As well as delivering some of the shoddiest straight-to-video horror efforts ever made, the 1980s were also notorious for making stars of the real brains behind most projects - the writers. Popular authors such as Stephen King and Dean Koontz saw their names frequently advertised above the movie's title, used as the main selling point over any actors attached or the director in charge of the adaptation. One of the biggest names to emerge in the decade was Clive Barker, whose pull-no-punches approach and love of the stomach-churning side of sexuality provided a racier alternative to the milder King and Koontz. He would really make his mark in 1987 with his directorial debut Hellraiser, but before that came Rawhead Rex, adapted from a short story from Volume 3 of his Books of Blood series.Just why Barker seemed so intent on bringing Hellraiser to the big screen himself is made perfectly clear after watching Rawhead Rex, a cheap, schlocky monster movie which Barker himself wrote the screenplay for, but quickly disowned after seeing the final product. Set in Ireland, Rawhead follows American Howard Hallenback (David Dukes), who drags his whole family to the cold, wet countryside in a bid to discover his roots and research sites that may be of religious and historical significance. But little does he know that nearby, a farmer has moved a sacred stone and unleashed the snarling demon Rawhead Rex upon the world. The peculiar priest Declan O'Brien (Ronan Wilmot) starts to act even more bizarrely when he encounters a strange vision after laying his hand on the church altar. Soon enough, mutilated bodies are being unearthed and citizens are vanishing, and with the police seemingly clueless, it's left to Howard to uncover the truth and send the monster back where it came from.Directed by George Pavlou, Rawhead Rex is a terrible movie, losing points on everything from the camerawork to the acting (although Dukes actually isn't bad). The monster itself looks like hastily clumped-together paper mache school project, with a permanent open-mouthed expression unable to disguise the clear signs that the actor inside is struggling to see where they're going. It's offensive to the Irish, and just about anybody else with reasonable taste in cinema. Still, like many horror movies from the 1980s that receiving a pounding from the critics before gathering dust in the local video store, this is tons of fun for anybody with a weakness for tongue-in-cheek trash. It has a sense of humour, and certainly isn't afraid to have the most helpless of victims be dragged away by the rabid beast when you really expect them to turn up alive. Barker was understandably embarrassed but this certainly doesn't damage his reputation, and is enough to tide us over until Barker hopefully gets around to his long-planned remake.www.the-wrath-of-blog.blogspot.com

Arriving in Ireland to conduct research for a new book, a writer unwittingly releases a fabled monster from captivity and must use his family's help to stop it before the creature runs wild through the town.This ended up being a far better and enjoyable monster movie than it should been and has a lot to like about it. One of the better aspects here is the rather decided lack of explanation for the monster's appearance, yet not being that much of a detriment to the film at all. There's not a lot said about his back-story at all, and yet not even the events as they play out provide much explanation since there's four or five different ways it can go about doing things, making this a pretty enjoyable and interesting effort. The location switch to Ireland gives this a nice breath of fresh air as it tends to mean a lot of rather foreign-looking buildings and landscapes, as well as providing a perfect setting for the monster's antics to spring forth from, and those are certainly fun with all the mutilated bodies and burnt skin giving this a nice, healthy amount of gore, and it's rapid pace ensures a ton of them to come without too many down-points. Rather, the main flaw here is decidedly the main character, as the titular creature is a bit of a disappointment. While there's a lot of good work in its design and an ultra-creepy roar, the fact that the make-up for its face makes it look like a deformed gorilla is quite distracting and ruins the great design it could've featured. This here is pretty much it's only flaw, though it's not so bad at all.Rated R: Graphic Violence and Graphic Language.

For a film that quickly found obscurity RAWHEAD REX is a horror film with a very poor reputation . On its release it quickly disappeared without a mummer and even in the VHS era it was a film that hardly anyone thought was worth hiring from a video shop . One legacy it did do was that screenwriter and original author Clive Barker decided if you wanted someone to adapt your work as a film then it's a good idea to direct the movie yourself which led to Barker directing HELLRAISER , one of the most memorable and haunting horror films ever made . So is RAWHEAD REX as bad as is often made out ?In truth it's not dreadful but neither is much good . Seen over 20 years after it was produced there's something painfully old fashioned in every aspect of its conception and execution . ,. A monster stalking the nocturnal countryside , it's something that we've all seen in science fiction B movies from the 1950s or DOCTOR WHO , or read about in medieval folklore , it's a story that's effectively centuries old and RAWHEAD REX brings nothing to to this type of tale . Perhaps most disappointingly Barker brings little new to his original short story and merely pads it out with needless characters and the occasional bloody set piece One obvious problem with the film is the production values which are often laughable and unfortunately this extends to the eponymous monster itself which resembles a man in a badly fitting rubber suit and is never menacing and often laughable as it head wobbles around whilst dispatching sundry monster fodder . victims . . The horror genre is not known for its cerebral ethos but when you've got a monster that elicits chuckles rather than chills then someone has made a huge mistake In summary RAWHEAD REX is a very cheesy old fashioned creature feature . That said it's completely unpretentious which is not something that can used to describe much of Barker's output and many of us have a soft spot for this type of silly B movie horror

I've given this a 10 to bump up the average, because 4.2 doesn't reflect the core 'horror' quality that is a strong undercurrent to this movie. I saw Rawhead when I was quite a bit younger but all those who saw it with me said the same thing; that this movie contains a genuine flavor of something you can't quite put your finger on, but other directors / collectors of horror should take note of.Don't dismiss this movie, its stupid on many levels, but like Evil Dead (One) contains that low budget horror magic that only a few directors can capture.Am I wrong?