Man.....I'm not gonna lie. I don't see what the big deal about this movie is. Some scenes are decent and gory. None are really scary though! None of this movie scared me, and I watched it by myself at night. I love horror movie, BUT I truly don't see why this one is a classic! To me it was uneventful and lacked suspense. Only reason I gave it this many stars was bc of Kirsty. At least she was something to look at!

Before Fifty Shades of Grey, there was One Shade of Cenobite... and it was blood red... and it spilt out beautifully.I have to say that besides Hitchcock's movies this is one decent story adaptation. This could be that the writer and the director are one in the same - the great Clive Barker. However, I think where this supercedes all the other writer cum director flicks out there is that each was a separate project. He wrote the story to be a story, not as a concept to behind making a movie. And, I think that is where most writer/directors fail... oh, I had a good idea for a film, quick write the script...So if you don't know the story yet, it's about the Cotton family. After being willed a house, Larry (Robinson) and Julia (Higgins) decide to check it out, with the possibility of moving in. Kirsty (Laurence), their daughter, plays the independence card and rents out a room in the town, instead of moving in. However, something isn't quite right in their new abode. Julia is having daydreams about her affair with Larry's brother Frank (Chapman), who is the black sheep of the family - and a sexual sadomasochist to boot. While moving in Larry cuts his hand. He rushes to Julia for help as he's hemophobic. His spilt blood soaks into the floor of the attic and starts Frank's rebirth... and hell will follow after...Another bonus for the film and the audience is that Barker is an all-round artist. He not only writes but paints and draws, and directs both movies and plays, which allows him to put his art and imagination into his work. This being his first film you begin to get an inkling of what this guy is capable of. In Hellraiser he plays with camera shots and angles, manipulates light to create atmosphere, he even gives us some realistic nightmare visions.The special effects, especially the "wet-work" and Franks rebirth in particular, still look good today and will send a shiver down your spine and make your stomach twitch. Though truthfully, the computer visuals are dated and now detract the viewer's attention from the film... I literally shook my head and cringed inwardly at how bad these now look. The thing is, I didn't like them originally, I thought they were nasty and cheap. They also appear to have been added after the fact as none of the actors even acknowledge the floating stars or the electric blue light (except for when it shocks them). It would be nice if somebody could remaster this like Star Trek (the original series) and Star Wars, just to update these tired looking CGI.The acting is okay, though at times the voices seem wrong. It feels and looks like Franks American voice was overdubbed a millisecond or two out of time and at a different pitch and volume than the others. There are a few scenes where this also happens with Kirsty and her boyfriend Steve (Hines). Though, if you've watched plenty of dubbed martial arts movies, like myself, it's not too much of a distraction.If you've not watched this film yet and you claim to be a horror or a dark fantasy fan then get yourselves a copy and enjoy... If you have a copy and not watched it for a while, dust it off and enjoy. There's a reason this became an instant horror classic on its release, it was different, innovative, and walked the tightrope of wickedness. Well worth a watch... again... and again... and again... until you hear the scratching in the walls and creak of timbers and the clunking of chains...

Film Review: "Hellraiser" (1987)Remarkable original in its conception of art direction on just a budget of roundabout even one million GB Pounds, produced in season 1986/1987 for a world-premiering midnight screening at Cannes Film Festival in its 40th edition, author director Clive Barker fulfills his vision on the world in a daring image system of sadomasochistic chambers in a small-town house, prepared by a mystical box puzzle, solved by Morroco-traveling main character Frank, giving in under his frenzies into an illusionary scenario of body- as mind-splitting family members under screams of daughter Julia, portrayed by actress Clare Higgins, while actor Dough Bradley as notorious character of "Pinhead" leads a group of dark pleasure demons, called the cenobites in order to fulfill the darkest dreams of Frank, the game initiator; all happening under light-shifting steamy cinematography that feels into morbid, chain-clinking sounds of high-tension atmospheres accompanied to a decisive soundtrack by composer Christopher Young, keeping the audience guessing what are stakes in the next scene to follow in a fast-forward and straight hardcore-horrors-sharing picture, which full-bodied tight grip on the spectre's senses may fascinate not genre fans only.© 2017 Felix Alexander Dausend (Cinemajesty Entertainments LLC)

I have to say, it could be because I only watched this now when there are already better effects, but I have to admit I found the movie to be ... boring. It wasn't particularly bad, but it didn't scare me. I mean, it certainly killed time but I wouldn't watch it again if I had the choice. I found the story line to be uninteresting. Every time there was an interaction between the woman and her dead/undead/zombie/demon lover I was staring at the screen and shaking my head. The demons did not really do much and the girl, the daughter, was just kinda there.