When I hear the words “Creature Feature”, like most folks it brings to mind visions of Godzilla, The Creature from the Black Lagoon, or any number of giant animals. What doesn’t come to mind are any films made in recent memory. While vampires, zombies, and ghosts thrive, unknown creatures seem to have fallen completely out of favor. While tonight's film RawheadRex might not have done much to bring back the format, it did revel in the old style. Made in 1986 and based on a script by horror scribe Clive Barker, RawheadRex does little to tweak the usual formula of creature features, but it does verge on the silly side of splatter. The question really is did it know it?
When archeologist Howard (David Dukes) his wife Elaine (Kelly Piper), and two children arrive in a small Irish town, it’s to be their last stop before moving out of the Irish countryside and on to the city of Dublin. Howard is here to research Christian holy sites that have been built on top of older pagan sacred grounds, and he finds the local church to be fascinating especially the strange demonic figure who inhabits one of the stained glass windows. People in the town begin to be viciously murdered and torn apart, and one night while out on a walk Howard sees a massive 9 foot tall creature that looks strikingly like the figure in the stained glass. He decides it’s high time for his family to leave town, but on their way the creature abducts and possibly kills Howard’s son. With the police resistant to believe his claims of a monster on the loose, Howard must take the fight on himself to avenge his son, but the means of defeating Rex might not be within his power.
The story behind RawheadRex really begins two years earlier with Clive Barker and director George Pavlou met at a party. It was a chance meeting, but the director, who had only previously made short films, was interested to see what the up and coming horror writer could do with a screenplay. Baker obliged and the result was 1986’s Underworld (a.k.a Transmutations). The film, about mutants who lived in London’s sewers, did fairly well and was even distributed in the United States by Charles Band’s Empire pictures.
Even though the author was not overwhelmed by the result of his first stint as a screenwriter, Barker began work on another script based on a short story from his third volume of Books of Blood. It would be the last time the director and writer paired up (Pavlou only made one other film and Barker would write and direct Hellraiser the following year), but the process taught Clive an important lesson, be careful who you trust with your work.
The original tale, which I read some years ago, had quite the sub-text., a marauding monster vs. his only weakness, an idol of a pregnant woman, the sacred feminine. Barker put it more bluntly when he said, “"Monster on the rampage stories are about the phallic principle. Large males run around terrorizing women. Basically, I wrote a story about a ten foot prick which goes on the rampage. I even put it there in the title - RawheadRex - and there's a scene about two-thirds of the way through where the vicar has an image of a skinned dick in his head. I thought 'What's going to destroy a ten foot dick?' (This is getting into Woody Allen territory), so I made this guy absolutely scared of vagina dentata: it'll be bested by an image of rampant female sexuality and it'll say 'get me the fuck out of here.” If any of that piques your interest, then I encourage you to read the story, but if you’re looking for those kinds of themes in this film, then you’ll be sorely let down.
As I mentioned earlier, RawheadRex really sticks to a lot of your typical “monster on the loose” conventions. You get plenty of senseless killings, your dumbass locals that cause the problem in the first place, and the affable, learned visitor who just might be able to defeat the menace. What isn’t typical is the monster himself, and this is where we get into the essential quandary of the film. If RawheadRex appeared in the context of one of Peter Jackson’s earlier films, then I would have understood the glowing red eyes that seem devoid of any kind of brain activity, the oversized head with a jagged maw of teeth, and the outfit that looked like he had taken it off an extra in The Road Warrior. However, this was not BrainDamage, this was a film that seems like it’s intended to be taken seriously, but I had a hard time reconciling the shoddy make up and character design with the story. This took a lot away from the film, and left me feeling amused in scenes where I should have been horrified.
As you may have noticed, I’m five paragraphs in and I haven’t bothered to talk about any of the actors. There’s good reason for that. David Dukes and Kelly Piper make for a very bland pair, and Dukes in his oatmeal colored cardigan wasn’t charismatic enough for the lead role. I was much more interested when Inspector Gissing (Niall O’Brian) was on-screen. His small performance was a standout, and it took me nearly the whole film to realize that I knew him from playing Kay in Excalibur. As I sit here typing this, I’m trying to remember some of the film’s other characters, and I’m drawing a blank. The real star of this film should have rightfully been the monster, but when the star looks like a cross between a Lord of the Ring’s orc and Dauber from the TV series Coach, then there’s a good chance you’re not on the right track.
As Pavlou supervised the whole mess, there’s very little good to say about him, and I’m not even going to talk about the melodramatic score that is heavily pasted across the whole film. Even though RawheadRex was a flawed and incredibly troubled film (as well as being disowned by Barker), I still found it kind of enjoyable watch simply as a creature feature. So if you go in with your expectations low, then you’re bound to find something that you like here. Plus, if there’s another film whose title was intended to reference the personification of a 9 ft tall bloody penis, then I really don’t want to know what it is.
Leaving behind the nostalgic thrills of #13, I want to turn my attention to something a bit more horrific. Today’s flick is also the first on the list to be a follow up to a film that was on last years Top13, and when I say follow up I’m not kidding. Hellbound: Hellraiser II kicks off by recapping the last few minutes of Hellraiser in digest form. This gives me a great opportunity to talk about what makes a great sequel. While some, like House II, don’t need to have to have any connection to their predecessor, the most successful second or third helpings build on the foundation set down by the previous film and satisfy the audience by giving them more of what they want.
In the case of Hellbound: Hellraiser II, what the masses wanted was more of Doug Bradley as Pinhead, and not only did we get it, we also got to delve a bit further into the roots of the character. I’m getting ahead of myself though. As the film opens, Kirsty regains consciousness to find that she’s been taken to a mental institution and is under the care of Dr. Channard. The Doctor and his assistant Kyle don’t believe her wild stories about demons from Hell that killed her family, but secretly Channard is obsessed with the Box from the first film and resurrects Julia from a bloody mattress to help him. The Doctor also enlists aid from a troubled little girl who is a genius at solving puzzles. He gets the Box into her hands, and she solves it, unleashing the Cenobites once again. Kyle witnesses what the Doctor is doing, and helps Kristy escape the institution. They travel to Channard’s house where Kirsty travels through a portal into the depths of Hell in a desperate attempt to save her father. Channard, who has been double crossed by Julia, has been turned into a Cenobite, and he has other plans for Kirsty. Her last hope rests in the hands of Pinhead and his coterie of deformed demons.
If that synopsis doesn’t make a ton of sense, I apologize. This film derives so much from the previous film including a reappearance of Julia, Frank, and the Box that it nearly would require a complete explanation of Hellraiser mythos to thoroughly describe the film. While that is one reason I really like the picture, it is also one of its major drawbacks. This is not one of those sequels that the uninitiated could pick up and run with. The recap at the beginning picks up the momentum of the first film, but it doesn’t try to explain what was going on. It expects that you know already. The films that follow this one, although the quality progressively gets worse, follow the same formula. I’ve purposely avoided bringing ideas like the Lament Configuration into this review. As a fan of the series, even the bad ones, I could expound on the Box, it’s creator, and whether it was a gateway to Christian Hell or some other concept for quite some time, but we’re here to talk about Hellbound and I’m going to keep it at that.
When looking at this film, the main difference between the first and second film is the amount of screen time given to Pinhead and the Cenobites. The first film was more about Frank, Julia, Kristy, and Larry, for all intensive purposes, the family. This time Kristy does run into Julia and Frank (Andrew Robinson declined to reprise his role as Larry, and frankly, I didn’t miss him. Something about that guy irks me.), but their roles are more passing in nature. From the very beginning of the film where we see the creation of the Cenobite called Pinhead, Hellbound shifts part of its center from the denizens of Earth to that of Hell. In this film we see the creation of two Cenobites, Pinhead and the Channard-bite, and this connection, that these are not just demons spawned from the bowels of the netherworld, but people is and integral part of the themes of Hellraiser.
Butterball, the Lady Cenobite, and Chatter all have their moments in Hellbound. Especially the Lady Cenobite with her line to Kirsty, “‘Didn’t open the box.’ And what was it last time, ‘Didn't know what the box was?’ And yet, we do keep finding each other, don't we?” Yet the film belongs, as the franchise does, to Pinhead. Doug Bradley’s iconic performance as the well spoken monster is truly one of the best. Bradley had a clear vision of who Pinhead was, both before and after his transformation. He spoke about it some years ago in the pages of Fangoria. "[Pinhead] was an English army officer in an unspecified place and time, though roughly in the Far East in the late 20's or early 30's. He was a very pucker Englishman, a public school type who went straight into the army. He felt terribly out of place and unfulfilled because he was only there through family tradition. So from his sterile viewpoint, what he hears of the Lament box is very appealing. I see him alone in his Nissan hut trying to solve the puzzle - which he obviously does, and is transformed into Pinhead. I don't see him as the first Cenobite. Of the four we know about, he is the leader, but the Cenobites have been around for centuries. To me, Pinhead is the chief Cenobite of the 20th Century." Bradley truly captures all of this in his performance, and because of that, future films would turn their attention more and more to the character.
It would be 14 more years before Ashley Laurence returned to the role of Kirsty Cotton in Hellraiser: Hellseeker, but this second turn as Kirsty takes the character from the unsure, and slightly whiny, girl from the first film to being a competent and fearless opposition to the Cenobites. Now granted she does manage to get Pinhead & Co. into quite a mess, but it’s not like it does her any good in the long run. I quite enjoyed her performance this time out as I felt she was one of the weaker characters in the first film. Also returning in this flick were Claire Higgins as Julia and Sean Chapman as Frank. Frank has very little screen time, but as usual, he manages to sleaze up his part of the film quite nicely. I don’t think I’ve seen Chapman in anything else, but if I did, I’m not sure if I could accept him as anything other than a slime ball. From a slime ball, I turn to a mammoth bitch. Claire Higgins’ Julia is even worse of a person than in the first film, but I guess that’s what having your skin popped off will do for you. I enjoyed her performance, and my only gripe had to be that her resurrection scene is not nearly as memorable as Frank’s in the first film.
The other great performance in the film comes from Kenneth Cranham as Dr. Channard. His character’s name was derived from Christiaan Bernard, the first doctor to perform a heart transplant. That’s kind of ironic for a character whose motivations and actions could be characterized as heartless at best. For his part Cranham has said that "I had so much glue and rubber on me it was unbelievable, but you get used to it eventually, and the flying wasn't so bad - just so long as I didn't look down! I thought I would overact as a Cenobite, but I didn't.” This is quite true. I’m sure once all those prosthetics go on there is an inclination to go over the top with it, but Cranham reigns in this impulse and his performance delivers most of the terror in the picture.
Before I sign off I have to tip my hat to the writer and the director of Hellbound. Tony Randel had served as editor on Hellraiser, and when Clive Barker, who had helmed the first film, proved to be unavailable for the sequel, Randel was the hand picked successor. He did an excellent job not only guiding the story, but in keeping the same cinematic tone from the first picture to the second. This was a real boon in making the film feel like a continuation of the story and not a separate entity. The screenplay by Peter Atkins also has to be commended. Atkins crafted an excellent continuation with little to go on. In his own words, "Clive provided me with a very thorough outline of the story, who was in it - and whether they were dead or not! I proceeded from there." As a first time screenwriter, Atkins admitted that, “I had no idea what scripts looked like, but I knew the rhythm of movies, and two and a half weeks later I had a first draft.” Having a connection with both Barker and Bradley when he was a member of The Dog Company, a 1970’s avant-garde theater company in London, surely made the task at hand easier, but the nuances of the script are quite impressive for a first time screen scribe.
Peter Atkins also noted in an interview with Kerrang magazine that, "Hellraiser was an examination of the fulfillment of hedonistic dreams and nightmares. Hellbound is perhaps a little more. It's not only concerned with the desire for possession, it's also to do with the desire for power. Maybe, you see, they're the same thing." This expansion of the themes of the series couples with cinematic tone, good performances, and a killer script are what make Hellbound one of my favorite sequels. The only reason it comes in this low on the list is that it’s sort of a difficult film to follow, and it often requires a little creative thinking on the audience’s part to connect the dots. If you’re a fan of Hellraiser, and somehow you’ve neglected to see this film, I highly recommend you watch it. If you’ve never seen the series, then this is not the place to start. Go back to the beginning so you can get set up for one of the better second helpings of around.
Bugg Rating
Since this is the second movie on the countdown, I thought I would include two lists today. The first comes from one of my readers, James Feola of Brooklyn, NY. Let's see what James has to say:
As I started to think about sequels, only a couple popped in there, like Halloween II (1981), with it's ultra creepy synthesized version of my favorite piece of music in any movie, or, The Bride of Frankenstein, with the magnificent, although brief performance by Elsa Lanchester as the monster's mate. "WE BELONG DEAD!!!" I then gravitated towards Friday the 13th, especially part 4 and 6 and next of course, to Zombies. So many to choose from! There's Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead and from my Italian brother Lucio Fulci, Zombi 2.
Though in the end, I gotta say, the #1 sequel that has had the most profound and lasting effect on me is the horror comedy Return of the Living Dead Part 2. It's missing Trash, Burt and Ernie, and the Tarman is a total knock-off, but it still has our favorite Uneeda Medical Supply employees turned grave-robbing duo, Joey and Ed, (Freddy and Frank in part 1), played again by Thom Matthews and James Karen. Also, the main kid was about my age when it hit the video rental shelves so, you know, I related. The slapstick is laid on thick and that's what makes it so fun. The zombie M.J. at the end? Genius. And how can anyone possibly top "GET THAT DAMNED SCREWDRIVER OUT OF MY HEAD!"
Great choices there James, I haven't seen Return of the Living Dead 2 in a lot of years. I might need to go check that one out soon. Who knows? Maybe I'll still be in a sequel mood next month. One person who wasn't in the mood for sequels was Fitz from Nevermind Popular Film. His list only features his favorite horror films with not a sequel among them. I still decided to include it anyhow.
1) The Shining - The essential King novel turned into the most horrifying film of all-time.
2) Blair Witch Project - What you don't see if infinitely more horrorifying than what you do.
3) The Mist - An excellent film that allows you to ponder the depths of inhumanity, the evils of religion
4) Alien - The original and the best.
5) The Orphanage - The most impressive foreign horror I've seen.
6) 28 Days Later - Zombie genre revolutionized
Thanks for the list Fitz. Another Blair Witch fan. I just don't get it, but to each his own. Big thanks to both of you guys for taking part in the countdown and I'll be back tomorrow with another Halloween classic and more of lists from you folks out there!
Halloween is a great time for monsters. Everyone loves a good monster, and no one loves them more than Clive Barker. After all, what were the Cenobites if not a group of monsters with a predilection for S&M garb? So when it came time to follow up the success of his 1987 directorial debut, Hellraiser, Barker was attracted to making a film about a “horror mythology from the ground up.” The property that most interested him was expanding on his 1988 novella Cabal. The producers were receptive giving him an eleven million dollar budget for the film (which was more than five times the Hellraiser budget), and they secretly hoped that they would have the Star Wars of horror films on their hands. There was one change they wanted made immediately. They insisted the title Cabal meant nothing to the movie going public, and insisted Barker change it to Nightbreed.
In Barker’s film, Boone (Craig Sheffer) is tormented with dreams of monsters and a place called Midian, and to make matters worse, his psychopathic psychologist, Dr. Decker (David Cronenberg) convinces him that his visions are connected to series of grisly murders plaguing the area. Boone’s search for answers leads him to a remote graveyard where he discovers the inhabitants of Midian, the Nightbreed, and a clan of monsters descended from ancient tribes who were long ago driven underground. The police corner Boone in the graveyard and gun him down thinking he is the masked slasher, and that is where his story really begins. He is resurrected as one of the Nightbreed, and his presence will fulfill an ancient prophecy becoming the breed’s salvation or their ultimate demise.
The free hand that Barker had with Hellraiser was contractually reined this time, and it shows in the final product. He was required to make Nightbreed an ‘R’ rated film, but he also could not make it as graphically gory as his previous film. Through a series of test audiences, filming of additional scenes, and the reworking of special effects sequences, Barker’s film went through the wringer in post-production. Then to make matters worse, his original cut came in at almost two and a half hours, a figure the studio wanted to be cut by at least sixty minutes. His editor left the project in protest, and Barker had to scramble to get the film ready for release. It was not an auspicious debut either. The studio didn’t know what to make of the English writer’s film, and the marketing focuses on the slasher elements which made up only a tiny portion of the finished product. In the end with grosses that did not top nine million, Barker’s sophomore effort was a failure.
I have to wonder what the movie might have been like if it were not for the large amount of cuts and studio influence. So far there has not been a director’s cut issued even though Barker has been keen on the idea for years. It’s hard to tell from the finished product whether Nightbreed could have become a more cohesive film or if it was destined to be a mess no matter what. There’s no reason to linger on what might have been. The film that Nightbreed became is a rambling and often incoherent affair that never manifested the same directing promise that Barker showed off in Hellraiser.
First off, I have to talk about the acting. Craig Sheffer was a major point of contention between the wife and me as we watched Nightbreed. I kept seeing him as a cut rate Richard Marx crossed with Richard Dean Anderson, but the wife insisted that he has that vaguely caveman-ish look that could only be compared to David Boreanaz. Either way, his acting prowess is no where near that of any of those men, even Richard Marx. The character of Boone was considered for both Rutger Hauer and Christopher Lambert, and I could only imagine what a difference that would have made. Sure Sheffer had an amazing mullet, but he weakly works his way through the scenes with a minimal amount of skill.
Someone in the film that does have a lot of skill is David Cronenberg, the director of classic such as Videodrome and DeadRingers, but the director’s skill does not lay in the acting department. While his character is quite creepy looking, Cronenberg’s skill lies behind the camera. I do have a lot of good things to say about his character design, and perhaps the whole feature would have been better if it was the slasher that the studio marketed it as. The supporting cast fares no better, and there’s really no call to single out any single performance that was not the gift of monstrous makeup. The monsters are where the film has its shining moments. The makeup effects are extremely fine, and they give the film quite a boost. Several of the film monsters, including a blue horned demonic fellow and a red dreadlocked guy who looks like one of the Predator’s relatives, are among the best and my favorites. The problem becomes that much of the makeup is wasted in the final climactic sequence that is so filled with smoke they are all but obscured.
As if the lackluster acting and the heavily chopped film were not setbacks enough, Nightbreed also sports one of the most annoying scores ever put to film. Danny Elfman is a very talented musician and composer writing impressive scores for Tim Burton’s Batman and Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure, but the tunesmith needs to learn how to keep his crescendo in his pants. The score is overpowering and pointlessly overdramatic during scenes which called for a quiet moment. It had a the same relentlessly quirky cute quality that works in Burton’s films, but a more reserved tone could have enhanced the scenes rather than trying to create a false sense of tension and drama.
Barker’s second film ultimately has to be judged a failure, and it would be five years before he went behind the camera again for his feature LordofIllusions (a film that also has as many fans as detractors). Nightbreed is a great concept with its underlying themes of monsters as heroes and humanity as the real villains, but poor execution on all levels of the film ruined its chances. While I will always be interested in Barker as a writer and director, Nightbreed is a film that is forgettable at its best.
