Hellraiser

In an article from The Guardian, Clive Barker says, quote, I worked as a hustler in the 1970s because I had no money. I met a lot of people you'll know and some you won't. Publishers, captains of industry. The way they acted, and the way I did, to be honest, was a source of inspiration later. Sex is a great leveler. It made me want to tell a story about good and evil in which sexuality was the connective tissue. I got a good reaction from the SM crowd and still do. I was validating a lifestyle. It was a celebration of the beauty of these strange secret rituals. Hello, Sydney. It's your killer host! My name is Parker, your resident horror fanatic.

I'm Caroline, Scaredy Scream Queen. I'm Ian, Scary Movie Skeptic. And welcome to. What's your favorite scary movie? What's your favorite scary movie is a horror film podcast where we're on a journey to find our favorite scary movie one at a time. Whether you hate them or love them, join us and discover yours. Spoilers ahead, so plan your movie screening every weekend before the episode release. Ooh. Sexual. Guess what? Guess what? What? It's February. You know what that means? The month of love. And we're coming in hot. With uh a bit of a a boner. Currently we're all sitting here naked after watching Hellraiser. We are not naked. Only Caroline is. Always. God damn it, Caroline. So Hellraiser came out in the year 1987.

It was written and directed by Icon of Horror, Clive Barker. He is. I've made jokes on here before about people being like, you know, he's a Renaissance man. He's Clive Barker is truly a Renaissance man. He is a prolific playwright. He also does visual art, and his paintings are, you know, shown in museums and galleries, blah blah blah. And he's also a very famous horror fiction writer. The film Hellraiser was based on his novella from 1986, only a year before this movie came out, called The Hellbound Heart. And uh he's written many other popular horror works, like The Books of Blood, which includes a story called The Forbidden, which is what Candyman is based on. And I know we haven't covered that on the podcast before, but we just might be this year because there's a new one coming out from uh Jordan Peel's uh production company.

After uh writing plays and fiction and doing his visual art, he actually never planned on directing, but was really disappointed with how some of his writing had been handled in the past with uh in movies. So he was like, you know what? I'm going to take the reins for my baby, the hellbound heart, and make sure it gets the right treatment. After Hellraiser, he wrote and directed Nightbreed in 1990 and executively produced Hellbound Hellraiser 2 from 1988. After that, he left the franchise and is openly critical of the installments that followed. Clive Barker is also an openly gay man and has been for a very long time, and actually has come up against quite a few obstacles in the um not just movie business, but in the business of fame for being gay for as long as he has been.

But he has stood fast against those obstacles, and uh we'll just talk a little bit more later about how his work falls into the queer canon of horror. We have Ashley Lawrence as Kirsty Cotton. Did they ever say the last name in this movie? They said Frank Cotton, and I think we just have to infer. Also, there's a Kirsty Cotton. She returned for Hellbound, Hellraiser 2, Hellraiser 3, Hell on Earth from 1992, and Hellraiser, Hellseeker from 2002. Hellseeker. They really uh changed up the verbiage on those titles. Mmm, and there are many more. Um we also have Claire Higgins who plays Julia. She also returned for Hellbound Hellraiser too, and is a prolific British TV actor.

Like in Doctor Who, Downton Abbey, Parades End, Midsummer Murders, a real queen of the British cinema. Mmm, that's TV. It's not cinema. The small cinema. Uh we also have Sean Chapman as Frank, Uncle Frank. Um he returned for Hellbound Hellraiser 2 and is in Underworld, also called Transmutations from 1985, which was actually one of the pre-Hellraiser Clive Barker films. Yeah, so he wasn't happy about that one. So super involved here. Also, there's no information on why, but Chapman only plays Living Frank. The skinless guy, or the monster, um, is actually played by a different person named Oliver Smith. Mmm. And I actually forgot how much Skinless Frank is in this and Skin Frank is not. So Skin Frank like has sex once and pieces.

Yeah, and it's just that was strange to me because I haven't seen this movie in a minute. And um, Sean Chapman has been in a few things, and Oliver Smith really has not been in much more than Hellraiser. He is quite handsome though. Ooh, he was creepy. No, I thought he was handsome for the like the two seconds that he was in this movie. Menacing. Um, we also have Doug Bradley, who uh was billed in the first film as lead Cenobite, but has since become known as Pinhead. Yes, so Pinhead has actually joined the horror canon as one of the icons. He's up there with Freddy and Jason and Michael and Leatherface. And I feel like Hellraiser is a little bit of an underdog in the horror franchises.

Not to say this is some like gym we're uncovering, like it's a very popular franchise. But I feel like Pinhead does not get as much um as much uh recognition as the others, even though he is very much up there. Alright, Mr. Bradley also returns as Pinhead in the first eight Hellraiser films. There's eight of these things. There's ten, baby! Oh my god. There's ten of these. Oh my god. Uh, and he was also in Barker's Night Breed. Three large extraventi shout-outs to all the centibytes. Cenobites. Cento? Cenobites. It's Cinnobite. Cinnabon. Uh we have Nicholas Vince as chatterer. Cennobyte, which looks like the uh game where you put the things in your mouth and they pull your lips back and they don't say anything.

It grosses me out so much. And my mom actually bought it for us to play one year at Christmas, and I was like, absolutely not. I will not. Something about gums, I don't like it. Yeah. Uh we also have Simon Bamford, who plays butterball, who looks like someone in Men in Black. I love the glasses. Ugh. And Grace Kirby. There was a female one. Yeah, the one that you said was artistic. Talk more about gender later, but she does have some feminine traits, such as, well, breasts. But uh, you know, she I feel like her makeup was done a little more delicately. She has blue lips. I did say I think her angles for the things sticking out of her face were quite artistically done.

Yes, and actually, I don't remember where I read this, because I actually did quite a bit of research for this episode. Um, and I'll link everything in the show notes because I'm just gonna, you know, run through it sometimes and not, you know, tell you where everything's from. So check there if you want to know. But um, somebody was talking about how her throat opening was very much vagina-esque. And I was like, oh, interesting. I thought that too. Yeah, and then I didn't realize this beforehand, but in the movie, she actually sometimes like runs her finger through it. And I was like, oh my god, sexual. I was thinking I was so distracted by the metal pieces coming.

I mean, I noticed the whole, but I didn't notice any of that. Yeah. She didn't have much screen time. Pinhead has become kind of the iconic character from the Hellraiser franchise, and he's in all of them. But the other Cinnabites don't get quite the same screen time, and there's a very practical reason for that. It's because they all had such crazy makeup and prosthetics that Pinhead was really the only one who could speak and function on camera. Everybody else was so restricted by their prosthetics that they had to kind of hold back. And even Pinhead had trouble apparently sometimes because the black contact lenses he was wearing, he apparently could not see through. So they all were pretty um restrained by that.

So Pinhead, just by necessity, was the leader. Did you know sometimes when they're filming outside scenes, they make the actors wear sunglass contacts that are like shaded so that they can keep their eyes open the whole way. That's cool. I want some of those. The IMDB summary reads An unfaithful wife encounters the zombie of her dead lover. The demonic Cenobites are pursuing him after he escaped their sadomasophistic. Sadomasochistic. After he escaped their sadomasochistic underworld. Hey, I'm I got it. No, you didn't. You said masochistic. Sadomasto Sadomasochistic. Sadomasochistic. Like a masochist? Yeah. Sadist masochist. Sadomasochistic. Sadomasochistic. After he escaped their sadomasto I fucking can't say that word. That's a crazy word. Well, we know what y'all aren't doing.

After he escaped their sadomasochistic underworld. That's it. The Rotten Tomatoes critic score is 70%. The audience score, 73%. The critics consensus is quote Elevated by writer-director Clive Barker's fiendishly unique vision, Hellraiser offers a disquietly These words. Hellraiser offers a disquieting and sadistically smart alternative to mindless gore. Mmm. Fun editing that one. Okay, so as alluded to earlier, and by alluded I mean we said it, there have been ten Hellraiser films in total. Now, I could not get the facts, but it is theorized that this is for dimension to retain the rights to the franchise. So every couple of years they've got to churn a new one out. That's what I've read in a few places, but I could not find it said for sure.

Um there have also been comic book spin-offs, and that includes some from Epic, which is a division of Marvel. Could you imagine getting a Marvel Hellraiser film? Well, actually, when you said Hellraiser, I thought to myself Hellboy. I mean I I don't think that's a yeah, but I don't think that's Marvel. Isn't it? Is it? That's what well, that's what popped into my head. Well, yes, different. Uh so actually, over the years, and this is a reason that Dimension has been trying to retain the rights, even though I don't think Dimension is still a thing, because I believe that is a um a branch of the Weinsteins. Weinstein? So yes, Dimension Films was a Weinstein company, a branch of Miramax, as it turns out.

And so I'm assuming that it is now defunct because um over the years there have been many proposals to remake Hellraiser, including, and I was noticing, I just you may be thinking, Parker, you're so silly. Because I was noticing when I was watching this movie a few similarities to last week's film film Martyrs. Gory, a skinless person. I did see that religious-esque cult. A running scene. Yeah, running. And here is another interesting crossover. So one of these proposals was from Pascal. Okay, okay. One of these proposals was from Pascal Langier, or however we decided to say that, who was the writer-director of Martyrs. But can't you picture that after watching Martyrs? Wouldn't he make such a good one?

Hellraiser? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I can picture it. Uh, unfortunately, he left the project. So there have been other ones, but he was just the one I was most interested in. He left the project because apparently he wanted to make a very serious Hellraiser film, and the comp the Weinsteins wanted him to make a teen Hellraiser movie. Oh no, that would never work. They'd have to take out all this good stuff, the sex. So uh these proposals go as far back as 2006. Barker, Clive Barker, a few years ago, even said he had written multiple drafts of a script and that it was in the hands of the studio. But this was halted perhaps because he had a pretty intense medical scare in 2012 where he went into a coma.

And uh, yeah, people thought that he was done. But luckily, he recovered from that. But there has been no further news of his work on that. However, most recently, last year, Spyglass Media Group announced towards the end of the year that they would be handling the new remake officially. And this was announced at the same time that Spyglass said they would be making, hold the applause, Scream 5. Ah! Not the purpose, but I'm excited about that. All that out of the way. Now, as I said, uh, this is somewhat of a beloved franchise in the horror community. So, you know, there's a lot of information out there. We're gonna focus, as I've said in our Shining episode and our Psycho episode, we're gonna focus on mainly how we felt watching it.

I've actually got a lot of cool stuff to discuss later to dig in a little deeper, but I mean there's no way for us to cover it all. So, you know what? Hold back your negativity, listeners. If we don't say something you want, I'll slap you in the face. What did you guys think? Hellraiser. We just watched it. What is this rated? Uh R. Obviously. I think it should increase in ratings every time the word daddy is said. Come to daddy. Well, actually, this movie was more explicit, and Clive Barker came against a lot of censorship uh issues and apparently had to take out a lot of sex and some of the gore. I mean, the sex is not the issue.

The daddy is the issue. You don't like little incest? Okay, a couple things for me. Daddy. Her mullet was really just not working for me. Uh, Julia was a bad bitch. Get off her back. All those shoulder pads, all that should shadow. Reminds me of the 80s. Well, her mullet was not doing it for me. Hair wasn't doing it for me. When it first started, I was like, wow, this movie's gonna be really freaking long. And then it got going and I was like, okay, we're fine. Oh yeah, this movie was a tight hour 30. Yeah, but the beginning I thought it was gonna be like dragging me through an hour 30. Why? It was tight.

Tight like a neck vagina. And how was the pacing for you? I thought the pacing was well paced. Mmm. Yeah, it's like me trying to run the mile. Perfectly paced. Oh, I was like slow. Um, I really liked it. Um, minus many things that came out of his mouth. Oh, daddy. Hey, daddy, what else did you think? I just think that like there were certain scenes that were really visually appealing, and then otherwise I was just like, like the house itself. Hey, Daddy, Ian wasn't done. And just the um overwhelming amount of times where there's sexual assault or rape happening. Yeah. Uh not yeah, uh a lack of consent at parts of this movie. Uh also a lot of um metal objects penetrating skin for you.

Don't like that. Rats. Rats, indeed. So I saw this movie it wasn't that long ago. It was a few years ago, but I just like I don't know, maybe I wasn't fully watching. I remember really disliking it and being like, well, I don't know, stupid. And this time I have done a little research, and of course, reading about things, you grow a little closer. And I don't necessarily think that that's always a good thing, because you shouldn't like a movie more just because you've read like context for it. You know what I'm saying? Like it's still the same movie, you should evaluate it on its base, even if it's like, wow, I really like that theme, you know?

But watching it this time, I still think it's pretty silly. Like in the best way, like I was kind of like, wow, the like camp here is off the charts. Like this movie, in my mind, I after doing the research, I was like, wow, I'm about to watch this movie and it's going to be really serious and like really like intense. And then I watched it and was like, ugh, this is pretty funny. And I like enjoyed it, but I still think there's a lot of really good horror things going on in it too. So it kind of unintentionally is almost like American Werewolf in London, what I said there, where it's like a really great combination of me laughing and enjoying it that way, but also a few parts that were legitimately tense, I think.

And I liked that a lot. And the gore I think is real it's not realistic. It didn't necessarily gross me out, but I think it's really um visually nice and pleasing. This movie was made on a very low budget, and the way that you see them going around that low budget? This is no, but the way that they got around some of that I think is really cool. Like, whenever those like chains would pierce someone's skin, how the entire screen was the skin, and you just like close up of the hook going through. Like that I think that's really creative and effective. Like, that was gross. But it kind of reminds me of like you can buy those things from Amazon that's just like a pad of skin that you can squeeze pimples out of.

One on Caroline's like. That was on Shark Tank. Highly recommended gifts every year. The pimple popper? Yeah. We almost bought my mom one. I'm into it. They must have not had enough budget for fog. This movie? Yeah, because when she's in that hospital scene and she's running through that hallway away from the monster, all I could see was whatever was pushing the monster. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Uh actually I was listening to an interview with Ashley Lawrence and she was like, Yeah, that did not go as planned. Pretty bad. I didn't even notice. She also said that it was chasing her. And they were in a very tiny room and she was running in place for most of it.

She said that she would run in place and then she would flip her hair really hard as she would look back, and she'd flip it really hard as she looked away. She did spin quite a bit. All they needed was probably just like double the amount of fog. Oh, I was like of money. Yeah, more fog would have solved all of that. Wow, actually, that creature, that strange like scorpion flesh thing, it um has a very large role in the show in the novella. I've read about half of it. Um it's less than 200 pages, and I started it yesterday. So how's that for research? Is that the same monster that then appears in the room?

At the end that comes through the front door. So I was reading about this. There's actually really intense lore and mythology behind this franchise that Clive Barker wrote a few novels and has, you know, obviously all these films have been made and there have been comic books, and it's come to a spot where it has like a pretty intense universe around it, which I think is always really fun. I like digging into things like that. Uh, when I was a kid, I always liked to get Fantasy World. Um You? Yeah. Me? Fantasy? I know. Harry Potter heard of it. Anyway, so that creature is called the Engineer, and it had plays a large role in the novella.

But Clive Barker was just really frustrated about the way the monster was turning out and the way it was being operated. So it was taken down a lot in the movie. Because in the book, the Cinobites are this like sect, I think it's called Order of the Gash. They're like this sect of like priestly SM creatures from hell, uh, and they're ruled by the the engineer or somehow controlled by him. He's behind it. And then there's a creature called the Leviathan that is like the ruler of hell that actually comes up in Hellbell and Hellraiser 2, which is a wild movie. I can't even start that. That movie is insane. I don't even know what happens in that movie, and I've watched it.

So I think there's a really cool like set of politics in the mythology of Hellraiser. And I want to talk more about the Cinnabites and their specifically like religious stuff with them and talk about like sexuality after we kind of run through our favorite parts of the movie. The movie starts off, Frank he finds the box. The box is called the Lament Configuration, in case you didn't know. And this box unleashes the Cinnabites, it calls them, summons them. Uh Clive Barker or uh Ashley Lawrence said that Clive Barker's script had a lot of cool information, like that when she looked inside the Lament configuration, there were writhing bodies inside of it. Cool. I also read that the guy who made the boxes, his name was when I read this, I laughed out loud.

Actually, I heard it and then I read it to see how it was spelled, and I laughed out loud. Simon Says or something like that. I was like, excuse me. So he designed these boxes and I think like spent days making each box, but he had to make so many because they wanted different ones to move in different ways. Apparently, he made them three by three by three because three is such a religious number. So there are all sorts of little cool details buried in here uh that I just like. That's a fun fact. I know. Um, and so that whole opening takes place in the attic of his mom's house. Now, flash forward, I don't know how many years, and Larry Cotton and his new wife, not new, but his second wife, Julia, are moving in, and they've got a daughter, Kirsty Cotton, who uh, you know, Kirsty and Julia, they've got kind of a spicy relationship.

Well, as does Larry and Julia, she really is not on good terms with anyone. Not even Frank. I want to know about Julia's past life. I know well, I would assume her and Larry like liked each other at one point. I don't know. He seems like a good guy that wears fun sweaters and just needed a nice lady, you know? Yeah, and she's not that nice lady. Exactly. She gets a little taste of the wild side on their wedding day when Frank shows up and is like, Can I kiss the bride? And uh they fuck right on top of her wedding dress. Ravished. She was into it. That was a a juicy scene. Lots of fingers being sucked, knives being run over skin.

What do you think when she says anything and she he takes her up on that? What do you think it is? Uh, we saw some really vanilla stuff after she said anything. Well, let me give you a little fun behind the scenes fact that will allude to discussions to be had later. Apparently, this scene originally, and then he was made to take it out by American, you know, raiding organizations, MPAA. This scene originally featured some hot, hot, hot anal sex that he had to remove. So just keep that in mind for the future. Buttholes. Just getting it. It just showed anal sex. Yeah, I'm not quite sure the logistics of how a movie for like a theater audience would let you know that they were having anal sex without straight up showing a wiener in a butthole.

Because if I were to in my mind, the scene that I'm imagining just looks like doggy style. How do you think they would depict anal sex without showing it? I'll tell you, it's nothing that we haven't seen before. Excuse me? Meaning it could be misconstrued as other things. So Caroline, when was the last time you saw anal sex? No, I'm saying it would be shown as doggy style. So and we've seen that, so I don't know how they would have spiced it up anything. Sounds like you're avoiding the corner. I thought you were saying we've seen anal sex before. No, I mean you were like, um, I'm saying maybe we did see anal sex before. We just didn't know it.

Oh. How many movies do you think we've seen anal in? Zero. You guys just aren't thinking creatively. Oh. Something tells me that's not the case. Anyway, so that was your fun fact, and it really got out of control. So I was actually surprised at how quick I didn't remember them, you know, revealing to us so quickly that she was not a nice person and cheating on her husband on their wedding day. But that was like first thing. I'm glad they did. Yeah, I know, because we would have had to have waited a long time to get into the action. I would have just been thinking, what a weirdo why you're acting like this. The moment she kept those photos, I was like, oh.

The moment that she dropped her nice purse on that bedbug ridden mattress in their attic, like, ugh. Something's wrong with this lady. She thinks that this is just, you know, her husband's dead mom's house, and they have to go live in it. Ugh, what a drag. That would have been nice to explain a little bit more because I felt really before before we really got into the meat of the story, I couldn't place like I knew there was a relation between the house and them, but I could not for the life of me figure out what it was. Yeah, he says it really quick, and actually the way he said it when I was watching it this time, I was like, What?

Because he's like, he was like, Oh, this was the old woman's house, she's gone now, and I was like, That's how you talk about your dead mom? Sucks. But um, you know, they think it's just a regular old grungy house with all these, you know, Jesus statues in it. Little do they know it just takes one scrape to the back of the hand to start bringing zombies up. But they both have been in that house before. That's where she cheated on him prior, or is that in real time? I think the cheating happened at a different it looked different, but I couldn't tell. A different location in the past. That was in the past, though. Oh, I thought it was in the same room.

No, no, no, no. Because it felt like she flashed back. It was a flashback, but I couldn't tell where it was. It could have been the house. I don't know. Because that's what threw me off. I was like, she's flashbacking to this house, yet she seems like she's never been in the house before. Well, she was for sure set off by all of Frank's stuff with the memories, but actually I would like it if it was the same house because he says it's been 10 years since I've been to this house, and that would give us a nice timeline of like how long they've been married, things like that, but it it does seem like she has not been to that house before, I have to say.

Um, what's the deal with like the organs forming from underneath the wood? So that's exactly what I want to talk about next. Because for all of the silly things in this movie, this scene is freaking cool. Yeah. Pretty much is there something living under their instigates this? Uh no, it was Frank died in there, and we saw the Cinnabites kind of cleaned him up. And I'm not sure the logistics. I think we have to use a little bit of imagination here. But it's the blood that feeds him and wakes him up, and somehow the Cinnabites do not know that this was gonna happen. Because he is uh by awakening, escaping the Cinnabites. Because we have to assume he was taken to hell with the Cinnobites.

So why do you think let's do some speculation here? Why do you think the blood in this scenario, because it's clearly surprising to the Cenobites that this is a possibility? Why do you think here versus any other scenario that maybe they've come across in the past? Why is it now that is that blood is working? That is an answer that I cannot give you how ever. Maybe it's because it's his brother. It's his own blood. Ooh, I like that idea. But if it if that were the case, then what about all the other well? Okay, how many like relatives come to the site where they were dismembered and dragged to hell and also bleed on that same site?

Oh, I could name five. Just kidding. That is a good point, and I like the idea. I think that rules are very loose here. Holes to the plot are gaping. But this movie, I think, for how trivial this movie might seem to somebody who's not into horror, I think that this movie is about a lot more than the story. Does that make sense? It seems like more of like an art piece to me. Like, Clive Barker wasn't necessarily thinking like about this setup, he's thinking more about like the universe. Yeah, for sure. I mean also one of the other big holes is just the puzzle box. Uh, what about Julie's butthole after all that anal they've been doing?

But like I just I think the puzzle box thing is weird. Yeah, the pu the I do like the puzzle box, but I agree, I I do not have a lot of answers about it. I feel like that's something that like pops up in these kind of horror slash doom movies, though. I feel like I've I've seen a lot of movies that some it's like a an ominous box that like gets passed around, or like if it shows up at your doorstep, then like three of your friends die, or like there's something about like that theme of a box. Well, what I do like about the box, and this will further well this thing, the what I'm about to say will further compound your that a box is a horror trope thing.

In the book, it's actually a music box, which is everywhere. Horror movies are riddled with music boxes. But what I like about the Lament configuration in this is that it's people have to choose to call the Cinebites, and it's not easy to call them. You have to solve the box, you have to want to call the Cinnabites to call the Cinnabites. And so Or you're just curious and you want to solve it, you don't know what's on the other side. Like Kirsty, right? Yeah. Do you think that Kirsty ended up getting pleasure from the Cinnabites? Well, in the book, like I said, I have not finished it, and a lot of the plot of the book is very different.

Kirsty's not even like a star. She may have because in the book, solving the box is pleasure. And he's calling the Cinnabites because he's like, I have seen and felt all of the worldly pr pleasures, and it's not enough. He even says in the flashback to Julia in the movie, I wrote it down, he says it's never enough. And she's like, Please stay with me. And he's just like, No, like because he doesn't love Julia, he just loves pleasure. And so he finds he seeks out the box because he's heard tales that it is it will give him what he's looking for, and that's why you know the guy at the beginning he says, What's your pleasure?

and he's like, You know what it is, you know, come to daddy. And uh in the book, he solves it, and as soon as he does, all of his senses are amplified so much that he can't handle it, and he even we don't see this in the movie, but you know, I wouldn't have minded. He even, you know, starts touching himself and has an orgasm, and after he does, it doesn't stop. And he's like, Wait, I just signed up for a little kick here. What's going on? And so that kind of leads me to the first theme of the movie that I that is well, it's it's pretty, you know, not a lot of this is text, not subtext, but the uh, you know, pain versus pleasure and how those bleed together.

So the Cinobites are from a hell dimension in Hellraiser, and they're they're described as beings that no longer can tell the difference between pleasure and pain. And what I like is that they're not monsters, they're not villains, they're just you know, you know, beings that judge and kind of dole out what they've been asked to give. And the thing is that some people don't understand what they're asking for. You know what I mean? I feel like that's kind of a trope of movies too, is that you're on this journey to seek out something, but you don't exactly know what you're getting yourself into. And so Frank gets himself in a little bit over his head by calling the Cinnabites to him.

And um, Clive Barker's discussed the process of designing the Cinnabites, and he was talking about how in the 80s he would have his crew, him and his crew would go to SM clubs. That just sounds like a germ field to me. Well, he said this was the first time he'd ever seen people piercing their skin for pleasure. And he would have his, you know, team go and study what people were wearing and study the culture, and that's how they designed the cinnabites, was actually by going and seeking that out. And he's talked many times about kind of the dichotomy of revulsion and fascination, how it's gross and the cinnabites look revolting, but there's also something that you want to look at them for.

You know what I'm saying? Like they're somehow like still beautiful, might be a genera generous word, but like you were saying, like there's something artistic about them. There's something that you like and desire, even if that's not sexual, like you know, some of the people in this movie. So I think the cinnabites are really interesting, complicated characters because they're not the villains of this movie. In fact, it seems like they are. The poster of this movie is Pinhead holding the box, but actually the villain is Frank and Julia. There's a lot of different story going on here. Yeah, the cinnabites are just doing their job. Exactly. And speaking of Frank and Julia, they start murdering people.

You know, Julia goes out, she picks up a hot piece at the bar, brings them home, and then sledged the head takes them down. In what world is it that easy to pick people up? I mean, we've never been a woman, so Caroline. It's pretty hard. Now, I will say, something that is appealing to me about a reboot is, you know, the advent of dating apps. That could be interesting. I mean, it's in any way that I could imagine it is silly because I don't have the creative brain for writing movies. I mean, this movie could be one scene laying on our couch making a fake Tinder profile. You up? Yeah. Come in, shoot him. That's it.

Oh, guns, that's beneath them. There's artistry to hitting people with a hammer. You know what pissed me off? Ooh, what? Is that Frank isn't doing his own killing. I mean at the beginning. He's got exposed nerves. I know, but like come on. I don't know. I think that might be a hard I mean, he is very muscly. Here's what I don't understand. Julia can pick up all these men so easily, and yet she decides to murder like four people to have the one that is crawling around in her upstairs attic killing mice. But that's the kind of bigger thing here is that she has tasted something from Frank and she wants it. She's obsessed with it, you know?

Girlfriend. I'm sure any of those men that she brought home could have given her something similar. I don't know about that. Those men. Okay, maybe not them. But like, you know, well, we know Caroline's standards. Get pretty close. There's another Frank somewhere out in the world. You don't have to murder someone. Think about this a little more romantically, Caroline. Is there another Ian out there? Damn. Let's just turn into couples counseling. Ian, how do you feel about that? You're a snowflake, dear. Ugh. Yeah. Speaking of morals, a very blurred line, not to bring that song into it, but a blurred line here between what's moral and amoral. You know what's not moral no matter what, though.

Murdering. Debatable. Oh yeah, I guess. I mean why don't you, you know, see yourself out? I don't want to sleep in the same apartment. Um well, in self-defense, is murder still considered murder if it's in self-defense of a said murderer trying to murder? Is it still a murder? Am I a murderer trying to defend myself against you? If someone murdered someone and then comes to try to murder you and you kill them, is that murder? Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. So Frank says about the lament configuration, and it's an experience beyond the limits. Pain and pleasure indivisible. That sets the scene of the movie. And I like. So Larry's like, hey, Kirsi, my daughter. And she's like, yeah, daddy.

And he's like, Will you go talk to my wife? She's clearly not happy with me. Now, I have a feeling Larry probably knows Julia and Kirsi don't exactly get along, so this seems like a stupid plan for moment one. But she catches her in the act of bringing home a strange man. She hears a scream and is like, Oh, I better go check that out, and stumbles upon Frank. Before she does, however, I like, I've kind of missed there is like kind of interesting religious things planted throughout here, such as when they move into the house, they mention that it's a Sunday, they're throwing out all the Jesuses. And then a lot of uh I I like that a lot of times when they exclaim in a place where other expletives might be used.

It's always like a Jesus Christ or something like that. And the man that's being murdered here says, Christ help me. And let me let you in on a little secret. He sure does not. Because he gets his uh Frank digs his fingers into his neck. And I have to point out, it's a little hot here. Those two men rubbed up against that wall, fingers penetrating. Been there. Thanks, Parker. But the jig is up because Kirsty catches him and then ooh. What's that? Heat? Incest. Frank is like, hey baby, you're looking pretty these days. Come to daddy. Hey, baby. Indeed. And Kirsty's like, uh no, thank you. And she gets away, but ugh. Don't you just hate it when your body betrays you and you just faint in the middle of the street?

Happens to me all the time. She wakes up in the hospital, flowers blooming. How erotic. Turns out the nurse is just watching that on TV. I'm more concerned for the nurse. Yeah, she's just watching the flowers on TV. Planet Earth did not exist in the background. The doctor, who is very combative with Kirsty, gives her the box and is like, hey, maybe this will jog your memory on what happens. What's in that box? Well, what's in the box? Sex. She solves it, and that door opens up where she finds the engineer. She runs away. We've already discussed. So dramatic. But the cinnabites show up and they say a few interesting things. I like he says, Oh, no tears, please.

It's a waste of good suffering. And this is where we kind of see, you know, Kirsty, an innocent, has called them, and they're open to a little barter. They're like, Uh, I don't know. They don't guarantee anything. He says, maybe. Yeah, which is a no. He says, maybe, bring us Frank, or we'll tear your soul apart. You know, easy trade. Worth a shot, though. Worth a shot. I mean, not a lot of other options. What follows this climax of the movie. You know, father, Larry, killed and skinned, spoiler, by Frank. Frank, you know, masquerading as Larry. And I do have to say, Ian, you said something about this during the movie, where Kirsty's talking to Frank and she's just not noticing that he has like flaps of skin hanging off him and blood all over him.

While I think that the effect is cool, why would you put that in a movie and just be like, hey, just ignore that while you're talking to him? You know, you gotta have a little reaction. Like, oh dad, why is there skin hanging off you? And he, oh, you know, big fight. Yeah. I don't know. That was the most ridiculous moment ever. Well, it's supposed to be a pretty big revelation when Larry, air quotes Larry, says to Kirsty, Come to Daddy. And she's like, What? And then she claws his skin off. And then runs upstairs, good maggot corpse here. Scared us. Creepy. And then, you know, yada yada yada. Kirsty's like, What have you done to my dad?

And Frank with a killer burn says he was dead long before we ever touched him. Nice. You need some ice for that. Damn. And then the Cinnabite show up. Jane's flying, hooking into Frank. His face skin really pulled apart here. He licks his lips and says, What? And then gets blown apart by all these chains. And Kirsty's like, wow, shit. And then she's trying, she's like, okay, well, we're good now. But then the Cinebites go, no, no, no. Famous, famous line here. So they're not going to let him get away. Good thing she's got that box to zap them all with. Boyfriend shows up. Engineer shows up. Suffice to say, they get away. And then this dingus thinks she can just throw a metal box into a fire and it's going to go away.

Hasn't she ever seen Aladdin? Clearly, no. When did Aladdin come out? Do you think he's out in 87? No. Yeah, probably not. Illuminati. Now, Caroline, you'd said something earlier with the homeless man when they were in the pets where you said Jesus. Now, I don't think he was Jesus, but he does turn into some sort of winged creature and fly away with that box to give it back to the salesman from the beginning who asks a new man, What's your pleasure? So you're on to something. Tell me, if you got that look from that guy walking to unknown subway stop. Oh, the homeless one? Wouldn't that be cause for true unknown? It happens three times a day to me.

Yeah, it does happen a lot. She gets away pr she w I mean doesn't get away. You just walk quicker. Anyway, the other thing that I think um is a bummer about this movie is that this was originally made as like a very British horror film. And um when the studio releasing got its eyes on it, they said, no, we want this to be a little more American. Can you reshoot some things, make it a little more ambiguous to the location? And then they had a lot of the actors, a lot of the extras who had already said their lines, they dubbed lines over them with American accents. I could tell from the beginning the mattress moving guy, lips were not sinking to the words.

Yeah, there's some pretty big bummers in there. Anyway, but let's not dwell. We've already talked about pain versus pleasure. Pain is pleasure, pleasure is pain, you know. We've talked about that. We've talked about love and obsession. That's a big theme here. A lot of, you know, inverses and dichotomies here. Uh, we've talked about morality and sin. And I also like within that that there's the idea that pushing yourself means either taking control or losing yourself. The Cinnabites seem very in charge of what's going on around them, which includes the sexuality. But Frank, I think why he's so unsuccessful and why Julia's so unsuccessful is that they've lost control to their desire. I think that's an interesting inverse in this movie as well.

Uh, in the same interview, Ashley Lawrence said uh about this franchise. She said about Clive Barker, good is always victorious. People like me will win. All you need to do is tell the truth. That's nice. I don't think that's true. Let's see, we've talked about uh inversions of religious imagery, except we have not talked about a little bit more of the lore here. So in this movie, I think it's really interesting. Clive Barker's discussed how the Cinebites live in another dimension and it's a hell dimension. However, it's not the hell that is the Christian heaven versus hell. In this movie, they don't really talk about a heaven, you know? And this isn't the hell that scares us into being good, like we discussed in our martyrs episode.

This is a hell where, you know, the cinnabites have some sort of rule. They're, I mean, a Cinnabite is not a word made up by this movie. That is a uh like religious monastic figure. And it was used by this movie because they're wearing, you know, robes. These robes just have to be happen to be leather, and there's some sort of, you know, religious priest of sexuality here. So I like this idea that hell isn't necessarily about punishment. Hell is a place in this movie where it's a place where pain is eternal, but pain isn't necessarily pain. You know, like I said, it's also pleasure. There's something where people choose to go to this hell to experience things that are beyond the limits of human uh is pleasure.

Sensation. Hell. Maybe. You know, these are the kind of cogs that this movie gets turning. So I like this idea of a modern image of hell, a hell that's different than this, you know, ancient, ancient, you know, Christian thing that is so saturated in, you know, today's world. It's it's butting up against that. The other religious idea, well, this isn't necessarily religious, but kind of an old-fashioned idea here, is that this movie is going to show us the disintegration of the family unit. We have not only a man and a daughter whose wife slash mother is dead, but he has a second wife who's, you know, not not very good, a bit of an evil stepmother, and uh, you know, is stepping out on him with his brother and a mother that he clearly doesn't love.

So this movie is going hard against common thoughts of like traditional culture. From moment one, I like that a lot. Here's what I've been really wanting to get to. All that time to eat the goods. You may have heard before, this might come as a shock to you guys, but I myself am a gay man. What? Get out of here. I know. I didn't Oh, he's out. Would have never guessed, but it is true. And you may have heard me say earlier, Clive Barker, also a gay man. What? Slide into my DMs. You know, obviously, this movie is very preoccupied with sex and sexuality and identity. So Hellraiser has a huge, huge place in horror scholarship, and it's had many, many studies done about it.

This movie in particular, like people are really digging into Hellraiser. Early on, when it was uh new, a few works were written pinning it as homophobic and conservative, actually. They were saying that it conflates queerness with the monstrous and is a reactionary piece to the AIDS crisis, where gayness was feared and seen as sexual deviancy, just like SNM. So, I mean, this was put out there, released in the late 80s when, you know, the AIDS crisis was really ramping up, and everybody was like, oh, that's you know, a disease only gay men can get, so we're all scared of them. So these early articles were saying that's what Clive Barker was saying, you know, even though he was an openly gay man at this point, they were like, you yourself are saying, like, be scared of us.

We have this disease. Uh, I personally do not agree with that, and I think that by having SNM have such a strong presence in this movie, you know, I think that's already hint one that they should have been latching on to. So the Cinnabites represent an elevated consciousness. They're people, not people, they're beings that have surpassed the human realm of, you know, sensation and thought. And they're in tune with pleasures void of earthly judgment. You know, they're just them. So all of the themes that we've been discussing uh so far, like love and obsession and uh religion, you know, they're above, they're well, they're not above, they're separate from that. And also kind of similar to what Caroline was saying earlier, where in the credits one of the cinnabites is billed is the female cinnabite, and she was like, What?

They're also very genderless, and they're, you know, even the ones that are clearly male are wearing skirts and they have, you know, like butterball, like that could be a woman, we don't know, but they're separate from human binaries and they're separate from labels. And so where these pieces have gone wrong is I think, yes, these can be seen as queer figures, but I don't think that they're supposed to be monstrous. In an article I was reading from off-screen that I thought was really interesting, it says of one of these articles, it says, Binshoff states that uh part of Barker's defense against the criticism that his films are reactionary is to point out that he is, quote, rewriting the genre to focus on its potential to dramatize and evoke social, psychological, and physical change.

There are elements of metamorphosis in much of Barker's work, and the author director asserts that in his early works, the issues of transformation, of paradox, and gender ambiguity are a consistent presence. All three of these elements are present in the manner of dress worn by the Cinnabites in Hellraiser. And I relate this to what the Cinnabite, what Pinhead says to Kirsty when he first appears. Who are you? Explorers in the further regions of experience, demons to some, angels to others. And if that doesn't wrap up gay life in the 80s, you know, he's saying that some people don't understand us, but to some people we're all they have. Interesting. And now, I think that that, with all the scholarship that's been done that I can find, is pretty much agreed upon in canon, that the cinnabites represent some sort of other that is misunderstood but isn't evil.

Because the other characters in this movie are viewing everything through a heterosexual lens. Like if we are sympathizing with the characters, we don't understand the cinnabites, you know, looking at them through the culturally ingrained vision that they have. Does that make sense? Perfect. Sometimes I get ranting and I can't even, you know, talk. This article that I was reading proposed a viewing of this movie that I think is really interesting, but should not be taken as canon or fact. I just want to point it out because obviously. So the author of this article was saying that it's there's a complicated message around what's going on with Frank in this movie. He is the villain. And one might think that Julia must seduce Min to be free and to find her liberation with Frank.

However, this author suggested that Frank is asking for and has a thirst for male flesh. And when I read that, I was like, huh, listening? Even though I do not want to be conflated with Frank necessarily. He did always make her leave. Yeah. So the article or the author, I didn't write down a name, so you'll just have to look in the show notes, suggests that the Cinnabites are a product of their dimension, and Frank is a product of ours. That he's seen as a monster by his heteronormative family, and though he tries to straighten himself out with Julia, ultimately leaves his born family for a chosen family, the Cinnobites. He's the one raising hell for the people around him.

And that's viewed through this 80s societal cultural lens. If we are to view him as a queer character, which I'm not saying I should, but bear with me. What I do like about that, however, because I do think this is complicated because Frank is clearly the villain of the movie. What I like about this theory is that you know, Frank, if he's queer, is on this journey of coming out, but has not been accepted and has to resort to what you know the characters in the movie are viewing as monstrous, but that's only as a product of not being understood and not being supported. I don't think that's necessarily the case, but you could make an argument for that that I think is really interesting, and as a queer person myself, you know, I like I like being like making all the excuses I can to see myself in a movie.

So that was my thought there. Uh another article on Gaily Dreadful, the art the author, the author wrote about how the film spoke powerfully to her about polyamory and her own bisexuality. She was saying that she had never seen herself in a movie because she had seen straight movies and queer movies, but this movie she felt pre- representation in. So suffice to say, I think this film is really rich in inclusion and both pushes the envelope, especially when you think about this being in the 80s, you know, all the slashers we've not that this is a slasher, but all of the it kind of is, all the slashers we've seen from the 80s, you know, feature like boobs and teens.

But this is a very erotic sexuality that's in this movie that's not just like, uh, titties. Um, so it was pushing the envelope, but I also like that it's subtle enough that if you just want to watch it as a horror movie, you can. And that's always a good thing. I have another quote from Clive Barker, and we can wrap her up. He says, quote, horror fiction tends to be reactionary. It's usually about a return to the status quo. The monster in the outside the monster is the outsider who must be banished from the sanctum. But over and over again, I've created monsters who come from the outside and who call out to somebody to join them in the sanctum.

And then, of course, you know, if you were gonna go with what that guy said or what that person said in the article about Frank being queer, anal sex. Hell yeah. You know, I bring everything full circle in here. Alright. Hellraiser. Raised hell. A lot of murder. What would you say is the most memorable? Uh, Julia's final penetration. Yeah, Frank was like, you know what? You got me, my me. Sad to see you go, but not really. I'd also have to agree. Julia's final penetration. Wow, I'm gonna definitely go with final Frank death exploding into bits via chain pulling. The penetrations have it. I know, I I'm outnumbered on a scary scale. One to five. How would you rate Hellraiser?

I'm gonna give it a three. Wow. Going to give it a two. I'm gonna give it a two as well. Now, Hellraiser. Smash or slash. Slash. We'll back that up quickly. It just wasn't my movie. Wasn't her bag. I'd have to say it's definitely on the line for me, but I would have to round to a smash. Wow, how much of a sna smash snatch? How much of a smash? A nice, you know, SM chains. No, just uh run-of-the-mill vanilla smash. Wow. Well, I'm gonna give Hellraiser a pretty good anal sex smash. You know, this could be a game changer here. What would you say is your favorite scary movie? The Shining. Rare exports. And I'm gonna stick with an American werewolf in London.

Now, look at that diversity in movies. I know. You won't be peer pressuring me, no sorry, Bob. Now, next week on this uh podcast, we're hitting the theaters again. It's been a minute since I feel like we've been in the theaters. That's a lie. We saw the grudge. Good thing I forgot about that, and it's gonna stay that way. Uh, but we're headed to the theaters, hopefully to see something much better. Gretel and Hansel. Titular. Well, we'll see. I actually have kind of high hopes for this one. Anyone else? Yeah, it looks like it could be uh high hopes for the grudge, too. Could be a wiener. This one looks very Visually standout. Yeah. A movie about children.

I don't know about that. And get out of here with that. Come to Daddy. So yeah, we're seeing that. Come back next week for it. Until then, you can head over to Apple Podcasts and leave us a rating and a review, and we'll give you a scream on next week's pod. We're gonna break the mold a little bit here. We had such a nice comment on one of our Facebook posts. And while you should definitely still go leave a review on Apple Podcasts instead of, you know, a Facebook comment, I would still love to hear about it because it was just so sweet. Um Patrick left us a nice little comment that said, Hey, Parker, Caroline, and Ian.

A few days ago I discovered this amazing what's your favorite scream movie podcast. Keep up the good work. Greetings from Holland, the Netherlands. Dope. I am your number one fan. Wow, but that's a review. Uh that is a comment that somebody made on Facebook. That's so cool. How nice about it. You know what's kind of cool about that? What? Is people sorry, what what was his name? Patrick. People like Patrick are actually starting to contribute to our Patreon. Which is like really exciting. You know, you know what the most exciting part about that is? What? Is the fact that you just went out and bought name brand Duracell Batteries. Ten bucks, baby. And I know that sounds crazy, but we were able to actually buy the name brand batteries because of the frickin' Patreon supporters.

And that means the like battery levels have not gone down at all on a recorder. And I think it has to do something with name brands. So thank you. Amazon basic ones go to before. Yeah, Amazon, your basic. So yeah, thank you to everyone that supports us. It allows us to get name brand batteries. And if you too want to support us on Patreon, you can get so much cool stuff. You can get a newsletter every month, which you may think, newsletter, I can just look at your calendar on the website. Well, one, no, because we send out the newsletter before we update our calendar, so you know, jokes on you. Two, we have some pretty cool discussions and good little thoughts that we slap into that newsletter.

If you want to hear about what our favorite things are from every month, what we're looking forward to, our February newsletter, spoiler patrons, cover your ears. Might have our thoughts on the Oscar nominations. What? And um you could get that. Plus bonus episodes where we're seeing even more new theatrical releases. We have an episode on the turning coming out soon on our Patreon. And you could get that if you head over to uh patreon.com slash scary moviepod. Newsletters are a dollar a month. Bonus episodes and newsletter, just five dollars a month. And I'm just saying, if we ever have that scary movie theater someday, Patreon supporters. If free. Maybe. Yeah. And our prices will go up all we'll have free popcorn.

Water. The little VIP experience. Alright. My name just so happens to be Parker Heron, and you can find me on Instagram, Twitter, uh, letterboxed, and the slasher app at Parker Delray. My name is Caroline. You can find me on Instagram and Twitter at Caro Manifesto. And my name is Ian Hoyt. You can find me on the New York subway sometime. But if you're a homeless man that's about to transform into a winged beast, still find him. We'll tear your soul apart.