[psycho d]

Hellraiser (1987). After reading a few reviews and then watching this flick I must admit that I am shocked at the lengths that people will go to in defending this movie. Don't you take this the wrong way, for I am not about to shred this movie, but to say that the cast gave incredible performances lamentable. The reason "Kirsty's" career didn't take off was because she sucked here as an actress. Her dialog delivery was laughable. Oliver Smith was OK, but it's not too hard to imitate a monster on the lamb. Sean Chapman's Frank was scary bad acting. Even Higgins was hit and miss. The only decent performance was from Andrew Robinson, but playing the prosaic husband and father really gave him no chance to shine or shamble.

What is remarkable is that this movie was great despite the lamentable acting. The atmosphere, the sadistic imagery, and the characters from beyond, this is where the movie really earned its due. Clive Barker may have dropped the ball on the regular characters, but he made up for it with subtleties that were truly disturbing, such as the rose unfolding on the TV set.

As to the effects, for the times they were pretty dang good. Save for the editing blunder where the dolly is painfully apparent just behind the charging ghoul, these were some truly chilling effects. But I cannot get over dolly ghoul. Its two appearances, the first laughable because of the bad editing and second because it seemed forced. Great in concept but horrendous in execution. I know that this was a low budget affair but come on. They should have stuck with the stop-motion animation and great makeup effects and left the moving horror scenes to films with an appropriate budget.

Moving on, the real depth of Hellraiser is secreted in the fusion of passions gone awry. Blending sex, passion, pain, and death has never been better received. It is the hidden lure of the dark side and the resultant pain of succumbing, that's where the genius of this film is anchored. Bad editing aside, my greatest criticism is not with the movie itself, but with the champions of the series and the lengths that people will go defending a movie that does not need to be defended. What is truly impressive here is that it rose above its litany of shortcomings to deserve its cult status. Now that is something to be proud of.
d