Hellraiser (1987)

My rating - 7/10

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Kirsty, her father Larry and her new stepmother Julia move into Larry's old childhood home. Larry's brother and Julia's secret lover Frank used a puzzle box and accidently summoned demons who dragged him with them to hell, now he's escaped them and is trying to return to earth but needs human victims to renew himself and he wants Julia to help him as he's being hunted by the demons he's running from.

An excellent, and pretty graphic movie based on Clive Barker's story "The Hellbound Heart". The cast is great with Ashley Laurence in her first movie role and lead role being a standout. People always talk about movies like The Fly, The Thing and American Werewolf In London as being the best when it comes to practical effects, but there's some amazing work in here that can easily put it in the same league as those others. Some of the gore here is actually quite disgusting and it's very well done. The script and direction are also great with Clive Barker adapting is own story into the screenplay and directing it too.

The Cenobites are what most people remember from this movie though and they are wonderfully bizarre creations with Doug Bradley as Pinhead becoming a true horror icon almost overnight even though he only has a few minutes of screentime overall. Definitely not a movie for the squeamish but one that comes highly recommended.

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