just be James Sunderland's symbolic monster, but ended up becoming one of the most iconic monsters of the whole franchise (the faceless nurses also being iconic monsters).
The special thing about Hellraiser is it’s not the cenobites that are the villains, but Julia and Frank. The cenobites are like watchers interested in humans and how they deal with emotions like betrayal and curiosity
They also *generally* operate in terms of consent. It's kind of a twisted version of consent where you can't go back on it, and the terms aren't explicitly clear, but by solving the box you are consenting to the extreme pains and pleasures the Cenobites will treat you to. Julia and Frank, however, just kill indiscriminately. This is something that becomes less and less true in the sequels, which is truly disappointing.
One thing from Clive Barker's original story that never makes it into adaptations is that solving the lament configuration doesn't just summon the cenobites, it heightens the senses of whoever solves it. That's why Frank sought it out in the first place; he was a hedonist who overindulged to the point of numbing himself, and was seeking out ways to experience new forms of pleasure. That adds to the sadism of the cenobites, they don't just torture you, they make you extra sensitive to stimulation first.
Something I like in the 2022 reboot is the reveal at the end: when the protagonist refuses the gifts of the cenobites, and walks away, they are informed that is itself choosing a "gift" - the Lament Configuration, which involves psychological, rather than physical, suffering. The person who chooses this carries the weight having been on the threshold of higher experience, only to turn away from it. While such experience may be horrifying from the perspective of most mortals, it would still be a kind of torture to forever wonder if there was in fact a higher consciousness and existence that is now lost.
@@bluedotdinosaur that is part of why I liked the new one. They leaned more into the horror that is the Cenobite modus operandi, extreme pain/sensation. That while the pain/pleasure line is malleable, the Cenobites start at the far end of the pain side. It also felt more self contained than the original. You got enough lore for any burning questions while making you want to know more, the puzzle box in particular. You got a reason why the box exists. Maybe not all the information but enough to work with.
@@spudthepug which one is the reboot? Is it the one with a female pinhead involving AI or something like that? (I genuinely don't know as there's so many sequels and at least one reboot I know if)
The scene where Kirsty makes the puzzle box work and opens up a rift in the wall is one of my favorite sequences in horror because it's allowed to escalate for so long: She walks down that endless corridor and encounter a hideous... "thing" inside. She runs for it and fights herself back out again. We expect her to be safe, but then things get WORSE with the arrival of the cenobites!
My life has been a complete and total misery ever since Bigfoot stole my precious girlfriend in the middle of the night.😏He even took all her clothes and the T.V.😔
Personally, I think the first movie is closer to the source materials than the next movies. The cenobytes in the first movie really embodied Clive's wanting of cenobyte to be no more than fair demons, unlike the next installations wherein Pinhead are more revenge driven, gore fest
The second one stayed somewhat close to that concept. Pinhead stops the others from taking the girl who solved the box because he realized that someone else had her do it for them. And while they’re still somewhat hostile to Kirsty, from the dialogue it’s implied that they think that she’s “teasing” them.
@@baronsengir187 I'm talking about the later sequels. When they literally start targeting people for revengish purposes basically. Like instead of being these other wordly creatures, they get turned into basic villains trying to kill the protagonist
I also don't really get "revenge-driven" from the later movies. In some movies they're just monsters who kill and slaughter for fun, and in others they are somehow the arbiters of judeo-christian morality, literal devils from literal biblical hell, which is like the worst direction to take them. But I don't remember revenge.
More than anything, I love the fact that the Cenobites aren't inherently evil, just doing their job: "Angels to some, Demons to others". It really puts more of the scales of good and evil under the control of the human characters.
I think its funny how he mentions the cenobites are only in the film for less than 10 minutes. Horror knows how to use its time for monsters. Perfect example is the bride in "bride of Frankenstein" It is a legendary monster that you can instantly recognize. 3 minutes of screen time. Freddy krueger became an instant horror icon after his first appearance, just 7 minutes.
You make a very interesting point here about how memory can distort, recreate, or entirely conjure scenes from past films, and when you go back and watch it many years later, not only is it not how you remember, it's a whole different movie.
Also, there are only two horror/thriller films that have ever left me speechless after the film, where I had to absorb the madness I had just witnessed and try to understand why it felt more real than real; arcane things deep in the dark recesses of the mind, things that make sense for all the wrong reasons. Those two films were Hellraiser and Blue Velvet.
Can you tell me an experience you had like that? I used to be a film buff and I've never had the experience myself, I still remember films I watched when I was 8 and though some don't have the same impact, they never lost their meaning I had when watching them as a child.
To me, Hellraiser represented the struggle with the cycle of abuse-- picking up the habits that hurt and damaged oneself, or setting them down and rejecting the pain and suffering of others as a form of pleasure. The cenobites themselves are more of a force of nature than individual persons, and they can be diverted like a flow of water but never 'stopped' or 'destroyed'. The cube reminds me of the puzzle that is life and discovering oneself and the world. What is good? What is bad? Those are questions we struggle with, even when right and wrong feel straightforward. Julia loses herself in that struggle, but Kirsty is able to set that legacy down and embrace compassion as a form of love
Ive always looked at this film and the novella as a dark love story. Frank was able to seduce and change Julia with just one encounter is powerful stuff.
It’s so easy to judge Julia for being an absolute fool but then I remember how many guys strung me along in my 20s. Thank god none of them were nearly as bad as Frank or who knows? I may have been an accomplice to murder just like Julia 😂.
@@suzybearheart530 Julia was also married to a guy that she just wasn't interested in either, even though it's seen that her husband (who was Frank's brother) didn't seem to be a bad guy, he just happened to have a bad boy brother that Julia was actually interested in. I always saw that Julia was very bored and unsatisfied in her love life, and Frank was that spark for her
After reading Eric LaRocca’s “Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke,” it reminded me of and greatly recontextualized Hellraiser as this dark, twisted romance.
First Hellraiser is like the first Alien movie. It's pretty much flawless. I will absolutely die on the hill that it's the best individual film out of any of the major horror franchises. If that's a controversial opinion then I think people are failing to appreciate the acting. All of the leads in this are excellent. Far as I'm concerned Andrew Robinson and Claire Higgins are underappreciated actors.
It's just such a good standalone film. It was complete and told a full story. It didn't need all those insane sequels which just tarnished the reputation of the franchise
i just thought that hellraiser and hellraiser 2 are like alien and aliens: the sequel is totally worthy of the original, bigger, stronger, but adds just enough to be a good watch on its own. and like alien, the other sequels fell off a cliff
I agree on the excellence of the first film (haven't seen the second), but something about the dialogue in Barker's work takes me out of it from time to time. It's not the actors, as I've run into this in his books as well. Doesn't affect my enjoyment but certainly my immersion.
@@iusedtowrite6667 I think the second one is worth watching and closes the story off much tighter. It picks up like the second after the first ends and ends with SPOILER the Cenobites dying. I just choose to accept that as the end.
I recently rewatched this and I completely agree, it's amazing! The weird chemistry between the step mom and daughter, the 80s style acting, the re-growing attic man. So weird but so good
After watching Hellraiser I was just imagining all the cool thing that could be done. Someone gets trapped in the Cenobites original dimension and then they're like "Is this hell?!?" And then pinhead sighs as if he's tired of being misconstrued and says calmly "Whether this is heaven or hell depends only on how much you can handle." Then he summons the tentacl- I mean chains.
My read on Julia was never that she loved Frank per se, just that her excited her in some carnal taboo manner she was socially and emotionally unable to come to terms with. Her marriage with Larry is uncomfortable and loveless because she doesn’t communicate her needs to him; moreover we see in flashbacks that Julia is entranced by Frank even when he acts dangerous or threatening like when he switchblades her nightgown off. Larry even says to her he doesn’t understand her because her indecisive attitude confuses him.
I think it's the perfect time for Hollywood to adapt more of Clive Barker's stuff. I could see his stuff be made into a HBO max series. Like recently, Sandman got a great Netflix show. (And while yes, I know those are very different). It just shows there are audiences for more interesting stuff
while i can see some of his work doing amazingly (the book of the art trilogy would be a phenomenal series, and i'd love to see sacrament adapted now that queer media has really picked up) but there are some of his works that are completely unadaptable. mister b gone is a favorite of mine that simply wouldn't work in any other medium, and i feel like adapting imajicka (though it would be fascinating) would rob it of some of its power as a story. abarat, though, has needed to be adapted for ages.
Back in the 90s, a lot of his work was adapted into comics - especially from Eclipse Comics in a series called Tapping the Vein. Marvel creators also did some interesting work in expanding the Hellraiser mythos in a Hellraiser comic series about the same time. For that matter, Barker and Marvel produced a line of comics in the early 90s called Razorline. I think Marvel owns the rights to those characters. It's a shame Disney will probably never make those into movies.
Hellraiser is definitely, hands down, one of my favorite horror movies. The demonic/eldritch feeling to Pinhead and the cenobites. And I enjoyed how the second movie added the twist that the cenobites were once just normal people instead of ancient entities
I was literally planning to watch this as part of my Halloween horror movie binge! Love your videos. You somehow manage to make your videos better and better!
Based on the intro section of this video, it sounds very much like you would enjoy Barker's books rather than the movie adaptations. Most of the movies showcase the fantastic grotesqueness of the novel but they are so much more complex than what is conveyed in the movies.
I'm confused -- I read the novella and watched the original film almost back-to-back and they're pretty close. The new one had almost nothing in common with the book.
@@josephmayfield945 the new one is the third best in the franchise. not a great or grand claim to be fair. but saying it's abysmal is a stretch given it's closer in tone to the first two than any of the others and has decent acting, writing and effects.
I find the first movie in particular gives a VERY different experience when you watch it at different times of life. I find entirely different themes and characters stand out as a man pushing 50 than I did watching it asa young horror fan when it first came out.
I remember the first time I ever watched Hellraiser I thought it was just okay. It was a fine movie but I thought I covered it watching it the one time. I decided to revisit it last year and now I’m in love with it. I’m so in awe of Clive Barker’s creativity. The world and characters he created are so unique and evocative that it’s no wonder it’s such a cornerstone in Horror popular culture
All these years and it still has this air of taboo, horror and intimacy which is all the more unfortunate why I think it is arguably the most disrespected franchise by film studios from all those spec scripts.
The sequels have their audience but they sort of miss the point of the toxic human drama from the first and focus on the Cenobites. The first sequel dives deep into the hell dimension the Cenobites came from and offers up a lot of fan service.
I was always too scared to watch these movies, but as a teen I worked in a movie store and was OBSESSED with reading the backs of horror films. I love this channel for letting me vicariously experience what I was too afraid to do on my own
One of my favorite horror movies. It still holds up and while hulu's hellraiser was really good the original outshines it in how uncomfortable it is. It does a better job of connecting the human drama to the horror.
Hey mate, great video as always. For the sequels just watch the second one then don't bother with the rest, seriously the second one is crazy good and picks up hours after the first halloween II style
I can't believe it took so long for me to see this movie, because it instantly became one of my top 5 favorite horrors of all time. An absolutely perfect example of why practical effects STILL beat CGI to this day, and goddamn, they could not have gotten a better actor for Frank. Not many ppl can pull off that level of sexy as a goopy, skinless corpse, but he hit it out of the park. It's for these reasons that I'm nervous to see the remake, but it can't be any worse than the sequels, I suppose…
Ryan I have to say, I love your videos. Could you do a breakdown on the themes of Donnie Darko for October? I know the videos on Donnie Darko are few and far between and every one has differing levels of quality and opinions on what the movie is about and how it works. I would LOVE to hear your take on it. Also... The move has a Halloween scene so it fits the season.
I would love to see this! I adore horror but for some reason Donnie Darko scared me so bad I had to ask me older sister if I could sleep over because I was too scared to go home 😅. I was 20 years old at the time 😅
Not a bad idea. It's one of those movies that falls through the cracks in my memory from time to time, but once somebody reminds me about it, it spends days bouncing around in my brain like a demented rabbit before slipping back into the cracks.
hoyever... you should check out Clive Barker's Night Breed. I think you might get some real joy out of this movie if you have even a hint of the weird and macabre inside you. Or did you cover that one already?
I also decided to watch the first two movies before watching the new version and I must say, The scene in the second movie where the doctor hands the knife to the patient and he starts cutting himself is still painful to watch.
Glad you loved this so much! It's one of my favorites as well. I feel like because of the endless string of sequels, it gets lumped into the slasher category where Pinhead is a scary horror monster trying to kill people, but the first film is way more of a psychosexual thriller. I absolutely love how the Cenobites aren't the true villains of this story, and the true conflict is between a girl and her wicked stepmother. And Julia Cotton is one of the most ICONIC horror movie monsters. That image of her at 7:37 is forever seared into my mind! It also has this interesting place in queer horror history, being heavily inspired by Barker's experiences as a sex worker and the leather S&M scene, despite the film not having any canonically LGBT characters. The Cenobites are androgynous S&M demons who appear fearsome, but ultimately aren't the villains of the story, which sort of plays off the unfounded fears that Reagan/Thatcher society had towards those communities at the time.
I'm a big fan of Clive Barker. Not movies based on his writing, but his actual writing. The first Hellraiser movie may have changed and added a lot of things, but I feel it's still very true to the spirit of his work - the large focus on human drama which is then made more intense by the presence of the supernatural is something I've come to expect with him. Unforgiving visceral horror supporting incredibly flawed humans as they love and harm each other is the key thing.
One fact that can't be overlooked lest you go full death of the author (valid but less interesting in this case imo) is that Barker draws heavily from a certain brach of philosophy with figures like Fouccoult and most notably Georges Bataille, the latter of which is a clear and direct inspiration for a lot of barkers works. He is exploring themes of transgression, and the unity of death and sensuality, as well as the "limit experience" where pain and pleasure become so intense they melt togeather. I reccomend a video called: "Hellraiser, bataille and limit experiences" here on youtube. It is a great companion piece to this video, and quite accessible for a video that involves philosophy.
As sad as I am that the censorship has to happen to skirt around UA-cam guidelines, I'm personally very thankful for it because I am a very squeamish person but love these essays. Barely any of these movies would I choose to watch, but your takes on them are so interesting.
My intro to Clive Barker was reading his YA series Abarat in elementary school. I went to a book signing and gave him the book report I did on the first volume. He was honored and so sweet he even drew me a picture inside my book! …Was rather a shock to grow up and find out what made him famous.
Something that should be mentioned (both as a trigger warning for SA survivors and to talk about another creepy aspect when the book was adapted to film) is that Frank is also very much a human monster when it comes to Kirsty . In the book, Kirsty is just a friend of Larry's, and his "come to Daddy" line at the end just imply he's a creep to any woman he meets. In the movie, by having Kirsty be Larry's daughter and thus Frank's niece, the implications about Frank's "come to Daddy" line at the end are even worse... 0_0
I watch the first three Hellraiser movies last year. I was interested because Doug Bradley was in it and I loved his performance as the Sith Emporor in SWTOR. He does not disappoint, for the brief time his character is on screen he commands attention.
I would love to hear your thoughts on the sequels! Most of the straight to dvd installments weren't even originally intended to be Hellraiser films, but the studio wanted to maintain the rights to the series and did nonsensical touch-up work. As you can imagine that led to all sorts of internal inconsistencies in regards to what the Cenobites really are motivation wise. Also, Clive Barker wrote a proper sequel called The Scarlet Gospels that was fucking killer and had what may be my favorite depiction of Hell in fiction seeing as it felt like a fleshed out society with a laid out hierarchy. I want to see Dom Noble do a video on Hellraiser but he's squeamish so you might have to assist him. PS please review the director's cut of Mimic.
I always liked how detached the cenobites are. They really don’t care what the couple does, but the job to bring back Frank. You chose to meet us and now you’re stuck with us. You don’t get to leave. The couple destroyed many lives but that’s on them. Pinhead and Co. just need Frank back.
I kept thinking you were saying "Xenobites" which given how the xenomorph and Cenobites are based on sexualized drawings from artists like H R. Giger and Clive Barker would be a pretty cool mashup.
the fact that it's my birthday too and I legit did a double take because I had this on in the background and had to take a minute to confirm that no, Ryan did not just wish me specifically a happy birthday. 10/10 scariest thing in the video.
The character study elements are actually *why* I am a Clive Barker fan. In all of the works of his I've read, the exploration (and the creatures if there are any) are very much about people. Weird Damn Things look and act the way they do because they say something about how we think and feel. So I think you're spot on about this stuff! Barker's extremes of fantastical imagery are unique in how much you can interpret them as aspects of the psyche, and in some of the works it's part of the story itself (Imagica especially). I've avoided the Hellraiser sequels past 2 (which I begrudgingly love), because the core idea of the cenobites in my mind is that they have to maintain this not-quite-readable psychosexual mystique, and when I heard about a DJ throwing killer CDs around in 3, I knew the thread was lost. 2 is incredibly bizarre in places and can be a bit sloppy, but it continues the ideas of exploring the extremes of the mind in a couple interesting ways. I also don't like connecting them so closely with the Christian mythology, so anything that moved in that direction didn't get my interest. I'm about to watch the new take on Hulu, because it sounds like there's some interesting thinking going into it. If they pull it off I will be delighted; it's specifically one of my most loved horror settings.
Im not just saying this because it's thanksgiving in Canada but Ryan you are truly awesome and i am grateful for you. Your movie analyses have always done an amazing job of exposing the themes of movies I enjoy for their rich layers, but just never have time to analyze myself. This one is especially excellent, well done mate.
So a thought occurred to me about the primary antagonist of this movie, Frank. From the information we get, it doesn't seem like a stretch to say that Frank is likely a psychopath. That somewhat antiquated term provokes a strong reaction, but I do genuinely believe he is intended to have Anti-Social Personality Disorder (the actual term for sociopathy and psychopathy). What really struck me though was that a while back, I learned people with ASPD will often engage in risky behavior, sometimes to an extreme extent, for stimulation because they can't get that the way neurotypical people do. When he and Julia meet again, he tells her that he sought out the puzzle box, the Lament Configuration, to seek out pleasure, pain, or both. We're also given enough information and context to know that his affair with Julia, while intense, was a means to an end for him. As horrifying as Frank's actions are, it strikes me that he's as tragic a figure as anyone else in the story. One can interpret his actions and behavior as an attempt to seek out something that makes him feel "normal".
I saw it again a few weeks ago, the ending when you think about it is.. weird. So Frank doesn't even have the time to raise his arms that chains hold him but Kristy has the time to solve the puzzle in front of pinhead to send him back. I mean the cenobites at the end just seems powerless. I blew air out of my nose at the ending 'fight'
This movie helped me discover that my pet rabbit actually pays attention to what’s on tv. I always figured my pets didn’t care about what was playing but when I was watching Hellraiser and the climax of the movie happened where Frank gets torn apart my rabbit sprinted into the other room and started stomping (which rabbits do when they are upset). I felt bad but now I know to not watch spooky stuff around her at least
Super happy to see you cover one of my all-time faves Ryan. Hellraiser 1 & 2 are masterpieces in what they are trying to do. The third one? Schlocky nonsense. Bloodlines was ambitious and with a better script could have been a great end capstone to the series. Alas. One can only hope that the new version of Pinhead will also have such sights to show us.
The subtle parts of you holding the liquor bottle are great gags and an excellent example of show don't tell. You got a real sense of the movie's impact on you. Well done!
Sean Chapman (The actor who played Frank Cotton) was also in Scum. His character in that film was involved in "That" scene. He also voiced Psycho in the Crysis games.
I'm a massive Hellraiser fan and I really adored the first movie even with the changes made from the book. I think it gave us a great solid foundation of the hell world to build off of and I love that they never specified whether or not they were angels or demons, since it's all up to who views them. Later on in the movies it turned into the focus of cenobites being demons from hell, but still! And I think something we can all appreciate about the newest one Hulu put out (whether we all liked it as a whole or not) is that the cenobites designs were closer to the source material with the flesh being pulled and carved into the clothing rather than the leather inside the movies. Oh yeah and I'm glad you finally re-visited the first movie after so long! I sometimes forget just how much I adore it until I go back to it. Then again I love pretty much anything from Clive Barker so of course I would say so 😂
I tried watching it 11 times but I never finished it because I always fell asleep, until one day my wife made me coffee and I finally got to watch it all the way. My reaction…. It’s awesome lol
Aside: The sequence featuring the creature coming down the hallway after the nightclub gives me flash forwards to an ending sequence from In the Mouth of Madness...
Hey Ryan! The Algorithm hasn't been letting me know about your newer work. I'm disappointed it didn't, but excited to see your new work! I hope you're doing well. You were one of my favorites, back in the day. Glad to see you again!
So I just watched a film called R-Point. I cannot recommend it enough. It's a K horror that fallows a group of Vietnam soldiers as they go looking for a missing squad that has been missing for 6 months. It's a great 'Soldiers Vs.' movie that has amazing atmosphere and scares. It is lesser known but I urge you to check it out it's a hidden gem that deserves more recognition.
SPOILERS!!! The first and second movies both focused on lore building, which was the most important part. The second movie showed us their dimension, showed us that they even have a god of their own that runs things and how cenobites are chosen and created. When a child in the mental institution who solves puzzles was cowardly exploited to open the puzzle box for Julia and Channard, Pinhead refused to take her soul as he was aware that it was not HER desires that wanted the box to be opened - but Julia and Dr. Channard. This was an important scene as it re emphasised that they were not stereotypical slasher villains that killed for fun, but logical beings that mearly collected the souls that opened the box wanting to sate their desires. It was interesting to learn who all the cenobites once were at the end, but if you've read the books then you know that Leviathan would not have just killed off Pinhead and his gash to replace them with a bigger, badder cenobite because their God highly favoured Pinhead (Xipe Totec) The Hell Priest. That should also have been where the movie series ended as none of the other movies actually contributed anything important to the Hellraiser lore. The 3rd movie was just a 90's slasher gore fest that made no sense at all. Main character Joey has vivid dreams of her father being shot and dying in combat - yet she never actually met this father, but "human Pinhead" some how reaches out to her through her dreams of the imaginary combat death (since he was once a soldier) and an old ham radio she conveniently has. "Evil Pinhead" even impersonates the father she never met - talking an everything - and she completely believes it's her father. Makes no sense. The 4th movie was a chaotic mess that really should have been three seperate movies as it confusingly time jumped from the 1700s, to the present to like 2030, but ultimately contributed nothing. We learn who made the box in the fourth movie, which makes no sense as in the 2nd movie there were multiple boxes shown. A "princess from hell" was summoned into a human form, who Pinhead got bored with and made into a cenobite any way so she's actually pointless. In the far future apparently Pinhead and ONE box are destroyed (again, there were multiple boxes on Channards desk in his house in the second movie so the 4th movie means nothing). The rest of the movies were random scripts where they just shoe horned Hellraiser in and they were absolutely aweful in my opinion. But that's just my brief take on the movies. Have a great day/night all👍
My favorite thing about the original is the spectacular practical effects. I love being able to see a huge animatronic or gore scene and then going back to watch it with the pause button, and try to guess how it was made or how the effects were done. I do think there's a place for CGI in horror but basing it around a frame of decent quality practical effects is the only way to go about it imo
For me, what makes _Hellraiser_ so effective is partly that the monstrous looking characters are not truly the monsters of the story. The Cenobites are instruments sent to corral the true evil of the story - Frank - and the other characters of the film generally end up as collateral damage. Frank does most of the truly evil stuff, while the Cenobites do what they do because it is a part of their faith and societal fabric, and like any zealot worth their salt, they know they can convert you to their way of thinking with enough time. That's a level of depth in what other movies would portray as the main antagonists that it gives _Hellraiser_ a wonderful flavor that is just absent from most slasher films. And then the _Hellraiser_ sequels happened, and did away with all of that nuance. Instead, they turned the Hell Priest into a standard-fare, run-of-the-mill psycho simply intent on racking up a body count.
I actually saw this movie for the first time last year, and found myself really quite surprised. All the imagery and clips and the focus people give the film, I had honestly assumed it was ABOUT the Cenobites, only to find that most of the story was about someone resurrecting their undead lover via serial killing.
The first one will forever be the most creepiest derainged scariest classic It didn't try to romanticize hell it showed you how your deepest darkest desires can be used against you in hell!
"Love conquers all [...] except it is poisonous and hurts and kills everything around it" Is a perfect description of "The story of the eye" by Georges Bataille. An erotic horror written by a disturbing french philosopher, where erotisism is the villain. Clive Barker (writer of "Hellbound heart", and director of the movie hellraiser based on his book) had read Bataille, and it's funny that the description of one mans work is even more apt to his inspiration.
Your story of watching it as a kid reminds me of my own lol. I watched it one Halloween in my early teens and was absolutely blown away with its visual spectacle
Oh, such delightful trauma. Pinhead gave me permission as a child to be scared and watch anyway. He was the first monster my child mind turned into a friend. I read The Hellbound Heart, and am a forever fan. I love the new Hell-priest. Long may she reign.
I need to read more Clive Barker to see if that's just a running theme. I've tried reading Damnation Game, but my first foray into him was on my brother's suggestion, his first Children's book, "The Thief of Always". Nice easy read with a similar story to Hellraiser. Except replace the adult theme with a child wanting to escape the british winter and gets visited by a mysterious figure that promises a house where all your wishes come true, known as the Holiday House. Won't go into more, since it's a genuinely good book, and sadly has been in movie production limbo for over 2 decades now.
Just saw this for the first time yesterday. What a creative and disturbing film. It’s interesting how the main antagonist is not Cenobites, but rather Frank. Frank’s destructive desires are the driving force of the plot. The Cenobites are more the extreme manifestation of the sexuality and violence that drives the main characters.
The moment film makers decided to try to turn Pinhead into another Freddy Krueger was the death rattle of the franchise. Doug Bradley deserved so much better.
*Comment your requests below! ... also, if you want uncensored early access, please consider supporting me on Patreon: **www.patreon.com/ryanhollinger*
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Still hoping for Repo the Genetic Opera or As the Gods Will
Hey man keep up the good work I love your videos!
I'm still holding out for that Night in the Woods and Pink Floyd's The Wall review.
As Above, So Below (2014)
Mr. Jones (2013)
Underworld series (2003-2017)
Soulmate (2013)
Spike (2008)
Frankenstein (2015) directed by Candyman's Bernard Rose
Please do a video about the movie BUG
I love the depiction of Hell as a geometric nightmare of endless walls, never knowing what might be wandering around inside them
Damn, now that's a nightmarish concept...
Very liminal space horror which is popular right now.
Enter the Backrooms....
That’s just the Labyrinth. There are other places within the “Hell,” which Barker explores further in some comic books. Yet, even within those, he eventually hands the story over to other writers, who eventually go with a more standard ongoing narrative.
It's not Hell, though.
The cool thing about the original is that the Cenobites really AREN’T the main villains. That’s Frank and Julia. The Cenobites are more just an “interested third party.”
Also their entire concept is fascinating in general.
yep, they're not 'evil', they're entirely amoral, which was lost as the franchise progressed as the writers and directors just leant into the bdsm edgelord angle of pinhead and made him just another slasher film antagonist.
Y'all can blame Weinstein And dimension films for ruining the Hellraiser sequels
"interested third party" is the best description I've ever seen of the Cenobites, thank you for this.
@@anyotherdayortime I would still describe them as evil. Just more closer to being neutral evil as opposed to intentionally going out of their way to be malicious just for malicious sake
@@CoOlKyUbI96 in both book and 1st movie they are explicitly not evil, just so removed from humanity that they no longer understand the differences between pleasure and pain. They’re alien and outside morality, not intentionally malicious.
Honestly, Hellraiser is a franchise that has suffered most from the popularity of its main villain. Things like Friday the 13th, Child’s Play and Elm Street either are self-aware enough to know their place as straight up bloody slashers with horny teens or by having a highly charismatic villain. Pinhead simply cannot carry a franchise on his own because his existence was always as a secret final boss to the actual human experience.
Agreed, but the few times he does appear, I'd consider Pinhead charismatic but in a Shakespearean sense, while Freddy and Chucky have a more smartass and charming flair to them.
Jason, on the other hand, is a killing machine, but I wouldn't consider him charismatic in any sense, especially cause he never says a thing.
The sequels also miss the point of Pinhead, being a guide to your most wanted pleasures.
Pinhead isn't the type of character that can carry a franchise like other mentioned villains. Most others can work as a slasher to some degree. But the cenobites don't work as a straight up horror. The humans usually are the villains in hellraiser series.
Pinhead was never meant to be a lead villain but his candor and eloquence is what made him the iconic character he has become. Jason, Freddy, Myers, and few others films were character driven from the beginning. Pinhead is the leader of a group of "explorers" who grant perverse desires to whomever solves the box.
Kinda reminds me of what happened with Pyramid Head in the Silent Hill franchise. He was originally meant to just be James Sunderland's symbolic monster, but ended up becoming one of the most iconic monsters of the whole franchise (the faceless nurses also being iconic monsters).
The special thing about Hellraiser is it’s not the cenobites that are the villains, but Julia and Frank. The cenobites are like watchers interested in humans and how they deal with emotions like betrayal and curiosity
Help! My home is infested by giant demonic pigs with glowing red eyes!! *HELP!!*
In a sense they are also Baliffs and Debt Collectors ensuring that those involved pay the bill that is due.
They also *generally* operate in terms of consent. It's kind of a twisted version of consent where you can't go back on it, and the terms aren't explicitly clear, but by solving the box you are consenting to the extreme pains and pleasures the Cenobites will treat you to. Julia and Frank, however, just kill indiscriminately.
This is something that becomes less and less true in the sequels, which is truly disappointing.
@@looney1023 like signing a contract?
One thing from Clive Barker's original story that never makes it into adaptations is that solving the lament configuration doesn't just summon the cenobites, it heightens the senses of whoever solves it. That's why Frank sought it out in the first place; he was a hedonist who overindulged to the point of numbing himself, and was seeking out ways to experience new forms of pleasure. That adds to the sadism of the cenobites, they don't just torture you, they make you extra sensitive to stimulation first.
Something I like in the 2022 reboot is the reveal at the end: when the protagonist refuses the gifts of the cenobites, and walks away, they are informed that is itself choosing a "gift" - the Lament Configuration, which involves psychological, rather than physical, suffering. The person who chooses this carries the weight having been on the threshold of higher experience, only to turn away from it.
While such experience may be horrifying from the perspective of most mortals, it would still be a kind of torture to forever wonder if there was in fact a higher consciousness and existence that is now lost.
@@bluedotdinosaur the new hellraiser movie is really good.
@@bluedotdinosaur that is part of why I liked the new one. They leaned more into the horror that is the Cenobite modus operandi, extreme pain/sensation. That while the pain/pleasure line is malleable, the Cenobites start at the far end of the pain side. It also felt more self contained than the original. You got enough lore for any burning questions while making you want to know more, the puzzle box in particular. You got a reason why the box exists. Maybe not all the information but enough to work with.
@@spudthepug which one is the reboot? Is it the one with a female pinhead involving AI or something like that? (I genuinely don't know as there's so many sequels and at least one reboot I know if)
@@QuasiKnobby The 2022 one which is a complete reboot and changes some concepts but is still a great hellraiser movie
The scene where Kirsty makes the puzzle box work and opens up a rift in the wall is one of my favorite sequences in horror because it's allowed to escalate for so long: She walks down that endless corridor and encounter a hideous... "thing" inside. She runs for it and fights herself back out again. We expect her to be safe, but then things get WORSE with the arrival of the cenobites!
My life has been a complete and total misery ever since Bigfoot stole my precious girlfriend in the middle of the night.😏He even took all her clothes and the T.V.😔
Calling the Chatterer “baby Nemesis” fucking killed me lol.
🎯🤣😭😭
Ironically, Chatterer was the inspiration for Nemesis.
Personally, I think the first movie is closer to the source materials than the next movies. The cenobytes in the first movie really embodied Clive's wanting of cenobyte to be no more than fair demons, unlike the next installations wherein Pinhead are more revenge driven, gore fest
The sequels ruin the mysticism surrounding the cenobites. They turn the other worldy creatures into basic revenge driven characters.
@@iusedtowrite6667 What do you mean with revenge driven? In the second one, pinhead said they were summoned by desire not revenge.
The second one stayed somewhat close to that concept. Pinhead stops the others from taking the girl who solved the box because he realized that someone else had her do it for them. And while they’re still somewhat hostile to Kirsty, from the dialogue it’s implied that they think that she’s “teasing” them.
@@baronsengir187 I'm talking about the later sequels. When they literally start targeting people for revengish purposes basically. Like instead of being these other wordly creatures, they get turned into basic villains trying to kill the protagonist
I also don't really get "revenge-driven" from the later movies. In some movies they're just monsters who kill and slaughter for fun, and in others they are somehow the arbiters of judeo-christian morality, literal devils from literal biblical hell, which is like the worst direction to take them. But I don't remember revenge.
I have to laugh how Modern UA-cam has to blur out Pinheads chest clothing and wounds 🤣🤣🤣
The world has gone mad!
@@RyanHollinger I know mate it's such a sad state of affairs 👍. Plus it must be a nightmare for content creators.
Ryan Hollinger has such sights to show you. And such HOYEVERS to tell you.
😂😂 you stop that
More than anything, I love the fact that the Cenobites aren't inherently evil, just doing their job: "Angels to some, Demons to others". It really puts more of the scales of good and evil under the control of the human characters.
I think its funny how he mentions the cenobites are only in the film for less than 10 minutes.
Horror knows how to use its time for monsters.
Perfect example is the bride in "bride of Frankenstein"
It is a legendary monster that you can instantly recognize. 3 minutes of screen time. Freddy krueger became an instant horror icon after his first appearance, just 7 minutes.
There are no small parts, only small actors haha
Hellraiser is such a simple movie when you really look at it but it totally nails the grimy, speedy, and macabre underworld it set out to create.
Can we just appreciate the whiskey-cuddling From Ryan in This episode? A true Irishman if I ever Saw one.
Its lambs navy rum
God, I love the first two Hellraiser Movies, they're such a great balance of eldricht cosmic horror, gore spectacle and nuanced human drama.
You make a very interesting point here about how memory can distort, recreate, or entirely conjure scenes from past films, and when you go back and watch it many years later, not only is it not how you remember, it's a whole different movie.
Also, there are only two horror/thriller films that have ever left me speechless after the film, where I had to absorb the madness I had just witnessed and try to understand why it felt more real than real; arcane things deep in the dark recesses of the mind, things that make sense for all the wrong reasons. Those two films were Hellraiser and Blue Velvet.
We've seen so much shit since then ir just pales in comparison, its still great in the context of its time though
Can you tell me an experience you had like that? I used to be a film buff and I've never had the experience myself, I still remember films I watched when I was 8 and though some don't have the same impact, they never lost their meaning I had when watching them as a child.
To me, Hellraiser represented the struggle with the cycle of abuse-- picking up the habits that hurt and damaged oneself, or setting them down and rejecting the pain and suffering of others as a form of pleasure. The cenobites themselves are more of a force of nature than individual persons, and they can be diverted like a flow of water but never 'stopped' or 'destroyed'. The cube reminds me of the puzzle that is life and discovering oneself and the world. What is good? What is bad? Those are questions we struggle with, even when right and wrong feel straightforward. Julia loses herself in that struggle, but Kirsty is able to set that legacy down and embrace compassion as a form of love
Ive always looked at this film and the novella as a dark love story. Frank was able to seduce and change Julia with just one encounter is powerful stuff.
I got Cronenberg's The Fly vibes from the way the story was told, but framed from such an inverted perspective.
It’s so easy to judge Julia for being an absolute fool but then I remember how many guys strung me along in my 20s. Thank god none of them were nearly as bad as Frank or who knows? I may have been an accomplice to murder just like Julia 😂.
@@suzybearheart530 Julia was also married to a guy that she just wasn't interested in either, even though it's seen that her husband (who was Frank's brother) didn't seem to be a bad guy, he just happened to have a bad boy brother that Julia was actually interested in. I always saw that Julia was very bored and unsatisfied in her love life, and Frank was that spark for her
After reading Eric LaRocca’s “Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke,” it reminded me of and greatly recontextualized Hellraiser as this dark, twisted romance.
@@RyanHollinger at 2:00 you flash '666' satanist dog whistle hand sign. Are you a satanist or just paid by them?
First Hellraiser is like the first Alien movie. It's pretty much flawless. I will absolutely die on the hill that it's the best individual film out of any of the major horror franchises. If that's a controversial opinion then I think people are failing to appreciate the acting. All of the leads in this are excellent. Far as I'm concerned Andrew Robinson and Claire Higgins are underappreciated actors.
It's just such a good standalone film. It was complete and told a full story. It didn't need all those insane sequels which just tarnished the reputation of the franchise
i just thought that hellraiser and hellraiser 2 are like alien and aliens: the sequel is totally worthy of the original, bigger, stronger, but adds just enough to be a good watch on its own.
and like alien, the other sequels fell off a cliff
I agree on the excellence of the first film (haven't seen the second), but something about the dialogue in Barker's work takes me out of it from time to time. It's not the actors, as I've run into this in his books as well. Doesn't affect my enjoyment but certainly my immersion.
@@iusedtowrite6667 I think the second one is worth watching and closes the story off much tighter. It picks up like the second after the first ends and ends with SPOILER the Cenobites dying. I just choose to accept that as the end.
I recently rewatched this and I completely agree, it's amazing! The weird chemistry between the step mom and daughter, the 80s style acting, the re-growing attic man. So weird but so good
Such a dark, brutal and awesome film.
Right after Videodrome and The Thing my favourite bodyhorror movie
The Cenobites are so neat as they just sort of... Exist. They aren't evil, they just are and that makes them freakier
After watching Hellraiser I was just imagining all the cool thing that could be done.
Someone gets trapped in the Cenobites original dimension and then they're like "Is this hell?!?"
And then pinhead sighs as if he's tired of being misconstrued and says calmly "Whether this is heaven or hell depends only on how much you can handle."
Then he summons the tentacl- I mean chains.
My read on Julia was never that she loved Frank per se, just that her excited her in some carnal taboo manner she was socially and emotionally unable to come to terms with. Her marriage with Larry is uncomfortable and loveless because she doesn’t communicate her needs to him; moreover we see in flashbacks that Julia is entranced by Frank even when he acts dangerous or threatening like when he switchblades her nightgown off. Larry even says to her he doesn’t understand her because her indecisive attitude confuses him.
I think it's the perfect time for Hollywood to adapt more of Clive Barker's stuff. I could see his stuff be made into a HBO max series. Like recently, Sandman got a great Netflix show. (And while yes, I know those are very different). It just shows there are audiences for more interesting stuff
Many of Clive Barker 's 📚 are perfect for shows or miniseries
@@jonathanmulondo9206 Exactly. Movies cannot do the material justice. A mini-series would be perfect
Start slow, make The Thief of Always as a dark fantasy miniseries!
while i can see some of his work doing amazingly (the book of the art trilogy would be a phenomenal series, and i'd love to see sacrament adapted now that queer media has really picked up) but there are some of his works that are completely unadaptable. mister b gone is a favorite of mine that simply wouldn't work in any other medium, and i feel like adapting imajicka (though it would be fascinating) would rob it of some of its power as a story.
abarat, though, has needed to be adapted for ages.
Back in the 90s, a lot of his work was adapted into comics - especially from Eclipse Comics in a series called Tapping the Vein. Marvel creators also did some interesting work in expanding the Hellraiser mythos in a Hellraiser comic series about the same time. For that matter, Barker and Marvel produced a line of comics in the early 90s called Razorline. I think Marvel owns the rights to those characters. It's a shame Disney will probably never make those into movies.
Hellraiser is definitely, hands down, one of my favorite horror movies. The demonic/eldritch feeling to Pinhead and the cenobites. And I enjoyed how the second movie added the twist that the cenobites were once just normal people instead of ancient entities
I was literally planning to watch this as part of my Halloween horror movie binge! Love your videos. You somehow manage to make your videos better and better!
Based on the intro section of this video, it sounds very much like you would enjoy Barker's books rather than the movie adaptations. Most of the movies showcase the fantastic grotesqueness of the novel but they are so much more complex than what is conveyed in the movies.
I read the book to the point of memorization when I was 14. I'm so glad the new one is returning more to the Novel, especially with female cenobites.
The new movie is inferior, imo.
@@tophers3756 I loved it but I totally understand not embracing it, especially with decades of the original in the cultural consciousness.
I'm confused -- I read the novella and watched the original film almost back-to-back and they're pretty close. The new one had almost nothing in common with the book.
The new one is absolutely abysmal.
@@josephmayfield945 the new one is the third best in the franchise. not a great or grand claim to be fair. but saying it's abysmal is a stretch given it's closer in tone to the first two than any of the others and has decent acting, writing and effects.
I find the first movie in particular gives a VERY different experience when you watch it at different times of life. I find entirely different themes and characters stand out as a man pushing 50 than I did watching it asa young horror fan when it first came out.
I remember the first time I ever watched Hellraiser I thought it was just okay. It was a fine movie but I thought I covered it watching it the one time. I decided to revisit it last year and now I’m in love with it. I’m so in awe of Clive Barker’s creativity. The world and characters he created are so unique and evocative that it’s no wonder it’s such a cornerstone in Horror popular culture
I haven't seen the movie but I did read the book and all I can say is "Wow..." It changed a hell of a lot but kept the best parts.
All these years and it still has this air of taboo, horror and intimacy which is all the more unfortunate why I think it is arguably the most disrespected franchise by film studios from all those spec scripts.
I'm just imagining Ryan jogging in his Raycons to the Halloween theme.
The sequels have their audience but they sort of miss the point of the toxic human drama from the first and focus on the Cenobites. The first sequel dives deep into the hell dimension the Cenobites came from and offers up a lot of fan service.
I was always too scared to watch these movies, but as a teen I worked in a movie store and was OBSESSED with reading the backs of horror films. I love this channel for letting me vicariously experience what I was too afraid to do on my own
Thanks for covering the family dynamic portion of Hellraiser! Julia and Frank alone could be a movie in itself.
One of my favorite horror movies. It still holds up and while hulu's hellraiser was really good the original outshines it in how uncomfortable it is. It does a better job of connecting the human drama to the horror.
Both the original and New film 🎥 did a great job of showing the destruction caused by addiction
@@jonathanmulondo9206 I agree that the new one was good, but it still felt safe compared to the original. I enjoyed it though.
Your mention of Cronenberg reminded me to suggest you discuss Dead Ringers, which is my personal favourite by him.
Hey mate, great video as always. For the sequels just watch the second one then don't bother with the rest, seriously the second one is crazy good and picks up hours after the first halloween II style
I can't believe it took so long for me to see this movie, because it instantly became one of my top 5 favorite horrors of all time. An absolutely perfect example of why practical effects STILL beat CGI to this day, and goddamn, they could not have gotten a better actor for Frank. Not many ppl can pull off that level of sexy as a goopy, skinless corpse, but he hit it out of the park. It's for these reasons that I'm nervous to see the remake, but it can't be any worse than the sequels, I suppose…
Ryan I have to say, I love your videos. Could you do a breakdown on the themes of Donnie Darko for October? I know the videos on Donnie Darko are few and far between and every one has differing levels of quality and opinions on what the movie is about and how it works. I would LOVE to hear your take on it. Also... The move has a Halloween scene so it fits the season.
My Donnie Darko video has sat in limbo for over 5 years...
I would love to see this! I adore horror but for some reason Donnie Darko scared me so bad I had to ask me older sister if I could sleep over because I was too scared to go home 😅. I was 20 years old at the time 😅
Not a bad idea. It's one of those movies that falls through the cracks in my memory from time to time, but once somebody reminds me about it, it spends days bouncing around in my brain like a demented rabbit before slipping back into the cracks.
The first 2 Hellraisers are some of the best horror movies ever made.
hoyever... you should check out Clive Barker's Night Breed. I think you might get some real joy out of this movie if you have even a hint of the weird and macabre inside you. Or did you cover that one already?
I also decided to watch the first two movies before watching the new version and I must say, The scene in the second movie where the doctor hands the knife to the patient and he starts cutting himself is still painful to watch.
I found the second one scarier than the first because the doctor torturing and murdering patients was disturbing as hell.
In the 2nd film, "It is not hands that summon us. It is desire." is a great summary of the Cenobites' philosophy.
@@slimmccoy8863 I loved that scene, captures the true spirit of the Cenobites who got degraded to just "bad guys who kill"
Glad you loved this so much! It's one of my favorites as well.
I feel like because of the endless string of sequels, it gets lumped into the slasher category where Pinhead is a scary horror monster trying to kill people, but the first film is way more of a psychosexual thriller. I absolutely love how the Cenobites aren't the true villains of this story, and the true conflict is between a girl and her wicked stepmother. And Julia Cotton is one of the most ICONIC horror movie monsters. That image of her at 7:37 is forever seared into my mind!
It also has this interesting place in queer horror history, being heavily inspired by Barker's experiences as a sex worker and the leather S&M scene, despite the film not having any canonically LGBT characters. The Cenobites are androgynous S&M demons who appear fearsome, but ultimately aren't the villains of the story, which sort of plays off the unfounded fears that Reagan/Thatcher society had towards those communities at the time.
I'm a big fan of Clive Barker. Not movies based on his writing, but his actual writing. The first Hellraiser movie may have changed and added a lot of things, but I feel it's still very true to the spirit of his work - the large focus on human drama which is then made more intense by the presence of the supernatural is something I've come to expect with him. Unforgiving visceral horror supporting incredibly flawed humans as they love and harm each other is the key thing.
One fact that can't be overlooked lest you go full death of the author (valid but less interesting in this case imo) is that Barker draws heavily from a certain brach of philosophy with figures like Fouccoult and most notably Georges Bataille, the latter of which is a clear and direct inspiration for a lot of barkers works. He is exploring themes of transgression, and the unity of death and sensuality, as well as the "limit experience" where pain and pleasure become so intense they melt togeather. I reccomend a video called: "Hellraiser, bataille and limit experiences" here on youtube. It is a great companion piece to this video, and quite accessible for a video that involves philosophy.
As sad as I am that the censorship has to happen to skirt around UA-cam guidelines, I'm personally very thankful for it because I am a very squeamish person but love these essays. Barely any of these movies would I choose to watch, but your takes on them are so interesting.
My intro to Clive Barker was reading his YA series Abarat in elementary school. I went to a book signing and gave him the book report I did on the first volume. He was honored and so sweet he even drew me a picture inside my book! …Was rather a shock to grow up and find out what made him famous.
Something that should be mentioned (both as a trigger warning for SA survivors and to talk about another creepy aspect when the book was adapted to film) is that Frank is also very much a human monster when it comes to Kirsty . In the book, Kirsty is just a friend of Larry's, and his "come to Daddy" line at the end just imply he's a creep to any woman he meets. In the movie, by having Kirsty be Larry's daughter and thus Frank's niece, the implications about Frank's "come to Daddy" line at the end are even worse... 0_0
The newest Hellraiser was a trip, and I can't wait for you to eventually cover the Terrifier series.
I loved your take on this movie - I can't wait to hear your take on Hellraiser 2 because I find it much harder to pin down than the first one
I would love to see a retrospective on Psycho 2. A legacy sequel that is better than expected.
I watch the first three Hellraiser movies last year. I was interested because Doug Bradley was in it and I loved his performance as the Sith Emporor in SWTOR. He does not disappoint, for the brief time his character is on screen he commands attention.
It's about time Ryan, I have been waiting for this forever. Now our greatest BDSM nightmare can begin
We have such sights to show you!
@@suzybearheart530 something about tearing souls apart etc etc
I would love to hear your thoughts on the sequels! Most of the straight to dvd installments weren't even originally intended to be Hellraiser films, but the studio wanted to maintain the rights to the series and did nonsensical touch-up work. As you can imagine that led to all sorts of internal inconsistencies in regards to what the Cenobites really are motivation wise. Also, Clive Barker wrote a proper sequel called The Scarlet Gospels that was fucking killer and had what may be my favorite depiction of Hell in fiction seeing as it felt like a fleshed out society with a laid out hierarchy. I want to see Dom Noble do a video on Hellraiser but he's squeamish so you might have to assist him. PS please review the director's cut of Mimic.
I always liked how detached the cenobites are. They really don’t care what the couple does, but the job to bring back Frank. You chose to meet us and now you’re stuck with us. You don’t get to leave. The couple destroyed many lives but that’s on them. Pinhead and Co. just need Frank back.
I kept thinking you were saying "Xenobites" which given how the xenomorph and Cenobites are based on sexualized drawings from artists like H R. Giger and Clive Barker would be a pretty cool mashup.
the fact that it's my birthday too and I legit did a double take because I had this on in the background and had to take a minute to confirm that no, Ryan did not just wish me specifically a happy birthday. 10/10 scariest thing in the video.
The lambs in hand is rlly the best summary of what watching hellraiser is like tbh
I'd love to hear your thoughts on the movie 'The Cell' and how artful and unnerving the whole film is.
Yes, please
Style over substance. But what style!
The character study elements are actually *why* I am a Clive Barker fan. In all of the works of his I've read, the exploration (and the creatures if there are any) are very much about people.
Weird Damn Things look and act the way they do because they say something about how we think and feel.
So I think you're spot on about this stuff!
Barker's extremes of fantastical imagery are unique in how much you can interpret them as aspects of the psyche, and in some of the works it's part of the story itself (Imagica especially).
I've avoided the Hellraiser sequels past 2 (which I begrudgingly love), because the core idea of the cenobites in my mind is that they have to maintain this not-quite-readable psychosexual mystique, and when I heard about a DJ throwing killer CDs around in 3, I knew the thread was lost.
2 is incredibly bizarre in places and can be a bit sloppy, but it continues the ideas of exploring the extremes of the mind in a couple interesting ways.
I also don't like connecting them so closely with the Christian mythology, so anything that moved in that direction didn't get my interest.
I'm about to watch the new take on Hulu, because it sounds like there's some interesting thinking going into it.
If they pull it off I will be delighted; it's specifically one of my most loved horror settings.
Im not just saying this because it's thanksgiving in Canada but Ryan you are truly awesome and i am grateful for you. Your movie analyses have always done an amazing job of exposing the themes of movies I enjoy for their rich layers, but just never have time to analyze myself. This one is especially excellent, well done mate.
"Stay away from puzzle boxes -"
*Me who has the Lament Configuration on my shelf but is too stupid to figure out how to solve it* : "You got it bro".
So a thought occurred to me about the primary antagonist of this movie, Frank. From the information we get, it doesn't seem like a stretch to say that Frank is likely a psychopath. That somewhat antiquated term provokes a strong reaction, but I do genuinely believe he is intended to have Anti-Social Personality Disorder (the actual term for sociopathy and psychopathy). What really struck me though was that a while back, I learned people with ASPD will often engage in risky behavior, sometimes to an extreme extent, for stimulation because they can't get that the way neurotypical people do. When he and Julia meet again, he tells her that he sought out the puzzle box, the Lament Configuration, to seek out pleasure, pain, or both. We're also given enough information and context to know that his affair with Julia, while intense, was a means to an end for him. As horrifying as Frank's actions are, it strikes me that he's as tragic a figure as anyone else in the story. One can interpret his actions and behavior as an attempt to seek out something that makes him feel "normal".
YES! I've been a fan of Ryan's for years and always wanted to see what his take on Hellraiser is!
Ryan PLEASE talk about the 2022 reboot, Jaymie Clayton is such a good pinhead ;-;
I saw it again a few weeks ago, the ending when you think about it is.. weird. So Frank doesn't even have the time to raise his arms that chains hold him but Kristy has the time to solve the puzzle in front of pinhead to send him back. I mean the cenobites at the end just seems powerless. I blew air out of my nose at the ending 'fight'
Never heard the Chatterer called Baby Nemesis, and you said I wouldn't get anything new out of this!
This movie helped me discover that my pet rabbit actually pays attention to what’s on tv. I always figured my pets didn’t care about what was playing but when I was watching Hellraiser and the climax of the movie happened where Frank gets torn apart my rabbit sprinted into the other room and started stomping (which rabbits do when they are upset). I felt bad but now I know to not watch spooky stuff around her at least
Super happy to see you cover one of my all-time faves Ryan. Hellraiser 1 & 2 are masterpieces in what they are trying to do. The third one? Schlocky nonsense. Bloodlines was ambitious and with a better script could have been a great end capstone to the series. Alas. One can only hope that the new version of Pinhead will also have such sights to show us.
The subtle parts of you holding the liquor bottle are great gags and an excellent example of show don't tell. You got a real sense of the movie's impact on you. Well done!
Calling Chatterer "baby Nemesis" nearly sent me falling backwards out of my office chair!
Sean Chapman (The actor who played Frank Cotton) was also in Scum. His character in that film was involved in "That" scene. He also voiced Psycho in the Crysis games.
I'm a massive Hellraiser fan and I really adored the first movie even with the changes made from the book. I think it gave us a great solid foundation of the hell world to build off of and I love that they never specified whether or not they were angels or demons, since it's all up to who views them. Later on in the movies it turned into the focus of cenobites being demons from hell, but still! And I think something we can all appreciate about the newest one Hulu put out (whether we all liked it as a whole or not) is that the cenobites designs were closer to the source material with the flesh being pulled and carved into the clothing rather than the leather inside the movies.
Oh yeah and I'm glad you finally re-visited the first movie after so long! I sometimes forget just how much I adore it until I go back to it. Then again I love pretty much anything from Clive Barker so of course I would say so 😂
I tried watching it 11 times but I never finished it because I always fell asleep, until one day my wife made me coffee and I finally got to watch it all the way. My reaction…. It’s awesome lol
The movie lore is endlessly fascinating to me. How does the book hold up? Anyone recommend an audiobook?
Aside: The sequence featuring the creature coming down the hallway after the nightclub gives me flash forwards to an ending sequence from In the Mouth of Madness...
Loved the 2022 re imagining of Hellraiser, easily the best since the original 👌🏻 keep up the great work Ryan! 💀
Hey Ryan! The Algorithm hasn't been letting me know about your newer work. I'm disappointed it didn't, but excited to see your new work!
I hope you're doing well. You were one of my favorites, back in the day.
Glad to see you again!
So I just watched a film called R-Point. I cannot recommend it enough. It's a K horror that fallows a group of Vietnam soldiers as they go looking for a missing squad that has been missing for 6 months. It's a great 'Soldiers Vs.' movie that has amazing atmosphere and scares. It is lesser known but I urge you to check it out it's a hidden gem that deserves more recognition.
SPOILERS!!!
The first and second movies both focused on lore building, which was the most important part.
The second movie showed us their dimension, showed us that they even have a god of their own that runs things and how cenobites are chosen and created.
When a child in the mental institution who solves puzzles was cowardly exploited to open the puzzle box for Julia and Channard, Pinhead refused to take her soul as he was aware that it was not HER desires that wanted the box to be opened - but Julia and Dr. Channard.
This was an important scene as it re emphasised that they were not stereotypical slasher villains that killed for fun, but logical beings that mearly collected the souls that opened the box wanting to sate their desires.
It was interesting to learn who all the cenobites once were at the end, but if you've read the books then you know that Leviathan would not have just killed off Pinhead and his gash to replace them with a bigger, badder cenobite because their God highly favoured Pinhead (Xipe Totec) The Hell Priest.
That should also have been where the movie series ended as none of the other movies actually contributed anything important to the Hellraiser lore.
The 3rd movie was just a 90's slasher gore fest that made no sense at all.
Main character Joey has vivid dreams of her father being shot and dying in combat - yet she never actually met this father, but "human Pinhead" some how reaches out to her through her dreams of the imaginary combat death (since he was once a soldier) and an old ham radio she conveniently has.
"Evil Pinhead" even impersonates the father she never met - talking an everything - and she completely believes it's her father.
Makes no sense.
The 4th movie was a chaotic mess that really should have been three seperate movies as it confusingly time jumped from the 1700s, to the present to like 2030, but ultimately contributed nothing.
We learn who made the box in the fourth movie, which makes no sense as in the 2nd movie there were multiple boxes shown.
A "princess from hell" was summoned into a human form, who Pinhead got bored with and made into a cenobite any way so she's actually pointless.
In the far future apparently Pinhead and ONE box are destroyed (again, there were multiple boxes on Channards desk in his house in the second movie so the 4th movie means nothing).
The rest of the movies were random scripts where they just shoe horned Hellraiser in and they were absolutely aweful in my opinion.
But that's just my brief take on the movies.
Have a great day/night all👍
My favorite thing about the original is the spectacular practical effects. I love being able to see a huge animatronic or gore scene and then going back to watch it with the pause button, and try to guess how it was made or how the effects were done. I do think there's a place for CGI in horror but basing it around a frame of decent quality practical effects is the only way to go about it imo
The first movie is truly an amazing classic, I need to give the book a read some day
For me, what makes _Hellraiser_ so effective is partly that the monstrous looking characters are not truly the monsters of the story. The Cenobites are instruments sent to corral the true evil of the story - Frank - and the other characters of the film generally end up as collateral damage. Frank does most of the truly evil stuff, while the Cenobites do what they do because it is a part of their faith and societal fabric, and like any zealot worth their salt, they know they can convert you to their way of thinking with enough time. That's a level of depth in what other movies would portray as the main antagonists that it gives _Hellraiser_ a wonderful flavor that is just absent from most slasher films.
And then the _Hellraiser_ sequels happened, and did away with all of that nuance. Instead, they turned the Hell Priest into a standard-fare, run-of-the-mill psycho simply intent on racking up a body count.
I actually saw this movie for the first time last year, and found myself really quite surprised. All the imagery and clips and the focus people give the film, I had honestly assumed it was ABOUT the Cenobites, only to find that most of the story was about someone resurrecting their undead lover via serial killing.
The first one will forever be the most creepiest derainged scariest classic
It didn't try to romanticize hell it showed you how your deepest darkest desires can be used against you in hell!
I've always thought of the cenobotes as more like aliens from an alternate dimension. One where death isnt necessarily what we perceive it.
"Love conquers all [...] except it is poisonous and hurts and kills everything around it"
Is a perfect description of "The story of the eye" by Georges Bataille. An erotic horror written by a disturbing french philosopher, where erotisism is the villain. Clive Barker (writer of "Hellbound heart", and director of the movie hellraiser based on his book) had read Bataille, and it's funny that the description of one mans work is even more apt to his inspiration.
Your story of watching it as a kid reminds me of my own lol. I watched it one Halloween in my early teens and was absolutely blown away with its visual spectacle
Oh, such delightful trauma. Pinhead gave me permission as a child to be scared and watch anyway. He was the first monster my child mind turned into a friend. I read The Hellbound Heart, and am a forever fan. I love the new Hell-priest. Long may she reign.
I just watched this one for the first time a couple weeks ago, and I am READY for this analysis! 🤘
I'm glad that you were able to give this another go and have a good time out of it :)
this really is some British 80s rock kinda stuff now that you said it, some scenes look like a music video
I'm not sure if this movie should be classified as horror but The Wolf of Snow Hollow might be fun to experience
I need to read more Clive Barker to see if that's just a running theme. I've tried reading Damnation Game, but my first foray into him was on my brother's suggestion, his first Children's book, "The Thief of Always". Nice easy read with a similar story to Hellraiser. Except replace the adult theme with a child wanting to escape the british winter and gets visited by a mysterious figure that promises a house where all your wishes come true, known as the Holiday House. Won't go into more, since it's a genuinely good book, and sadly has been in movie production limbo for over 2 decades now.
Just saw this for the first time yesterday. What a creative and disturbing film. It’s interesting how the main antagonist is not Cenobites, but rather Frank. Frank’s destructive desires are the driving force of the plot. The Cenobites are more the extreme manifestation of the sexuality and violence that drives the main characters.
The moment film makers decided to try to turn Pinhead into another Freddy Krueger was the death rattle of the franchise. Doug Bradley deserved so much better.