Spoiler of the Day: Hellraiser - Deader

 Reporter Amy Klein is following up on a story of a cult called Deaders who can bring the dead back to life. The Deaders leader, Winter, ends up being killed by the Cenobites because he is infringing on their territory (Hell), and Amy opts to kill herself instead of become one of their victims. However, the Lament Configuration is still intact and waiting new victims...


Tomorrow's Spoiler of the Day: Hellraiser - Hellworld

Spoiler of the Day: Hellraiser - Hellseeker

 Trevor is married to Kirsty from Hellraiser and Hellraiser II, but thinks he killed her in a car accident. At the end we learn that Trevor tried to kill Kirsty by forcing her to open the Lament Configuration. She struck a deal with Pinhead to deliver five souls instead of her own - Trevor's soul is the fifth. Kirsty killed Trevor and made the car crash look like an accident. She walks off with the Lament Configuration.


 Tomorrow's Spoiler of the Day: Hellraiser - Deader.

Spoiler of the Day: Hellraiser - Inferno

 Joseph Thorne is a detective chasing "The Engineer," but it turns out he is The Engineer, and has been in Hell - one of his own construction. Pinhead gives him a speech about demons and choices and blah blah blah, and we realize most of the movie we just saw was in Thorne's imagination. Yee-ha.


 Tomorrow's Spoiler of the Day: Hellraiser - Hellseeker

Spoiler of the Day: Hellraiser - Bloodlines

 Okay, so let's just focus on the crap in the future. Yes, future - Paul Merchant, a distant descendant of the creator of the Lament Configuration, is aboard a spaceship with a robot that is designed do solve the puzzle box and open a portal to Hell. Paul is captured and imprisoned, but the Cenobites arrive and kill everyone, so Paul frees himself, tricks Pinhead with a hologram, and leaves the ship. He activates the Elysium Configuration, which surrounds the ship in a box of eternal light (using mirrors and lasers), which... kills the Cenobites? Well, it was a crap movie anyway. On to the next one...


Tomorrow's Spoiler of the Day: Hellraiser - Inferno

Spoiler of the Day: Hellraiser III - Hell on Earth

 Pinhead is trapped inside of the Pillar of Souls (it appeared at the end of Hellraiser II) and is trying to get out. He tries to trick a girl named Joey into freeing her, but Pinhead's soul split and formed Captain Eliot Spencer, a World War I of the British Army. After drawing Joey into the dimension where he's trapped, Pinhead is once again merged with Spencer and Joey is able to solve the Lament Configuration and banish them to hell. She escapes, but foolishy dispenses with the puzzle box in the foundation of a building, one that takes on its appearance as the film ends...


 Tomorrow's Spoiler of the Day: Hellraiser - Bloodlines

Spoiler of the Day: Hellbound - Hellraiser II

 Well, Frank is in Hell, and the evil resurrected Julia kills him again, but loses her skin. Kirsty finds it, disguises herself as Julia, and saves the new girl Tiffany. Tiffany manages to solve the Lament Configuration before the warden of the mental institution / Cenobite can kill her, and everything is okay. Only, it's not, because there are still six more Hellraisers to go (not counting the new one that's coming out or the remake in the works.)


Tomorrow's Spoiler of the Day: Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth

Spoiler of the Day: Hellraiser

 Frank is successfully resurrected, and even steals Kirsty's father, Larry's, skin. Unfortunately, cenobites are always around that pesky puzzle box, and Pinhead and company find and even more horrible way to punish Frank. Kirsty closes the puzzle before Pinhead gets her, but there's always the sequel...


Tomorrow's Spoiler of the Day: Hellbound - Hellraiser II

Horror Fest Day Two: Hellraiser

Hellraiser is not the sort of movie you want to be watching when you get a little loopy and deprived

For those of familiar with the legions of Hellraiser sequels, it should be noted that Doug Bradley's Pinhead isn't in a lot of the original film; in fact, he isn't even Pinhead this early in the game. The Cenobites make up a very small portion of the third act of the movie, mostly as a foil to Kirsty (Ashley Laurence) and Uncle Frank (Andrew Robinson).

In fact, most of the movie is about Frank and Julia Cotton (Claire Higgins) and their game up murder as Frank slowly recomposes. And does Clive Barker ever know how to make it disgusting. It's not just that Frank is just muscule and bone for big chunks of the movie, or the slightly off way he wears the skin he steals, but something about the way Baker lights and films the effects are just disgusting. I don't know what type of material was being used for flesh in 1987, but it really is disturbing to watch it pierced with oozing blood right underneath in extreme close ups. And it's not just Hellraiser that does it; watch the opening sequence in Lord of Illusions for a similarly disgusting effect. Ugh.

Still, the build towards Kirsty finding (and solving) the Lament Configuration and unlocking Hell is still effective twenty years on, and no matter how much the seven sequels diminish the name Hellraiser, it's good to know the original holds up.

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