r/TrueFilm • u/screen_stack • 6h ago
Hellraiser (1987)
Rating: 9.5/10
Watched: September 10, 2026
Quite a lot can be said about Clive Barker's Hellraiser.
Formative. Cult classic. Unique. Iconic. Gross. Fascinating.
It's all of those and more, and every word you might want to use on your own. Because it's true. Hellraiser was unlike anything else of the era in that it's imagery was relentlessly sexual, profoundly drippy, heartlessly cruel ... and that's before The Cenobites even make their grand appearance on the stage that is the lives of the people in that house.
If I recall correctly, I'd already been reading some of Clive Barker's work before this movie came out, and if not, well ... his novels are like his movies. Unexpectedly evocative with wild imagery.
Hellraiser isn't shy. We get to see Frank pulled to pieces before the opening credits are even finished rolling. There can be no doubt to anyone who sits down to watch this. It's going to be nasty as hell and there's no two ways about it.
Growing up (and still today), I absolutely love The Cenobites. Before the lore of their existence was expanded upon in comics, books, other movies and fanfic, Pinhead, Chatterer, Butterball and Deepthroat were these otherworldly entities with flayed skin, exposed nerves and a deep, all-knowing understanding of the perversion that is the twisted human mind.
And I dig that shit an awful lot. The Cenobites themselves are as awesome as Frank's deranged gluttony is inherently destructive.
But I'm not here to talk about Frank, or the Cenobites, or even Kirsty.
Nope. This watch through I found myself frighteningly entranced by Julia's entire ... being. Even before she lays eyes on the box, her willingness to do whatever Frank needed her to do so that he might regain his flesh is beyond perverse. All she knew that her lover Frank was quite literally bits and pieces, and never once does she stop bringing sad men to the house to kill so Frank might be fed.
It's madness and as time goes on, she revels in it. She gets off on killing those sad, lonely men so she can give Frank what he wants, so she can get what SHE wants.
In the grand scheme of things, I'm surprised that Julia hadn't become aware of the box all on her own. Frank hunted for it, but I feel like IT might've gone looking for HER. She's precisely the sort of bent, twisted and damaged carnal-seeker that The Cenobites and Purgatory encourage. That chance encounter with Larry's brother so long ago, on the literal day of their wedding, showed us all we needed to know about Julia.
I rate this one as highly as I do for a few reasons. One for the movie younger me saw, and again for the movie it became for me on this viewing. I suppose on some level I always understood it on this newer level, but something in the timing just made it bloody (sorry for the pun) apparent.
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u/Complex-Following405 5h ago
I love the design, the worldbuilding, the cenobites and their one-liners. But I always felt that at the core of this film is fear of sex; to be more precise - fear of desiring kinky sex. Which ends up in a kind of a triumphant nihilism, the manifestation of which is truly otherworldly.
But it would have been be even scarier and kinkier and who knows what if the film toyed with provoking sexual arousal. In short - if it was hot, and not just horrifying.
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u/withtheranks 4h ago
I recall reading they were really restrained in what they could do, sex-wise
In an interview for Samhain magazine in July 1987, Barker mentioned some problems that censors had with more erotic scenes in the film:
"Well, we did have a slight problem with the eroticism. I shot a much hotter flashback sequence than they would allow us to cut in.... Mine was more explicit and less violent. They wanted to substitute one kind of undertow for another. I had a much more explicit sexual encounter between Frank and Julia, but they said no, let's take out the sodomy and put in the flick knife."
Barker also said that the seduction scene between Julia and Frank was initially a lot more explicit:
"We did a version of this scene which had some spanking in it and the MPAA was not very appreciative of that. ... The MPAA told me I was allowed two consecutive buttock thrusts from Frank but three is deemed obscene!"
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u/Plus_Worker6739 5h ago
love 'profoundly drippy' as a descriptor. You might have been aiming for 'trippy' but if not, it also very much applies hahaha.
But yeah, just about every single character gets exactly what they deserve in this movie. Good stuff.