JUNKFILM

In The Mouth of Madness (1995)
“Lived Any Good Books Lately?”

The closest thing to an H.P. Lovecraft book I have ever seen. It’s even closer in thematic affect than adaptation of acual H.P. Lovecraft stories. IMDB quotes the plot as, “With the disappearance of hack horror writer Sutter Cane, all Hell is breaking loose…literally! Author Cane, it seems, has a knack for description that really brings his evil creepy-crawlies to life. Insurance investigator John Trent is sent to investigate Cane’s mysterious vanishing act and ends up in the sleepy little East Coast town of Hobb’s End. The fact that this town exists as a figment of Cane’s twisted imagination is only the beginning of Trent’s problems…. “

Written by Michael DeLuca (Lawnmower Man, Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare (you remember that uber shitty one that was so fucked up and made little to no sense), and Judge Dredd), but some how he pulls his own head out of his ass to write a truly freaky little flick. Of course he did produce Detroit Rock City, Wag The Dog, and Run Ronnie Run, so I still hold him pretty high up. And it was directed by John Carpenter, before he went to Mars.

The movie is creepy as hell. Not much, if any blood, but creeps and scares around every scene.

HELLRAISER and HELLRAISER 2 (1987 & 1988)
“Angel to some. Demons to Others. He’ll Tear Your Soul Apart.”

First off, why both part 1 and 2? The movies are true sequels, like Halloween 1 and 2, or … uh…. not many more come to mind. A true sequel is a sequel that picks up where the previous film leaves off, instead of simply referencing what happened last time we pick up where the characters went right after the previous movie. And since Hellraiser II is a true sequel, the movies can be counted as one, long, great horror film.

Written and Directed by the master of horror, Clive Barker ,and based off his off short story, “The Telltale Heart, this terrifying tale of adultery and sin, and of course metal hooks on chains ripping flesh apart, is one of the few movies that made me keep the lights on when I was a kid.

The story revolves around the obsession of a puzzle box that holds the magical properties of summoning the Cenobites from Hell to torture your body and soul for eternity. When young Kristy finds out her step mother, Julia, is still feeding blood to her butchered and deceased uncle, Frank, in the attic, all Hell breaks loose….Sorry, I couldn’t help myself with the pun.

In the sequel, we pick up with Kirsty being brought to an institution after the death of her family, where the occult-obsessive head doctor resurrects Julia and unleashes the Cenobites once again…and this time, there’s a puzzle obsessed patient who figures out the puzzle box and opens the gate to Hell…yay, we get to go to Hell. No fire and brimstone here, Barker’s Hell is full of self-demonizing terrors, memories locked away and horrors only the viewer can know.

And even though there is a following list of films in the series, 9 in total that I know of, don’t venture too far down the rabbit hole. It gets as all elongated series gets….reeeeaaaaallllly baaaaad. While Hellrasier III isn’t terrible, it’s corny and brings in the idea that they were merely making this movie to make toys. Part 4 is an interesting installment where we get to find out where, how, and why the puzzle box was made. But that’s about all it is, interesting. The further films deal less and less with the trademark Cenobites and more and more with someone who wrote a script about a cop trying to figure out a murder or a dad wanting to discover the deeper depths of a drug/media cult, sold it and the Hellraiser producers said they could add Pinhead in at the very end, make a moral out of it, and sell it as a Hellraiser film. You’ve been warned.