061 Hellraiser (1987)

Retro Grade Podcast

WE’LL TEAR YOUR SOUL APART!”

On this week’s episode, we continue our month of spooky movies by revisiting Hellraiser, 1987 horror classic directed by Clive Barker starring Ashley Laurence, Clare Higgins, Andrew Robinson, and Doug Bradley as the famous Cenobite, Pinhead. We talk about how this film differs very much from how it was conveyed to us when we were younger. Instead of it being a film about torture with senseless acts of brutality, we see that there is actually a story present, a story about love, lust, betrayal, obsession, pain, and how in some ways, pain and pleasure are one in the same, and not as distant from each other as we may think. The characters are very relatable, and all interesting in their own way.

We go into the connection between this film and the BDSM culture, even though there are some in the latter that would want to stay far away from this film, but how maybe the film isn’t insulting the culture, but merely using it as an example of how unchecked passions can be detrimental to innocent bystanders, or to oneself. We go into the production of the film, and how the film was produced for 1 million dollars, which is extremely low considering the average budgets for films at the time. We talk about how the film was shot chronologically, mostly filmed in one location, and how they had to deal with the censors when it came to rating this film.

So if you feel like you’re up for it, then enjoy this week’s episode on this horror classic. Be advised this movie does have extreme scenes of violence with lots of blood and gore, it’s not for the faint of heart. If you’re trying to get into horror films but still working your way up, then it might be best to visit this film in the future. But if you’re still curious about it, then enjoy listening to this episode about it.

Music is from Triune Digital and audio clips pulled from movies we will be reviewing in other episodes.

Artwork by @jannelle_o