An unfaithful wife encounters the zombie of her dead lover; the demonic cenobites are pursuing him after he escaped their sadomasochistic underworld. Hellraiser is far from being a masterpiece and it definitely has it's fair share of issues regarding it's storyline and character choices but it's also pretty original for sure, the perfomances were good for a horror flick especially and the make up alongside the special effects quite natural. The story was interesting for sure and it's basically a film that is watchable although far from classic by the way. (7/10)

I enjoyed this a lot more than my first viewing of it, likely fifteen years ago. A woman has to basically harvest souls for her half-zombie ex-lover, so he can feed on their life energies, and return to life, and escape a group of sadomasochistic demons sent to reclaim him, and take him back to Hell. When her second husband is claimed victim, his college-aged daughter investigates, and learns his horrifying fate. Some surprising twists, good looking lighting and colour pallet reminded me of some old giallo films, like something Mario Bava, or Michele Soavi ( one of my favourites ) might have done. Andrew Robinson is always fun to watch, and always reminds me of Scorpio, from Dirty Harry. Ashley Laurence is adorable, she makes a great contrast to the gruesome tale playing out. The house itself almost becomes a character in its own right, by the end of the film.

"I have seen the future of horror, and his name is Clive Barker." High praise indeed from the grand master Stephen King.With the Cenobites — and Doug Bradley's Pinhead in particular — Clive Barker created a unique horror movie presence."They're like sado-masochists from beyond the grave," Barker once said of the Cenobites. (In fact, Barker has joked that at one point he wanted to call the film "Sado-Masochists From Beyond The Grave" adding that "Hellraiser turned out to be far weirder that I expected.") Pinhead was revealed (in Hellhound: Hellraiser II) to be Captain Eliot Spenser, a World War II veteran who had discovered a devilish box known as the Lament Configuration and found in it his own portal into Hell. By detailing his character in the manner he did, Barker made him instantly accessible to his audience, using the "war is hell" metaphor in its most literal sense.Hellraiser Set a New Horror Movie Standard with outstanding effects, Frank the monster and PINHEAD! make this film a must-see. But what about that Chatterer cenobite? Well, I don't know about him, but from the beginning I am going to say that Clive Barker's Hellraiser is fantastic!With Hellraiser, Clive Barker created one of the most genuinely disturbing movies of the last 30 years.

I have to say, it could be because I only watched this now when there are already better effects, but I have to admit I found the movie to be ... boring. It wasn't particularly bad, but it didn't scare me. I mean, it certainly killed time but I wouldn't watch it again if I had the choice. I found the story line to be uninteresting. Every time there was an interaction between the woman and her dead/undead/zombie/demon lover I was staring at the screen and shaking my head. The demons did not really do much and the girl, the daughter, was just kinda there.