No tears, please.
Let's take a look at the Hellraiser scene that tears our souls apart.
Based on his 1986 novel "The Hellbound Heart," Clive Barker's 1987 film "Hellraiser" is one
of the best and most striking horror films of its decade.
Predicated on lust, infidelity, and supernatural acts of sadomasochism, "Hellraiser" plays
like a blood-soaked, myth-heavy rendition of Walt Whitman's "I Sing the Body Electric,"
wherein flesh is the only gauge by which one measures divinity.
"Some things have to be endured, and that's what makes the pleasure so sweet!"
"Hellraiser," and Tony Randel's 1988 sequel "Hellbound: Hellraiser II," have lost none
of their visceral power over the years, and contemporary horror fans may still recoil
from the films' extreme blood, open sexuality, and surreal imagery.
"Hellraiser" is about an unhappy married couple, Larry and Julia, who are moving back into
a previously abandoned property of theirs in England.
They discover that Larry's brother Frank has been squatting there and regularly having
sex on a mattress on the floor.
This awakens lustful thoughts in Julia, who had previously had a very intense affair with
Frank prior to her marriage.
In the film's introduction, Frank opens up a mysterious puzzle box that seemingly dragged
him into a hell dimension where he was ripped apart by meathooks on chains.
When Larry accidentally cuts his hand and bleeds on the floor of an empty room, Frank's
half-desiccated corpse emerges from the floorboards.
"Believe me, it's me.
It's really me."
The skinless incubus Frank reveals himself to Julia, and she agrees to lure victims to
him so that he may feed on them, grow more powerful, and the two can rekindle their affair.
The monkey wrenches in their plan take the form of Kirsty, who senses that something
is amiss better than her clueless father, and the Cenobites, a cadre of interdimensional
undead S&M enthusiasts who have mastered the ability to blend pain and pleasure.
"Oh, no tears, please.
It's a waste of good suffering."
The climax is a cat-and-mouse game between Frank, Julia, and Kirsty, while Cenobites
stalk around menacingly, threatening to return Frank to their hell dimension — and for
the heck of it, Julia and Kirsty as well.
"Hellraiser," as one might imagine, had a lot of issues with censorship given its extreme
gore and huge amounts of blood; several nude shots and images of violence had to be cut
to avoid an "X" rating.
There was also a scene wherein skinless Frank and Julia engaged in some sexual spanking
that rating boards weren't too fond of.
Clive Barker often incorporates explicit sexuality into his stories, frequently ascribing magical
qualities to human fluids.
One scene that did manage to sidestep censors and uptight review boards was the rebirth
scene at the end of the film's first act.
When Julia and Larry leave to go to the hospital after he cuts his hand, the camera lingers
on Larry's blood, pooled on the floor.
The blood is sucked into the floorboards and activates a mysterious, glistening, pulsating
human organ underneath the floor that starts to seep a clear, viscous fluid into the room.
From a puddle of gelatinous human glop emerges a pair of arm-like bones.
A brain slowly begins to form.
Bones solidify as the arms merge with the brain.
A person is slowly coming together.
Frank's rebirth is not a dull, mechanical affair.
It looks like it took him a lot of work to reassemble his body after a spate of near-oblivion.
Moreover, it looks like it hurt quite a bit — as if Frank's very nerves were coming
into being just to feel pain for the first time again.
And, in keeping with the themes of the movie, after experiencing a level of pain no one
can imagine, the first thing Frank can think of next is to ask for sex.
Eventually, Frank obtains enough victims to grow back everything but his skin.
In a fit of impatience, he and Julia end up improvising the last step by merely removing
Larry's skin and wrapping it around Frank.
It's Kirsty who finds the mysterious Lament Configuration puzzle box, faces the Cenobites
and brings about the film's bloody, fiery conclusion.
The many "Hellraiser" sequels tipped away from the original's sexual themes pretty quickly.
"Hellbound: Hellraiser II" parlayed sexual obsession into a more general obsession.
"Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth" turned the series into a reductive slasher, where lead
Cenobite Pinhead wants to escape the lament configuration's confines to kill people on Earth.
"Hellraiser: Bloodline" cleaned up the mythology muddied by "Hell on Earth," but was regarded
as silly for sending Pinhead into space.
After that, the films went straight to video, and the hell in those films became a more
traditionally Judeo-Christian version of the place, set up as a punitive measure for committing
sins on Earth.
"Inferno," "Hellseeker," and "Deader" all feature the same twist ending, and "Hellworld"
went the meta route, turning "Hellraiser" into a movie that exists in that world the
same way "Stab" does in the "Scream" franchise.
"Revelations" is more of a remake of the 1987 film, and at least thought to include some kink.
It's a pity it's so awful.
"Birth is pain."
"Judgement" features a bizarre bureaucracy at work, as well as ... angels?
We've gone very far afield from Barker's original vision.
A remake from director David Bruckner was recently released exclusively on Hulu to generally
positive reviews.
Regardless of how you feel about the remake as a whole, you have to admit the new Cenobites
look incredible.