1/23/2024 0 Comments Pain and pleasure indivisible![]() ![]() Her orgasm is juxtaposed with Larry’s gruesome hand injury. The film adheres to a running theme of the confluence of “pain and pleasure, indivisible.” Julia and Frank’s lovemaking sessions are rough but passionate. Barker succeeds in undermining the structural safety of traditional family unit like the literary gods Poe, Machen, and Stevenson before him, and he further succeeded in translating that dysfunction from page to screen.Īuthors of contemporary thinkpieces praising intellectual themes in horror as if they were a new trend would do well to revisit Hellraiser and try engaging with its more scandalous sequences. The Cenobites may be scary-looking, but the real threat emerges from within the home. Likewise, Julia’s hidden lust for her brother-in-law is its own threat to the harmony of the family, another Gothic standby. Though they seem like villains, the Cenobites are only born of Frank’s insatiable carnal desires. Unbeknownst to her at the time, it’s the same room where Frank disappeared after he summoned the Cenobites in his Faustian quest for exquisite pleasure. As she sits alone in the uppermost room of the house, she’s free to ruminate on her past adultery and pine for Frank again. She has a hard time acclimating to the house at first because it reminds her of her old lover, Frank. ![]() Despite it being a triple-story house, the environment stifles its inhabitants, especially Julia. Beneath its moaning pipes and its constant damp smell lies many secrets. The foreboding old house is a Gothic staple, and 55 Ludovico Place is no exception. As all of these individuals converge on a single location, the space itself becomes just as important as the agents working within its walls.īarker cut his teeth on the works of Mary Shelley and Bram Stoker, and it’s obvious in his careful application of architectural metaphor. In spite of her Final Girl-ish role in the narrative, Kirsty is a young woman with agency, unwilling to simply let the bad guy get away with it. Ashley Laurence embodies the classic Gothic heroine splendidly as Kirsty, fresh-faced but fiercely protective of her father. Clare Higgins does her part to flesh out her character Julia, avoiding the Evil Stepmother trope by adding in layers of longing and desire that inform her decisions to the audience though those decisions may not always be the right ones, her reasoning behind them are clear. At the time, the only other speaking horror icon on the scene was Freddy Krueger, and so the calm reserve with which Bradley embraces the role that Clive Barker originally called “The Priest” (he was never too keen on “Pinhead”) still stands out among its peers of the decade. Sean Chapman’s Frank is played with a quiet intensity only matched in gravitas by Doug Bradley as the Lead Cenobite. It’s a film that allows its characters to stew in their own juices, and observes without bias as the creaky floorboards settle under the weight of its burdened players. Hellraiser is not a fast-paced slasher free-for-all. Naturally, the Cenobites are none too pleased at Frank’s departure from their pain party, and when Rory’s teenage daughter Kirsty shows up at the home, things get even more complicated. Julia reluctantly agrees to do what needs to be done in order to please the man she loves. ![]() He is a wretched, raw creature, and requires blood in order to become whole again. Through a strange twist of fate Frank is able to escape from the dark realm and return to the home, though his intact body hasn’t quite caught up with him. Julia embarks on her own bargain for gratification as she sits alone in the attic room, pining for her former lover, revealed to be Frank. The couple moves into the same home where Frank’s demonic ritual previously took place before he vanished. It’s here that we meet Frank’s brother Rory and his sister-in-law (Rory’s wife) Julia. Upon solving the box, hooked chains tether into his flesh and tear him apart before the Cenobites usher him to an unholy realm, leaving no traces behind. Unfortunately for Frank, the portal is one to what we know as Hell, a Hell that defines pleasure as only attainable through pain, administered by its guardians, the Cenobites. Shady hedonist Frank Cotton procures a Chinese puzzle box with the understanding that it acts as a portal to the ultimate state of pleasure. On the contrary, there’s plenty of pleasure to be found in the 1987 film, if one would only open the box. With the sort of out-of-touch ranting that has become typical of mainstream critics engaging with horror films, Roger Ebert called Hellraiser “a movie without wit, style, or reason” upon its release. Based upon Clive Barker’s novella The Hellbound Heart, Hellraiser spawned a handful of sequels, a graphic novel, and even a scrapped video game. Thirty years ago, the soul of the horror genre was torn apart. “I have seen the future of horror, and his name is Clive Barker.” ![]()
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