Hellraiser (R)
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Caution: spoilers!

This movie, written and directed by Clive Barker, came out in 1987, but I didn't see it until 2026. It spawned a bunch of sequels, plus a reboot in 2022. I liked the movie well enough, so I suppose I'd like to check out at least one of the sequels. The franchise's best known character is "Pinhead", who is one of several "Cenobites" in this film. Cenobites are interdimensional, demonic, totally freakish-looking beings who I guess can inflict both pain and pleasure, to an extreme degree. But the Cenobites aren't the main villains of the first movie, which I found a bit surprising. But I liked that, because it means perhaps the stories of the sequels could be a bit more diversified, instead of just being the same demonic beings over and over. I guess I'll find out, someday.

Anyway, the movie starts with a man named Frank Cotton buying a puzzle box from an unnamed Chinese man (who I think was played by James Hong, though I don't think he was credited). I guess Frank uses the box to summon the Cenobites, hoping they can give him intense pleasure, and instead they end up torturing him to death. We then meet Frank's brother, Larry, and Larry's wife, Julia, who move into the house that I guess Frank and Larry grew up in. We also meet Larry's daughter from a previous marriage, Kirsty, whose mother had died. (I don't know how old Kirsty's supposed to be, like a teenager or a young adult, but I assumed the latter.) She gets her own place to stay, even though Larry would like her to live with him and Julia. But she wants to be more independent, and also she doesn't really like Julia.

One day while Larry and a couple of movers are trying to get a mattress up the stairs in the house, Larry cuts his hand rather badly on a nail. His blood drips through the floor, and lands on what's left of Frank (who had been torn to shreds), bringing him back to life. But at this point, he's just a skeletal creature. He'll need more blood to gradually restore his body. We also see flashbacks of Julia having had an affair with Frank. When she discovers him in one of the unused rooms of the house, she's terrified, but soon agrees to bring him victims whose blood he can use. She picks up a few different guys to bring home at different times, promising them sex. But before that can happen, she kills them, and leaves the bodies for Frank. One day, Larry hears a noise in Frank's room and wants to investigate, but Julia distracts him with sex. However, Frank enters their bedroom, unseen by Larry, with the intention of killing him. Julia begs him to stop, and of course Larry had no idea she was talking to frank, and must have assumed she wanted him to stop what they were doing in bed. It really bugged me how long it took him to stop, but he eventually does. And by then, Frank has left.

Meanwhile, Kirsty has visions of her father dying, and wants to warn him, or whatever. And she eventually meets Frank, who now has musculature and a nervous system and whatnot, but no skin yet. So he looks pretty horrific. I guess he tries to kill her, but she escapes, stealing the puzzle box. She later ends up in a hospital, where the nurse and doctor are oddly insistent that she stay in her room, and even lock her in. Using the puzzle box causes the wall to open into a doorway, which she goes through and walks down a creepy hallway, until she encounters a monster and runs back to her hospital room. But soon some Cenobites show up, having been unwittingly summoned by Kirsty when she toyed with the puzzle box. They want to take her back to their hellish dimension, but she makes a deal to lead them to Frank, instead, who they didn't know had escaped from them.

But before she gets to Larry and Julia's house, Frank finally kills Larry, and I guess wears his skin. Which seemed weird to me, because I assumed using his blood would have allowed him to regenerate his own skin, but whatever. When Kirsty shows up, at first she thinks Frank is her father, who claims to have killed Frank. But Kirsty soon figures out that it's not her father. Anyway, Frank ends up killing Julia. (I wasn't sure if he meant to do that, or accidentally did it while trying to kill Kirsty. But either way, he wasn't upset about Julia's death.) Then the Cenobites show up and take Frank, but still go after Kirsty, who uses the puzzle box to banish them back to their dimension. Meanwhile, the house begins collapsing, just as Kirsty's boyfriend, Steve, arrives looking for her. And gosh, I've probably said too much about the plot, but I'm sure I've forgotten some details, and gotten some things out of order. But after the house has been completely destroyed, and the remnants are left burning, Kirsty tries to destroy the puzzle box by throwing it into the fire. Then a creepy homeless guy (apparently called the Derelict) whom we'd seen a couple of times before shows up and snatches the box out of the fire. He transforms into a skeletal dragon or something, and flies away. And later, someone else goes to the Chinese guy Frank had originally bought the puzzle box from, and wants to buy it, himself. I'd like to know who the new buyer is, and know more about the seller, and learn what the Derelict's story is. Was he some kind of Cenobite, or does he work with the Chinese guy, is he the Chinese guy, or what? (The Derelict was played by a different, non-Chinese actor, but if he can transform, who knows? He might be able to look like different people.)

Anyway, the movie seemed to me like a rather low-budget production, although the practical effects looked quite well-made and uber-creepy, including both Frank the monster and all the Cenobites. The story and the acting were in some ways kind of cheesy, but overall it was pretty interesting, and reasonably scary, I guess. (Too gory for my taste, but nothing I couldn't handle.) And it definitely left me wanting to learn more about the Cenobites, who I assume will become more important characters in future installments, especially Pinhead. I didn't think it was a great film, but it was better than I expected it to be.

Followed by "Hellbound: Hellraiser II"