Starring: Ashley Lawrence, Claire Higgins, Sean Chapman, Andrew Robinson, Doug Bradley.
Director: Clive Barker.
Continuing on with franchise month, I'm just going to jump into the massive, savage, mostly underwhelming Hellraiser franchise. Clive Barker's baby may not have grown up terribly strong, but...well, it sure as hell existed.
I'm a fan of Clive Barker and have been for many years. While his few films are mostly mediocre in my opinion (more on those when we get to them) I've always been a huge fan of his novels and especially his short stories. Hellraiser comes from the novella The Hellbound Heart which is an interesting enough story with a lot of interesting visuals, which is also a true statement for the film version.
Barker was new to the movie-making business, but had plenty of background in theater and visual art, and he shows that with a lot of interesting choices in cinematography and set design..and certainly in the design of his visual effects work, which we'll get to once we get there in the film. For now, let's focus on the set-up.
The premise is simple: Julia is married to Larry, but actually is more into Frank, Larry's Brother. Julia and Larry move into a house and find that Frank has been squatting. This leads to flashbacks of a torrid sexual affair between Julia and Frank...and then it turns out that Frank has become some sort of living mold in the attic, and needs blood and flesh to become whole again. Julia, wanting what she wants, is happy to aid him in getting those items.
It's all presented with a lot of very soft focus, dreamlike camerawork lit almost entirely by strands of stray sunshine...it all creates this distorted sense of reality, which perfectly represents Julia's frame of mind: everything looks perfect inside her flashback sex scenes with Frank, what with the dreamy lighting and well appointed furniture...then she must come back to a world where she is married to a dullard who talks in his sleep. Further embodying that contrast is Larry's Daughter Kirsty, who is down to earth, likable and perhaps most importantly doesn't like Julia and vice versa.
While Kirsty is certainly our heroine, Julia is our protagonist: almost the entire film is told from her perspective: one of longing, jealousy, and unexpressed rage and frustration. Frank doesn't just represent those good times that Julia is missing, he is also an outlet and excuse for her to act out her base impulses. It's far more a character study about dark desires and horrible self-actualization than it is a supernatural horror story, even though it IS that as well. People who are more familiar with the franchise as a whole probably don't keep the fact that Pinhead and his Cenobites are very secondary figures in the beginning: Julia and Frank are the real threats to reality here.
Barker really knows how to work thematic dissonance, and it's used to shocking effect in Julia's first kill: Julia brings home some poor sap to feed to Frank, but first she's in a very modern looking bar, in business attire...she and the sap go to the attic, an environment filled with atmosphere and an almost deafening quiet...and then in a burst of violence she caves the man's head in with a hammer. The most interesting visual, though, is when Julia enters a very bright bathroom, looks at herself in the mirror...and smiles, just a little.
One of the scariest moments in Hellraiser is probably when the homeless dude eats crickets in the pet store with Kirsty looking on. It's just creepy. There's nothing specific about it, it's just weird.
Frank's flashbacks bring us extraordinary visuals, as he recounts lines that basically sum up the entire point of Barker's work: "Pleasure and pain, indivisible." Barker's predilection for eroticism and sado-masochism has long been a hallmark of his work (though mostly dropped later...I wouldn't recommend The Scarlet Gospels to any fans of the series), but it was likely never more pronounced than it was here...even if later sequels mostly forgot what the basic point of all of it was. Hell doesn't quite have the same connotation in this film than it does in most popular fiction: The cenobites aren't EVIL after all, just...well, explorers. They offer up experience and sensation, and mostly only to those who actually ask. Not that they aren't frightening. There's a reason they are the most memorable thing about the film, and what actually perpetuated the franchise.
Again, some of the more frightening and disturbing things about the movie aren't the monsters and torture...it's stuff like the implication that Frank molested and raped his Niece Kirsty. His attempt to assault her yet another time leaves her emotionally devastated and weak...it's kind of more unsettling than monsters.
Much more is done here with music than in the rest of the franchise: as Kirsy opens the box there that wonderful dirge, almost sweet but just slightly off, as the more horrific score weaves itself slowly but surely into the mix, building to a crescendo that ends with the box opening, a very natural looking fissure forming in the wall beside her and Kirsty entering the halls of hell.
I don't know what they weird monster in the hallway is supposed to be, but it looks pretty fantastic. It's a pretty breathless chase scene, especially as the film defiantly presents it much as Kirsty actually sees it: we have no idea what it is, where it is, and where it came from, but it's here and it apparently is pissed. This segues nicely into the true debut of Pinhead and his Cenobites, only seen briefly in flashback, who show up to take center stage and truly dominate the narrative.
Doug Bradley does an amazing job with dialogue that really is a bit silly. It's very over-the-top and theatrical, but somehow it works. Kirsty's ploy is pretty excellent and some great quick thinking: in fact, her bargaining here creates the dynamic that drives some of the sequels later. It doesn't seem to be an extraordinarily important scene, other than being a turning point in the narrative....well, that probably makes it the most important scene in the narrative, doesn't it? Shows what I know. Or, rather, what I tend to type without thinking while I'm watching a movie.
In the end, Frank is the true villain of the piece, specifically demonstrated by his cruel and sudden betrayal of Julia at the last minute, and the last act kicks itself off with Frank stalking Kirsty through the house with a knife and wearing her Father's skin (which is pretty monstrous and evil, really)...it helps the whole thing fall into place quite well. In this respect, the Cenobites act as a sort of dues ex machina, really, but a very interesting and justifiable one: they become a physical manifestation of outrage and revenge on the part of Kirsty. They intervene and save her life, though that altruism quickly dissipates when they decide they'd rather just take Kirsty, too. They are certainly not nice people.
Final Thoughts: It's a spirited but sometimes amateurish and messy piece. It has extraordinary visuals and some real dramatic flare, but it can't help that Barker was just a tad under-experienced. Taken as it's own thing, and understood as a piece of bizarre self-indulgence and emotional expression, it's a very fascinating and entertaining piece of work.
Final Rating: Three and a Half Stars.
No comments:
Post a Comment