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jaydee1818 · 2 years

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Long post about a movie up ahead…

You know what it was for me about the new Hellraiser? There was no romance in it.

There was no passion. No sweat. No grime. The desperation rang hollow. There was no dirt. There was no seduction. There was no appreciation for the beauty of filth and ugliness. It was just beautiful.

I feel like, nowadays, people are so concerned about people taking horror ‘seriously’ that any love that might have gone into it falls to the wayside. There used to be a visceral love for horror- not just the heightened aesthetics, but for the grossness. The getting dirty. The true disturbing quality of the human body as an object. The wetness, the juiciness, the blood, the grease, the fat, the flesh. People falling apart, hair undone, eyes wild, covered in sweat and tears. There’s a romance in that. A romance in the base form of humanity. In desperation. In fear.

No amount of beautifully made, consistency-accurate, color-accurate fake blood will match the way Kirsty looks in 1987 screaming “You want it? Fucking have it!” She is raw. She is frightened. She is angry and undone and she wants to fight. She looks like an animal.

That is the franchise. That. The human animal. When you watch Hellraiser 1987, it’s so clear that the people making the movie understood what they were making. Understood the beauty of the horrific. And yeah, that’s probably not a fair comparison, as the literal author Clive Barker was at the helm of the project. But that does even further disservice to 2022. And even with all the beauty 2022 captured, a clean, modern, painfully clinical beauty though it may be, there is nothing luscious or lurid about it. Nothing about the Cenobites seems particularly ‘forbidden,’ because they look like pieces of modern art. They have no enticement. I felt like I observed them with the same appraising eye one might cast upon a particularly lovely sculpture. I didn’t want to take a closer look, a grave and fatal feeling for a franchise like Hellraiser. I mean my god, when people talk about ‘sexy’ horror, Candyman and Hellraiser are often the first two names that get called out. This movie was not sexy. Not at all.

The surreal and fantastical were left to the wayside in favor of brutalism and realism. It leaves wonder behind, supplanting it with rote fear. The character’s lack of understanding is devoid of genuine curiosity. It seems the filmmakers fundamentally misunderstood that you can be filled with awe and wonder both in a positive way, and in a negative way. There’s no temptation. There are no trances. No dreams. You’ll never see anything like the premonition Kirsty had in 1987. Or the flashback romance scenes between Frank and Julia. That visual style of storytelling is gone.

The concepts behind 2022 were good. They had an interesting take on the lore, and to include a ritual to the Configuration was smart, and well done. But that eventually served only in detriment as well, as the entirety of the movie then rang like a ‘deal with the devil’ morality tale. It’s confusing in that way, as one of the iconic lines spoken by the original Priest (Pinhead) when asked who the Cenobites are is “Demons to some; Angels to others.” There’s an attractiveness to that. To them.

How is it possible, then, that the filmmakers seemed to forgo the angelic part of that quote? The 2022 Cenobites were beautifully designed, meticulously created creatures. The were beautiful. But the christian bible, and indeed many faiths across time all understand that to see something beautiful can be terrifying and frightening. One of the most commonly known snippets of the Bible, at least in the western world, comes from Luke 2:10, “But the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid […]’.” An angel, and the first words spoken are “Do not be afraid.” If one cast their eyes upon the unobstructed form of Zeus’ beauty, they would die. If one saw Anubis walk into a room, jackal head and all, it would be impossible to look away, but also frightening to the core. To see a god, any god, in the flesh is to be both terrified and excited. Those two feelings are inextricable.

Why is it, then, that no one is seeking the Cenobites out? Why does not one hunt for the Configuration? The very promise of the appearance of the Cenobites is the promise to take you to the furthest reaches of experience and sensation, when pleasure and pain can no longer be separated. To experience that which you could never dream of. To push the boundaries to breaking, until you exist only as a being of feeling, beyond and above even consciousness. So why does no one want to see the Cenobites?

The issue falls to the framing device, which needn’t have been used to such ill effect. When you reduce those claimed by the Cenobites to sacrifices, you reduce the Cenobites to nothing more than pretty weapons. The lives the Cenobites take are offerings, stepping stones to an end goal. While the Cenobites may enjoy in their activities, there is no one seeking out to touch them. To reach them. Not the entity behind them. Those who wish to receive a gift from the Cenobites never truly interact with them. The gift is no longer the visit in and of itself. What sights have they to show us, when they are nothing but glorified weapons of their god, instead of gods in their own right?

And don’t even get me started on the coloring. Look, I know it’s very en vogue for things to be monochromatic and dark in movies these days, but my god where was the color?! Where was it!! The glimpses we got were not enough when 1987 is just so bright. And then, to make things worse, the Cenobites were shown almost entirely without obstruction. Just out there in the open, for the most part, albeit in the distance and shown briefly. No illusory quality to them. I know I don’t want a closer look when I can see every detail of them the first time. That’s a person with pins in her head, that one doesn’t have eyes or a face, that one’s neck is one huge gash, that one’s in a skin straight jacket. I know because I can see it. I’d surely run if I could see that right off the top. Gone is the sense of ‘oh my god, oh my god, what was that?’ I get your designs are strong, and really very well made, but don’t just give it to me. Let me want it a bit first. Tease me with it. With them.

On top of that, the reds aren’t as red. The blues aren’t as blue. The color shift felt virtually nonexistent between the Hellworld and the real one, and neither reality is particularly vibrant. You’ll never see as intense a contrast as you hope to see. People being stabbed, ripped apart, torn by chains, flayed, all these things look wonderful, but just too real. Why do I care if your red is tone-accurate when your reference looks like a technicolor nightmare in the best possible way?

The drama! The unrealism! The intensity! The Cenobites are not of this earth. We call their realm ‘hell,’ but you could just as easily call it a parallel or alternate dimension. They simply exist. There are so few properties with a strong enough foundation for the only limit to be your imagination, and unfortunately it felt like this new Hellraiser was want of any. I don’t want your anatomically correct muscles and perfectly researched disfigurements, I want unreality. Give me fantasy, or don’t bother.

I say all this with the heaviest of hearts. The Priest was well designed. The Cenobites, and there were quite a few of them, all had potential to induce desire. They just…didn’t. It just felt like no one understood. Like no one would think twice about whether they wanted to see the Priest- of course the wouldn’t! And god, did that show. I think at least someone working on a Hellraiser property should be able to see the desirability of the Cenobites, the tantalizing nature of the taboo, the socially outcast.

Clive Barker was a gay man who released The Hellbound Heart in the 1986, and the original Hellraiser film in 1987. This was the height of the AIDS epidemic, when gay men were seen as disease, not just carrying disease. Monsters. Predators. Animals. They were laughed at and scorned, and treated as so much less than human. Treated like they deserved their fate. Their tragedy was the butt of everyone’s joke. Yet, those very people were still wanted under the cover of night. Still desired. How is it possible this new team missed the mark so entirely? How could they not understand that when one’s very desires are deemed deviant, when your nature is seen as repugnant, unnatural, criminal, one eventually comes to a place where those words become badges of pride? Of a way to differentiate yourself from those who would wish you dead? That idea didn’t make its way to Hellraiser 2022.

We never got to a place that said, Yes. Yes they are deviant, and repugnant, and criminal and damned. They will drag you down with them into endless agonies. Not a single person will be able to save you. You think even touching them will kill you. And you still want them.

All the makings of an excellent new Hellraiser were there, but nothing was enough. Colors, editing, acting, story, beauty, fear, dirtiness, sexiness (jesus god there was no sexiness), it all came up short. They weren’t brave enough to explore the further regions of experience.

Clinical and devoid of passion, Hellraiser 2022 gets a heartbreaking 1/5*

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