Editorials
‘Hellraiser’ – How the Original Horror Classic Was a Gateway to More Extreme Horror
Horror fans have a term used to describe films that are great entry points into the genre for the younger set and nascent fans – gateway horror. These gateway films are well executed, but are mostly devoid of anything too violent, subversive, or extreme for a young fan’s eyes.
With a world as vast as the horror genre however, there are other gateways to walk through. Sometimes you seek out these gateways with an idea of what you’re getting into once you pass through. Other times you stumble into them, completely oblivious to the dark delights that await beyond.
Clive Barker’s original Hellraiser is one such film for me – a film I consider a gateway to exploring the more extreme and graphic side of the horror genre.
I had first seen Hellraiser during my burgeoning obsession with horror movies. I had seen plenty of violent films before, and plenty of gore – one of the perks of having parents who didn’t pay all that much attention to what you watched. I grew up on the Alien films, the Predator films, violent action films such as your Die Hards, Lethal Weapons, and the like. My new love for horror had me blazing through the big names in the slasher game.
I was growing up as the analog age was in its dying days. We had one foot in the old, one foot in the new. I still remember corded phones, answering machines, VHS and VCR, pagers, phone booths, smoking areas in restaurants, etc. The Internet was just becoming a thing, and computers weren’t a ubiquitous household item for everyone yet.
It’s during this specific period where the horror icons of the 70s and 80s felt like real-deal boogeymen. I knew these characters by name, not by the title of the franchises. As a kid, there wasn’t Friday the 13th, A Nightmare On Elm Street, Halloween, or Child’s Play…there was only Jason, Freddy, Michael, and Chucky. You hear rumblings and whispers about these guys at school, hanging out with friends on the weekend, or during a sleepover. These figures were already mythic and iconic long before I ever clapped my eyes on one of their films.
Seeing these films for the first time was like finding a key to a long-locked room. It was uncovering the forbidden. I gaped in delight and glee as these characters and these films became my thing.
But there was one figure, one film, I had yet to experience.
Hellraiser was just another franchise with an iconic killer to get around to at the time. I had no understanding of the true tone of the film, nor did I have any expectations outside of seeing another slasher film. Little did I know Hellraiser was very much not a slasher, and Pinhead and his Cenobites were far from the only monsters in the movie.
Did Hellraiser scare me? No, I rarely ever get scared watching horror movies. That’s not a flex, it’s just how I’m wired. What did happen to me was more akin to getting the wind knocked out of me.
Like I said, I had been exposed to plenty of gore before, but nothing this wet, this red, and this vicious. Flesh was twisted, ripped, and rent in ways far more messy than I had experienced before. The kills in your average Friday the 13th or Halloween sequel are like a punchline to a set-up, a fun release to the build up. They can be bloody, but the camera never lingers for long. They’re akin to a gory magic trick.
Hellraiser features Frank – a character who is a walking, talking, open wound the entire runtime – and he’s very drippy. We see various body parts nailed and hung from a rotating obelisk. Chains with hooks on the end literally rip bodies apart. Spending time in the world of Clive Barker’s Hellraiser was like visiting a slaughterhouse in hell.
Never before had violence and gore engaged my senses to such a degree. The viscera on display had a tangible quality to it. It was almost like you could smell the human offal and coppery tinge of blood.
Characters were in real, prolonged pain. This gore wasn’t a trick. This gore wasn’t a punchline.
It was real. And it hurt.
The link between pleasure and pain was also something I wasn’t quite prepared to grapple with on my first viewing of Hellraiser. Sex and death were largely separate in the slashers I was used to. I wasn’t yet engaging in the subtext, intentional or not, with slashers on the mix of sexuality, violence, and death. To me it was just a bit of naughty fun. Some of these characters would have sex, then a few scenes later, they would get the axe. The lurid aspect of the slasher film is what attracts younger fans to begin with – the naughty factor.
In Hellraiser, sex and pleasure are the main motivator for our dual antagonists Frank and Julia. The overwhelming need they each have to reach the ultimate point of pleasure, to get lost in it and revel in it turns them into monsters of the highest order. For Frank and Julia, blood acts as just another bodily fluid to be shared in their pursuit of pleasure. Murder isn’t a means to an end, it’s all part of the pleasure. The carnal, wanton need to push the boundaries, to seek it out no matter the personal cost is what directly leads to most of the bloodshed in the film. Where is the line between pleasure and pain? Frank found it. Julia found it. They think they’ve mastered it. But the Cenobites know better. They take your desires and pervert them in the ultimate ironic punishment.
Needless to say, all of this floored me when I first saw it. I didn’t grasp all of what Hellraiser had to say at the time, but I knew it was saying something and I also knew I just stepped over a new threshold in the world of horror movies, a threshold that broadened my horizons for the genre outside of slashers and creature features.
To this day, the audacity of Hellraiser still surprises me. Of course there are far more violent and perverse genre films out there, but Hellraiser is still pretty brazen for a mainstream, wide release genre picture. It’s not just the sheer level of depravity you can toss at the screen that makes it impactful. It’s how you do it and what you’re saying with it. It’s the perfect calibration of Barker’s vision and the team he had behind him in making the film that still gives Hellraiser its power to shock and horrify and even titillate.
Like the Lament Configuration itself, Hellraiser is the key to sites unseen for burgeoning fans of horror movies. Just be sure you’re ready to unlock that door.
To paraphrase Pinhead, Hellraiser has such sights to show you.
Editorials
‘Immaculate’ – A Companion Watch Guide to the Religious Horror Movie and Its Cinematic Influences
The religious horror movie Immaculate, starring Sydney Sweeney and directed by Michael Mohan, wears its horror influences on its sleeves. NEON’s new horror movie is now available on Digital and PVOD, making it easier to catch up with the buzzy title. If you’ve already seen Immaculate, this companion watch guide highlights horror movies to pair with it.
Sweeney stars in Immaculate as Cecilia, a woman of devout faith who is offered a fulfilling new role at an illustrious Italian convent. Cecilia’s warm welcome to the picture-perfect Italian countryside gets derailed soon enough when she discovers she’s become pregnant and realizes the convent harbors disturbing secrets.
From Will Bates’ gothic score to the filming locations and even shot compositions, Immaculate owes a lot to its cinematic influences. Mohan pulls from more than just religious horror, though. While Immaculate pays tribute to the classics, the horror movie surprises for the way it leans so heavily into Italian horror and New French Extremity. Let’s dig into many of the film’s most prominent horror influences with a companion watch guide.
Warning: Immaculate spoilers ahead.
Rosemary’s Baby
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The mother of all pregnancy horror movies introduces Rosemary Woodhouse (Mia Farrow), an eager-to-please housewife who’s supportive of her husband, Guy, and thrilled he landed them a spot in the coveted Bramford apartment building. Guy proposes a romantic evening, which gives way to a hallucinogenic nightmare scenario that leaves Rosemary confused and pregnant. Rosemary’s suspicions and paranoia mount as she’s gaslit by everyone around her, all attempting to distract her from her deeply abnormal pregnancy. While Cecilia follows a similar emotional journey to Rosemary, from the confusion over her baby’s conception to being gaslit by those who claim to have her best interests in mind, Immaculate inverts the iconic final frame of Rosemary’s Baby to great effect.
The Exorcist
William Friedkin’s horror classic shook audiences to their core upon release in the ’70s, largely for its shocking imagery. A grim battle over faith is waged between demon Pazuzu and priests Damien Karras (Jason Miller) and Lankester Merrin (Max von Sydow). The battleground happens to be a 12-year-old, Regan MacNeil (Linda Blair), whose possessed form commits blasphemy often, including violently masturbating with a crucifix. Yet Friedkin captures the horrifying events with stunning cinematography; the emotional complexity and shot composition lend elegance to a film that counterbalances the horror. That balance between transgressive imagery and artful form permeates Immaculate as well.
Suspiria
Jessica Harper stars as Suzy Bannion, an American newcomer at a prestigious dance academy in Germany who uncovers a supernatural conspiracy amid a series of grisly murders. It’s a dance academy so disciplined in its art form that its students and faculty live their full time, spending nearly every waking hour there, including built-in meals and scheduled bedtimes. Like Suzy Bannion, Cecilia is a novitiate committed to learning her chosen trade, so much so that she travels to a foreign country to continue her training. Also, like Suzy, Cecilia quickly realizes the pristine façade of her new setting belies sinister secrets that mean her harm.
What Have You Done to Solange?
This 1972 Italian horror film follows a college professor who gets embroiled in a bizarre series of murders when his mistress, a student, witnesses one taking place. The professor starts his own investigation to discover what happened to the young woman, Solange. Sex, murder, and religion course through this Giallo’s veins, which features I Spit on Your Grave’s Camille Keaton as Solange. Immaculate director Michael Mohan revealed to The Wrap that he emulated director Massimo Dallamano’s techniques, particularly in a key scene that sees Cecilia alone in a crowded room of male superiors, all interrogating her on her immaculate status.
The Red Queen Kills Seven Times
In this Giallo, two sisters inherit their family’s castle that’s also cursed. When a dark-haired, red-robed woman begins killing people around them, the sisters begin to wonder if the castle’s mysterious curse has resurfaced. Director Emilio Miraglia infuses his Giallo with vibrant style, with the titular Red Queen instantly eye-catching in design. While the killer’s design and use of red no doubt played an influential role in some of Immaculate’s nightmare imagery, its biggest inspiration in Mohan’s film is its score. Immaculate pays tribute to The Red Queen Kills Seven Times through specific music cues.
The Vanishing
Rex’s life is irrevocably changed when the love of his life is abducted from a rest stop. Three years later, he begins receiving letters from his girlfriend’s abductor. Director George Sluizer infuses his simple premise with bone-chilling dread and psychological terror as the kidnapper toys with Red. It builds to a harrowing finale you won’t forget; and neither did Mohan, who cited The Vanishing as an influence on Immaculate. Likely for its surprise closing moments, but mostly for the way Sluizer filmed from inside a coffin.
The Other Hell
This nunsploitation film begins where Immaculate ends: in the catacombs of a convent that leads to an underground laboratory. The Other Hell sees a priest investigating the seemingly paranormal activity surrounding the convent as possessed nuns get violent toward others. But is this a case of the Devil or simply nuns run amok? Immaculate opts to ground its horrors in reality, where The Other Hell leans into the supernatural, but the surprise lab setting beneath the holy grounds evokes the same sense of blasphemous shock.
Inside
During Immaculate‘s freakout climax, Cecilia sets the underground lab on fire with Father Sal Tedeschi (Álvaro Morte) locked inside. He manages to escape, though badly burned, and chases Cecilia through the catacombs. When Father Tedeschi catches Cecilia, he attempts to cut her baby out of her womb, and the stark imagery instantly calls Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury’s seminal French horror movie to mind. Like Tedeschi, Inside’s La Femme (Béatrice Dalle) will stop at nothing to get the baby, badly burned and all.
Burial Ground
At first glance, this Italian zombie movie bears little resemblance to Immaculate. The plot sees an eclectic group forced to band together against a wave of undead, offering no shortage of zombie gore and wild character quirks. What connects them is the setting; both employed the Villa Parisi as a filming location. The Villa Parisi happens to be a prominent filming spot for Italian horror; also pair the new horror movie with Mario Bava’s A Bay of Blood or Blood for Dracula for additional boundary-pushing horror titles shot at the Villa Parisi.
The Devils
The Devils was always intended to be incendiary. Horror, at its most depraved and sadistic, tends to make casual viewers uncomfortable. Ken Russell’s 1971 epic takes it to a whole new squeamish level with its nightmarish visuals steeped in some historical accuracy. There are the horror classics, like The Exorcist, and there are definitive transgressive horror cult classics. The Devils falls squarely in the latter, and Russell’s fearlessness in exploring taboos and wielding unholy imagery inspired Mohan’s approach to the escalating horror in Immaculate.
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