Cutting Deep into Horror | Hellraiser (1987): Pinhead, Desire & Body Horror

Henrique Couto (0:04)

Welcome to your heck.

Rachael Rodolfi (0:13)

Oh, wow. That's a lot of blood. And can we address the-

Henrique Couto (0:17)

Blood to some, hemoglobin to others.

Rachael Rodolfi (0:22)

Well, yeah, that's kind of how synonyms work. But-

Henrique Couto (0:27)

Come along now. We must attach chains to your eyelids so that you may file your W-7-4 tax form.

Rachael Rodolfi (0:38)

Oh, God, no.

Henrique Couto (0:39)

A form only invented in heck. No.

Rachael Rodolfi (0:46)

Not heck.

Henrique Couto (0:48)

No.

Rachael Rodolfi (0:49)

Taxes are the worst.

Henrique Couto (0:51)

They're pretty bad.

Rachael Rodolfi (0:52)

Yeah. Oh, God.

Henrique Couto (1:00)

This podcast is about why horror scares us. What deep, dark, secret, scary cinema shines a light on. The discussions are frank and involve conversations about abuse, trauma, and mental health. There are also spoilers, so keep that in mind, too.

Now sharpen your machetes and straight razors. Because this is Cutting Deep into Horror.

Hello, my spookies, and welcome back. To Cutting Deep into Horror, I am of course your host, Henrique Couto, here with my co-host, Rachael Rodolfi. Rachael, how are you?

Rachael Rodolfi (1:48)

I'm doing good.

Henrique Couto (1:49)

Good.

Spooky season is already rolling along We're going. It's been a long, so we wanted to do a little, I guess, a little appeal to the classics for October.

Rachael Rodolfi (2:01)

Yeah.

Henrique Couto (2:02)

Because, I don't know, it's a classic.

That's one of those tricky things, though. People were arguing that 80s movies were classics when I was like a late teenager, which would have not even been, they weren't even, they were barely 20 years old.

Rachael Rodolfi (2:17)

Yeah.

Henrique Couto (2:17)

Yeah, they were like really young, because this film we're covering tonight, Hellraiser, from 1987 So it's one year younger than me.

Rachael Rodolfi (2:26)

It's the same age as me.

Henrique Couto (2:28)

That means it's almost 40 years old.

Rachael Rodolfi (2:32)

I'm going to go just lay down in the dirt now.

Henrique Couto (2:35)

No, why? Because is your back hurting? No, it's the only thing that gets to the stop.

But this is obviously considered a classic in the realm of horror and the kind of franchise horror era that started in the late 70s, for the most part, with Halloween. Halloween spawned sequels. Then Friday the 13th spawned sequels. Then Nightmare on Elm Street spawned sequels. Child's Place spawned sequels. Hellraiser obviously spawned many sequels. Even Critters, Wishmaster, Candyman. It got to a point where that was the goal.

If you made a horror film, it would be a franchise and that you would have lots and lots of movies. And while Hellraiser didn't quite have the success of Nightmare on Elm Street or Friday the 13th or Halloween as far as its series, I believe it was after part four, Hellraiser went straight to video.

Rachael Rodolfi (3:38)

Oh, that's pretty early on.

Henrique Couto (3:40)

Yeah. Child's Play went straight to video. I want to say part five was the last one that was in theaters. There might have been part four.

Rachael Rodolfi (3:51)

Okay.

Henrique Couto (3:51)

Nightmare on Elm Street never went straight to video. Friday never went to straight to home video. Halloween never went straight to home video. Critters went pretty much immediately straight to home video, I think, after part two.

Candyman was straight to video parts two and three, I believe. Two might have been in theaters briefly. Wishmaster, I think the first one was the only one that was in theaters. So anyway, but Hellraiser, so Hellraiser has that kind of delineation of being a major horror franchise that ended up going direct to video and becoming really low-budget really quickly.

Rachael Rodolfi (4:25)

Yeah.

Henrique Couto (4:25)

And having some later sequels that are aligned for making no sense in the series or whatever you want to call it. And also having a couple of really questionable later sequels and then a quasi remake from a few years back.

Rachael Rodolfi (4:39)

Yeah.

Henrique Couto (4:40)

But we're talking as always when we talk about any horror film that is the start of a franchise, we are only talking about the first film as a self-contained thing.

Rachael Rodolfi (4:51)

Yeah.

Henrique Couto (4:51)

For the most part, anything that's referencing the later films is just trivia. And yeah.

Rachael Rodolfi (4:57)

Yeah. Because if we were to try to discuss the Hellraiser franchise in totality, we'd be here a while.

Henrique Couto (5:07)

Maybe not.

Rachael Rodolfi (5:08)

Well, I guess it does depend.

Henrique Couto (5:10)

I think that there's a lot to like about some of those later Hellraiser sequels.