Class of 1987: HELLRAISER – Clive Barker’s Invitation to Embrace Our Inner Cenobite

How does one start a piece about their favorite horror movie of all time? I’ve been wracking my brain trying to come up with the words that will evoke the visions of hellish trumpets and demonic halos that dance in my head whenever I think about Clive Barker’s feature film directorial debut masterpiece, Hellraiser. But I’m not great with the imagery, so I suppose I’ll just give you my personal evolution with the flick. Released theatrically in 1987, I was about three or four years old by the time this movie hit the horror racks at my local video store. I’d like to say my parents had the good sense not to let me see this kind of thing when I was that young, but one of my earliest horror movie memories is of Doug Bradley, the picture of horrific elegance, piecing together the chunks of face that used to be Frank Cotton.

The visual aesthetics grabbed my imagination as a kid all the way up through to my twenties. I’ve always been fascinated by the contrast between the beauty and horror in the Cenobites. Jane Wildgoose, who was in charge of designing the creatures for the film, remembers Barker using the phrase “repulsive glamor” when describing how he wanted his iconic creatures to look, and that’s truly an apt term. Most of my early viewings of Hellraiser were spent waiting for a Cenobite—any Cenobite—to get some screen time so that I could take in the sleek pattern of cuts, the contrast of pale blue skin against crimson red blood, or the mystifying weaves of flesh and leather. Admittedly, if you were to ask me what attracted me to the film back then, my fully articulated answer would have likely included words like “badass” and “awesome.”

Over the years, however, I’ve put some more thought into what continues to draw me to this morbid tale, and it occurs to me that I’m drawn to the theme of embracing one’s own darkness. One thing you should know about me: I’m a bit of a Dudley Do-Right. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been the one who wants to do the right thing, both out of an ingrained need for people to like me as well as a fear of facing consequences of rule-breaking. My high school yearbook quote should have been, “But what if we get into trouble?” Hell, even when I played video games that presented any kind of ethical quandary, I’d make the “good” choice.

As someone obsessed with staying on the straight and narrow, Hellraiser taps into the part of me that’s curious about what it would be like to take the dark path. The most obvious avatar for this theme would of course be the Cenobites, but just like in the movie, I’m going to let them remain an ominous background presence for the time being. After all, while Pinhead and company obviously stole the show and became the focus of the series in later entries, the original story is really about the Cottons.

We have our protagonists, Larry and his daughter Kirsty, and our antagonists, Larry’s wife Julia and brother Frank. Frank has clearly lived his life by taking the dark path, giving in to every hedonistic desire with no regard for the collateral damage done to those around him. He has an affair with his brother’s wife and later uses her to lure men to him so that he can strip them of their flesh for his own use. He doesn’t give a damn about anyone but himself, and that attracts Julia and serves as the catalyst for her character arc, which is by far the most interesting one in the movie.

If Frank is the epitome of narcissistic self-indulgence, then Julia represents the conflict between doing the right thing and giving in to our own impulses. We meet her as she’s moving into a house with Larry, the classic nice guy for whom she’s clearly settling. She’s happiest when fantasizing about her affair with Frank, so when he returns from the grave, she recognizes her opportunity to once again fulfill those fantasies. There was a time when I saw Julia as Frank’s pawn, but I’ve since realized that such a reading of the movie negates what makes Julia so damn compelling. Let’s not forget that Frank is a walking cliché who wears a leather jacket and carries a switchblade. And while dubbing actor Sean Chapman’s voice with an American voice was a decision made by investors to broaden appeal in U.S. markets, it has the side effect of adding an extra layer of smarminess that borders on becoming silly.

With this in mind, it’s hard to believe that Julia would be that obsessed with a guy like Frank without allowing for the idea that maybe, just maybe, she’s always wanted to be bad. Perhaps the most iconic Cenobite-less scene in the film focuses on Julia in the bathroom, splattered with the blood of a man whose skull she just cracked open with a hammer. She’s shaken and trying to regain her composure, but then an interesting thing happens. As she’s staring at her reflection, ever so subtly, the look of horror transitions into the tiniest of smiles. Julia has passed the point of no return, and she’s quickly becoming comfortable with the idea. Later, during a montage of ensuing murders, there’s another moment with Julia alone on the couch smiling to herself as she revels in her newfound power. There’s no more conflict. No more anxiety—just pure contentment. It should also be noted that in this moment, Frank is nowhere to be seen.

It’s significant that virtually everyone in this movie shows shades of darkness at some point. Julia’s first victim flares in a short burst of rage when it looks like she’s having second thoughts about their dalliance (if only the clod would have known what she was having second thoughts about). Our heroine Kirsty practically goes feral as she battles The Engineer for the puzzle box in the film’s climax, shoving the terminally useless Steve out of the way so that she can take care of business. Even poor Larry, whose primary purpose in this movie is to be a boring doormat, gets his violent kicks while watching boxing on TV with Julia. It’s a small moment, sure, and it’s primarily meant to showcase Julia’s transition to someone for whom watching a couple of guys punch each other in the face is small potatoes. But Barker has specifically mentioned that this scene is important to show Larry’s own violent impulses, mild as they may be.

At the pinnacle of this pyramid of dark proclivities, of course, is our quartet of Cenobites. As I mentioned earlier, however, I would not strictly label them villains. In fact, I would argue that the title Hellraiser can be a bit misleading, as Cenobites don’t come from Hell, at least not the Christian version where sinners are punished for bad deeds. They only appear to those who call on them, even if those who come calling don’t necessarily realize what it is they’re signing up for. But as Pinhead so eloquently states, they are “demons to some, angels to others.” This isn’t just some pithy bit of pontificating. There are those that truly do get off on what the Cenobites have to offer, particularly when you consider the S&M lifestyle that this movie helped destigmatize in the late ’80s. Just so we’re clear, I’m not equating S&M participants to creatures who literally tear people apart to get their rocks off, but there are plenty of people who enjoy things like piercing and body modification as an empowering, often sensual experience.

That’s also not to say that someone’s attraction with this movie is due to an attraction to kink. Our darker impulses come in all flavors. One person may want to tell off their boss. Another may want to slug the guy who just won’t stop talking on his cell phone, or to tell their neighbor that no, the five hellions that they call kids are not actually all that adorable. It could be any number of things that we keep repressed in the name of keeping within the social contract. This is a theme that Barker would visit in more depth in a later film, Nightbreed, where he actually dares audiences to sympathize with the monsters. In Hellraiser, however, characters don’t ask for your sympathy. They give you who they are with all of their scars, be they figurative and literal. And if you don’t like it, well, they don’t really give a damn. And that intrigues the hell out of me.

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This retrospective is part of our Class of 1987 special features celebrating a wide range of genre films that were first released thirty years ago. Stay tuned to Daily Dead in the coming days for more pieces celebrating one of the most exciting graduating classes in horror and sci-fi, and check here for the latest Class of ’87 retrospectives.