Hellraiser

Watched this and it's a straight up pile of trash.

Bored to death.

The ONLY good thing about this movie was how the box changed. Other than that this movie was absolutely terrible. Shit plot, terrible actors, boring...

Pretty crappy. Not a lot going for it but I did manage to finish it.

I still remember reading Imajica when I was 14 and not understanding WTF was going on. That would be an interesting one to revisit.

Yeah I tried reading both of those after the Damnation Game but I was youg too and like you dropped both of them.

I was pretty good at finishing books when I was younger. Pretty much always finished what I started. Only book I remember ever reading and not finishing was Wheel of Time, because it was too damn long!

I loved LOTR and Prydain though, and always heard WOT was on that level. Liked the first book a lot. But yeah, like 500 pages in I was halfway through and just sorta stopped. Eventually gave it away. There's something to be said for not being so long-winded (see also AC Valhalla).

Watching Hellraiser some time this week, going in with basically no expectations.

About 20 minutes in here myself and I'm already annoyed.

The main character? is a girl who looks like a boy and is like 100% immature lashing out about shit and acting like an idiot

I 'member when movies had like, reasonably admirable main characters.

Well, whatever. The people behind this clearly weren't impresarios but it's moody enough.

Finished the movie. Was okay. The main character was fairly un-likeable. I did like that the Cenobites had a lot to do, and the mansion was a creepy setting. Agree with others that the Cenobite design was way too "busy", sometimes simpler is better.

j00t Both, I think. The character is insufferable and the actress doesn't have the charisma to rise above it. Doesn't help that they gave her wildly unappealing Teenage Boy Outfits to wear for the whole movie.

j00t said:

i've never watched any hellraiser movies, it's not really my bag... but i understand the what the stories are about

i've seen a lot of mixed feelings on the main character of this, you either 100% hate her or think she's great, with very little feelings in between. so here's my question... from what i understand, the chick is pretty insufferable and just basically a trash human being, which is why a lot of people don't like her. however, isn't that sort of the draw of the puzzle box? like, healthy, well put together people who have their lives together SHOULDN'T be drawn to this thing. again, i haven't seen the movie but i've read the synopsis... but "reasonably admirable" is... i don't know, hard to quantify with these kinds of characters. in the end, doesn't she do the admirable thing?

is the issue the character or the actress?

Click to expand...

I was going to make a comment about this in my post because the same concept occurred to me while watching.

It is a combination of all that though. She’s a terrible actress / acted terribly based on what she was given, not visually appealing (it’s okay to have svelte gays romping around but god forbid you have a visually appealing woman), the interplay between her companions doesn’t help how annoying she is, she’s written with every disaffected angsty youth trope as to be a caricature. Anyways, long story short characters and writing were so distracting it wouldn’t have mattered.

There are damaged characters in film that aren’t annoying or distilled caricatures of nothing but a single word on an idea card. I’d say those are some of the best ones in movies because their redemption means some and we empathy with them because the subtlety of their struggles and interpersonal relationships resonates with the struggles and issues we have. Even good villains have these traits and sometimes we don’t know why we understand the motivations of the bad guy and can relate and that makes us uncomfortable.

With regards to Hellraiser and the cube, the allure of the power was the thing. The movie even went over this, in this iteration, more explicitly in the “gifts” and configurations of the cube. The powerful and elite were just as drawn to it for power as the junkie for more sensation. I don’t think that the point has been “oh you’re a junky here use the box it can give you more drugs!” It is more show me your pain! A junky ain’t good at anything but being a junky. That isn’t interesting to me as a viewer or a Hell Priest looking to extract or exact pain and beauty. Voight directly shows this within the film.

That’s too much to try and put on paper at 6:30am and I’m rambling so will stop.

She isnt likeable because she is a worthless junkie. In that sense she hit the role. There isnt much to like about her because, again, she is a worthless junkie. Movies that make junkies nice or caring, or endearing are bad writing. Junkies are none of those things. None of the cast are particularly likeable. In one sense it makes it easier to see them suffer and die.

Agree that the Cenobites were too busy with their designs.

This movie was just bad. Ive watched C and D movies in the 80s and 90s that were better than this tripe. Shit even some of the later Hellraiser movies that sucked were better than this shit. The story was awful, the characters were awful, cenobites had no "bite" they ruined the box, they even managed to ruin the mystique behind the box.