Recently I got into watching the Hellraiser series of movies. I've gotten up to Hellraiser: Bloodlines when I noticed that the entire dynamic of the movies had changed and they had generated into standard horror schlock.The opening scene has a man with the dirtiest fingernails on the planet buying a small puzzle box in what looks like the Middle East. Cut to clean fingernails and that man is sitting surrounded by candles trying to open said puzzle box. When he finally does so chains fly out, ripping apart his flesh. Then the Cenobites come. They're hideously deformed in unique ways and after completely ripping the man apart, one with pins sticking out of his head picks up the box and closes it, leaving the room as if nothing had happened.
Shortly thereafter a man and a very… handsome woman come to the house and decide to move in. Larry and his wife Julia look around the place and Larry comments that Frank, the guy that was ripped apart, probably used it as a hideout for awhile and then took off for parts unknown. I don’t want to provide an extended synopsis for the film, but suffice to say, some spilled blood brings Frank back to life but Frank has to feed off of blood to regenerate his body. He enlists the help of Julia, who is madly in lust with Frank after they had a tryst shortly before her wedding to Larry so she lures men back to the house for him to feed.
Kirsty, Larry’s daughter stumbles on Frank feeding one day, freaks out, takes the puzzle box and ends up in the hospital. There she opens the box, almost gets ripped apart, goes back to help her father, finds out Frank has stolen his skin, so on and so forth. You know, a typical Thursday.
Anyway, the first Hellraiser is, to me at least, an almost perfect horror film. The protagonists, Kirsty and Julia, were weak and had to be pushed and coerced into having any action. The antagonist, Frank, was egomaniacally delicious. This is how it should be in any horror film... the stronger the antagonist the more they eventually bring out in the protagonist.
In the case of Hellraiser, Kirsty learned to be strong and fight back when she had to, to protect the ones she loved. Julia on the other hand learned that blind trust doesn't always work and succumbing to lust isn't the best way to drive your motivations. Frank does not change and that's what makes him powerful. He knows what he wants, how he wants it and he'll do whatever he can to make it so. There is something, however, that Frank fears: The Cenobites.
Now who are the Cenobites exactly?
In the film, they are the agents of hell. Their task is to show those who open the box that pain is indistinguishable from pleasure before ripping them apart and taking them to hell. The thing that is different about them than other supernatural villains is that they only come to those who open the box. They aren’t out to get anyone in particular, they don’t kill at random and they have the power to reason. This is a far cry from say, Jason Voorhees, who kills anyone that moseys by Crystal Lake.
Frank opened the box so they took care of Frank. Fair enough. Kirsty, after stealing the box from Frank, works it open and the Cenobites appear. Kirsty had no idea it would summon creatures such as that, but the lead Cenobite (later named Pinhead) told her flat out, “You opened the box, we came.” Luckily though, Kirsty was able to strike a deal with them that she would show them to Frank in exchange for them sparing her, and they accepted.
Unfortunately for Kirsty, Frank had stolen her father’s skin and tricked her into thinking that the pile of the guts on the floor were the remains of Frank, not Larry. When the Cenobites came to collect they asked for, “the man who did this” and Kirsty, thinking she had to protect her father, reneged on the deal. This is where things went wrong for poor Kirsty Cotton.
Had she known that it was Frank and not her father, she would have been done with the deal and left alone, but unfortunately the Cenobites don’t like deal breakers so naturally after they took care of Frank they had to take care of Kirsty. As much as I would have liked to see her with her skull ripped she was able to get the box and send the Cenobites back to hell with Frank and Julia in tow.
Flash forward to Hellraiser 2: Hellbound. Kirsty is in a mental hospital trying to explain what happened when Dr. Channard, obsessed with the puzzle box unwittingly releases Julia from hell. Julia and Dr. Channard then have a girl obsessed with puzzles work open the box for them (I assume Julia explained the whole chain ripping incident with Frank) from a safe distance. Kirsty shows up just as the box is being opened so… that’s how that goes. When the Cenobites arrive they are about to maim poor puzzle girl with Pinhead tells them, “It is not hands that summon us, it is desire” and so puzzle girl is left alone… for now.
As far as agents from hell go, they seem to be pretty bound by a set of rules, and that is something one has to appreciate. If the Cenobites just killed at random the movie wouldn’t be as interesting, nor the characters as intriguing. They only come to those seeking them and that, to me, is a fantastic addition to the films. The Cenobites are sought as friends by hedonists, feared as foes once they appear, but they fall decidedly into the other category. If you didn’t open the box, you’re in the clear, but once you find them… you’re in for it.
Unfortunately the other Hellraiser movies kind of toss this concept out the window, and I don’t know what the hell was going on in Bloodlines. Well, I know WHAT was happening… I just didn’t care. So if you haven’t seen the Hellraiser movies they’re worth checking out… and if you’re really weird you can buy a puzzle box off of Amazon. Click here to see. Don't say you weren't warned.
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