clive barker – Horror Ghouls

Hellraiser (1987)

Posted on October 1, 2026 by HorrorGhouls

I must say I felt a little ripped-off (no pun intended) after watching Hellraiser on VHS for the first time back in the ’90s. You have Pinhead on the cover, looking straight through your sorry soul while grinding his teeth, and he’s barely in the movie. Instead, we have Uncle Frank, a random slimeball who gets his flesh ripped apart with hooks and chains when he opens a mysterious puzzle box he bought at an antique shop in Marrocco — but will eventually return, with a boner, thanks to a cheating wife.

Everyone who solves the puzzle box opens a portal to Hell, of some sort, and out comes The Hell Priest himself, aka Pinhead (Doug Bradley) with his three Cenobites, Spencer, Chatter and Butterball, ready to fulfill your deepest desires. But the thing is, those who are “corrupt“ will die a gruesome, painful death (all politicians should be handed a puzzle box each, I would say). Then we have the husband/wife Larry and Julia who moves into the house Frank lived in, a shithole filled with cockroaches. But the worst thing is that Frank’s remains/corpse rots under the attic floor. After Larry cuts himself in a nasty way, his blood drips through the floor and onto the remains of Frank. He then reemerges as a skinless corpse, like a red skeleton from Castlevania.

And then it gets interesting: No, Pinhead doesn’t show up, but hear this — it appears that Julia and Frank had a wild affair (!) and was fucking like there was no tomorrow. The original cut of Hellraiser actually had so much fucking, or “erotism“ to put it in more polite English, that it got an X-rating. And Frank must really have a Master Cock from Fuck Forest and the erection like a grade A pornstar from Dimension XXX, because Julia will do everything to fix this boring loser, even if she has to walk over dead people. So if they’re ever gonna fuck again like they were teenagers, Julia has to lure men to the attic so Frank can feed on their flesh and blood. The poor individual who gets trapped in the crossfire is David’s teenage daughter Kirsty, who already has a strained relationship with her stepmother Julia. If Frank wasn’t already the villain, Julia is probably even worse, and the evil Disney stepmother-looks certainly suit her.

Trivia: Lance Henriksen was first offered to play the role of Frank, but turned it down. This was in his golden era when he still had the luxury to choose n’ pick roles. He later signed up for one of the shitty straight-to-DVD sequels, Hellraiser: Hellworld (2005). Isn’t that funny. Clare Higgings, who portrays the evil stepmother, has never seen the whole film since she hates horror movies, and already after the first ten minutes of its premiere she walked out. She still signed on to be in the sequel, which is way more gory.

Hellraiser is Clive Barker’s creation, from top to toe, his demon baby, based on his own novel The Hellbound Heart. And can you actually believe that the working title for the film was Sadomasochists from Beyond the Grave? Doesn’t quite roll off the tongue. The unique look of Pinhead and the Cenobites was inspired by Punk fashion, Catholicism, African fetish sculptures, and by Barker’s visits to the S&M clubs in New York and Amsterdam (mixed by some drug-induced fewer nightmares, if I have to guess).

The limited budget really shows, especially with the animated lightening sparks, which was already dated back then. Clive Barker and some “Greek guy“ (according to Barker himself) made it by hand over a drunk weekend, and…well, that’s good to know. Then there’s the “engineer“ monster that could be something from Dead Space or the later Resident Evil games. And while it looks cool by design, they had no clue how to utilize it and clashes with the dead-serious tone.

Where the movie shines is the practical/gore-effects, and the attic resurrection scene of Frank is a classic moment by itself. The dusty isolated atmosphere in Frank’s house, where we spend most of our time, is filthy and grimy and reeks of bad vibes, cheap perfume and god knows what else. The prosthetic makeup-designs of especially the three Cenobites are flawless and they still look terrifying and intimidating which blends perfectly in with the atmosphere. The main plot itself, with the two sleazy lovebirds, is something I never cared much for. More Pinhead and Cenobites, please.

That said, Hellraiser is an entertaining ’80s gore film with a tasteful blend of horror, S&M and even some nasty torture porn that still manages to rip some new assholes. And it also made a completely unknown British actor, Doug Bradley, into a horror icon as Pinhead, for better and worse.

Writer and director: Clive Barker
Country & year: UK, 1987
Actors: Andrew Robinson, Clare Higgins, Ashley Laurence, Sean Chapman, Oliver Smith, Doug Bradley, Nicholas Vince, Simon Bamford, Grace Kirby
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093177/

Rawhead Rex (1986)

Posted on October 6, 2024January 1, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

He’s Pure Evil. Pure Power. Pure Terror. And pure schlock! Good grief, no wonder Clive Barker himself hated the film despite having written the screenplay for it, and to such an extent that he decided his next movie Hellraiser would be made under a much stricter rule of his own hand. Thus he ended up directing that movie himself. For those that have read the original Rawhead Rex story in Clive Barker’s Books of Blood, or even read the graphic novel adaption by Steve Niles which was wonderfully illustrated by Les Edwards (which is a lot more true to Barker’s original vision of the phallus-formed monster), this movie goes into pure B-horror territory that’s as schlocky as it can get, with a monster design that looks like a demented ogre suffering from a lockjaw condition. In other words: perfect horror ghouls material!

We start off with Howard Hallenbeck, who travels to rural Ireland with his family in order to research some religious artifacts. In that same quiet town a lightning strikes a huge phallus-formed stone column that’s been placed in the middle of a field. Then, Rawhead Rex rises from the dirt after having been buried under there for a long, long time. Now he’s back and ready to wreck havoc on humanity! In the meantime, Howard enters the local church and sees a stained glass window featuring the monster, and the church verger Declan appears to act strangely and don’t want him poking around. In the meantime, Rex himself has started the kill count by offing some locals. When Howard is driving home with his family, his daughter needs to urinate and goes behind a tree. Their son stays in the van reading a comic book, and of course Rawhead Rex appears, killing the boy right in front of Howard and takes the body with him into the woods so he can continue to eat his meal in peace. All of this leads to them reporting this at the police station, where we are presented with one of the most hilariously unconvincing family-in-grief scenes I’ve ever seen. Now, Howard is hellbent on taking the monster down, but things have gotten even more complicated as Rex has gotten his own Renfield in the church verger Declan. There is supposed to be a weapon in the church which can defeat the monster, and Howard must try his best to get it before there’s an even bigger bloodbath.

Rawhead Rex (1986) was directed by George Pavlou, and as mentioned Clive Barker wrote the screenplay. The filming took place in County Wicklow, Ireland, Leinster, Redcross and Laragh. The actor in the Rawhead Rex costume, Heinrich Von Schellendorf, was only 19 years old at the filming and it took two hours to put him inside the costume. The film was given a limited release in the US by Empire Pictures in 1987. The 80’s have given us everything from pure gold to pure trash, everything from masterpieces to disasters to even some disasterpieces. There were a lot of B-horror movies from this decade, and a lot of them actually have a decent entertainment value. This movie falls well within that category, where you can’t really imagine anyone saying the movie is good, but if you have at least a tiny bit of appetite for so-bad-its-good movies, then you will at least have some fun with it. Rawhead Rex is what it is, pure schlock and B-horror where you shouldn’t take it seriously for a moment. The acting is hilarious at times, and while the monster looks more laughable than scary it does have a certain charm to it. It sure does provide a lot of cheesy fun.

Clive Barker talked a little about a possible remake of the movie, but nothing ever came of that. Could have been really awesome, though, if someone made a movie that kept the disturbing and wicked vibe of the original story, and didn’t hold back at all on the gore and nastiness. And of course, with a monster resembling the original vision, maybe something close to Les Edward’s version in the graphic novel. Oh well, I guess we can only dream.

Rawhead Rex was originally released on DVD in the US in 1999 by Geneon, and then re-released by Prism in 2003. Later, a restored version was released on Blu-ray and DVD by Kino Lorber in 2017. It’s also available on multiple streaming sites.

Director: George Pavlou
Writer: Clive Barker
Country & year: UK/Ireland, 1986
Actors: David Dukes, Kelly Piper, Hugh O’Conor, Cora Venus Lunny, Ronan Wilmot, Niall Toibin, Niall O’Brien, Heinrich von Schellendorf, Donal McCann, Eleanor Feely, Gladys Sheehan
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091829/

The Midnight Meat Train (2008)

Posted on March 29, 2024June 12, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

Leon is a photographer who is totally over the moon when the famous gallery owner Susan is willing to take a look at his work. This soon ends up as quite a blow to his ego, however, when she criticizes him for not being bold enough with his pictures. Despite being let down by this, he decides to take more risks when photographing the city, and goes on a search for the most gritty shots he can find. One night, he takes pictures of a group of men behaving threateningly towards a young woman, and ends up rescuing her as the guys just decide to beat it due to the security cameras nearby. Leon is satisfied with both his heroic deed and some possibly successful photographs he can use, but the next day he discovers that the woman he rescued went missing the same night. So, what to do? Well, the only responsible thing someone could do in a situation like this: he goes to the police and delivers the photographs he took from that night. The result is that he is practically just being scoffed at, which makes Leon even more intrigued. He starts his own investigation and discovers that there are numerous reports of people that have gone missing under similar circumstances. His investigation leads him to a butcher named Mahogany, and Leon suspects that this man is a serial killer that’s been killing subway passengers for many years.

The Midnight Meat Train is a horror film from 2008, based on a short story by Clive Barker by the same name. The story was written in 1984, and is included on the first volume of Books of Blood. The movie was directed by Ryuhei Kitamura, and while getting fairly positive reviews, it was only given a very limited theatrical release and ended up quickly on DVD. Barker was, naturally, quite angry with Lionsgate because of this. The movie certainly didn’t get the theatrical run it should’ve had, but nowadays it’s extensively available on both physical releases and several streaming sites.

As far as the comparisons go between the short story and the movie, the original story portrayed Leon as a bored loner in a city he used to idealize before moving there (and realizing what a shithole it actually is), while in the movie he’s got a girlfriend and a passion for photography. While I personally prefer the original story’s premise more than the movie’s, I understand how the change was necessary when implementing a bit of detective investigation. While you get a lot of things spoiled already in the opening scene, where you get to know that the title implies exactly what you’ll get, it still manages to offer enough suspense and feeling of mystery throughout. The gore is aplenty with some really visceral scenes on board the “meat train”, where guts, eyeballs and severed heads are flying around the screen like it was supposed to be a 3D production. A jolly good time indeed! The only slight disappointment for my part is the ending, which seemed rather underwhelming compared to the original story.

The Midnight Meat Train is a gritty and atmospheric horror film, well acted and with some very effective gore scenes (although the CGI effects are a little bit outdated in some parts, but overall decent enough). It stands well together with the other Clive Barker adaptions, like Lord of Illusions.

Director: Ryûhei Kitamura
Writer: Jeff Buhler
Country & year: US, UK, 2008
Actors: Bradley Cooper, Leslie Bibb, Brooke Shields, Vinnie Jones, Roger Bart, Tony Curran, Barbara Eve Harris, Peter Jacobson, Stephanie Mace, Ted Raimi, Nori Satô, Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0805570/

Lord of Illusions (1995)

Posted on October 20, 2023June 12, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

The year is 1982, and a man called Nix has gathered his cult members in an old house in the Mojave Desert. His disciples refer to him as “The Puritan”, and he’s got real magic powers. He plans to sacrifice a young girl, and convinces his followers that this will save the world and grant them wisdom. At the same time, a group of former cult members are driving through the desert in order to stop him. Among them is Philip Swann, who ends up being attacked by Nix’s magic but is then saved by the young girl who manages to shoot Nix through the heart with Swann’s gun. Of course, this isn’t enough to kill the guy, so Swann takes a hellish-looking iron mask and fastens it on Nix’s head in order to “bind” him and his powers. Apparently, he then dies, and his body is buried in the desert. Fast forward to present day, which is thirteen years later, we’re in New York City where a private detective named Harry D’Amour is investigating occult cases, including an exorcism case which shakes him badly. During a new investigation which is supposed to not have any occult-related cases, he still ends up in a messy attack on a fortune teller which warns him that “the Puritan is coming”, hinting that Nix may return from the dead. The fortune teller dies before he can reveal anything more. Then, he gets hired by a woman named Dorothea, who is Philip Swann’s wife. Swann now works as a famous stage illusionist, and she fears for her husband and wants D’Amour to investigate if he’s being targeted. He’s invited to Swann’s next magic show, which then goes terribly wrong…and that’s just the start of D’Amour’s descent into a world of magic and madness.

Lord of Illusions is a neo-noir supernatural horror film from 1995, written and directed by Clive Barker. It is based on one of his own short stories, named The Last Illusion, which was published in 1985 in Volume 6 of the anthology Books of Blood. The movie stars Scott Bakula as the private detective D’Amour, and Kevin J. O’Connor (Swann) and Famke Janssen (Dorothea), the latter two both starring in Deep Rising from 1998. While Clive Barker kept many of the elements from the short story, he made enough changes so it’s practically a new story, which was apparently met with mixed opinions from the readers of his original work.

Those familiar with Clive Barker’s work knows that he’s most known for Hellraiser, and that his stories often range from traditional horror to dark fantasy and sometimes even comedy. A recurrent theme is how seemingly ordinary people end up in situations that are either supernatural or violent/mysterious in some kind of way. The stories can often be morbid and disturbing, and while some of them are more fun than unsettling, there is one story of his that really stuck with me, and that’s In the Hills, the Cities which was published in the first Books of Blood volumes. It was also published in the comic anthology Tapping the Vein with haunting visuals by John Bolton. His most famous work to this day is still Hellraiser, which was based on his short story The Hellbound Heart. A remake was also made in 2022, directed by David Bruckner.

Lord of Illusions is a movie that is nowhere close as renowned as Hellraiser, however. And it’s definitely more of an odd film, and thus destined to bounce off the radar for a lot of people. It’s a shame, though, as it really offers a nice blend of neo-noir with cosmic horror. A masterpiece it ain’t, but it’s still damn entertaining. The movie starts off with a bang, giving us a glimpse into a crazy cult leader’s world and his brainwashed followers, and a fight which ends in a brutal scene. While there are some parts in the film that move along a little slowly, it doesn’t really let up from there as we’re being presented with a steady delivery of action, murders, magic and insanity. There’s a few twists and turns underway as well, and some decent gore. Most specifically it’s got style; it’s pleasant to watch with a lot of intriguing scenes and settings like the creepy decrepit house in the desert and the magician’s victorian mansion for example. As for the movie’s special effects, there’s a range of the good to the pretty outdated. Some of the death and gore scenes are fairly well executed with believable effects, while some of the otherworldly elements looks like something from a Nintendo 64 game…but honestly, that’s part of the fun, and adds to the overall peculiar atmosphere of the movie.

So all in all I think that Lord of Illusions is a fun spooky ride, providing a bit of mystery and a lot of dark magic. It was the last film Clive Barker directed, and it may not be Clive Barker at his best, but it is definitely enjoyable.

Writer and director: Clive Barker
Country & year: US, UK, 1995
Actors: Scott Bakula, Kevin J. O’Connor, Famke Janssen, J. Trevor Edmond, Daniel von Bargen, Joseph Latimore, Sheila Tousey, Susan Traylor, Ashley Tesoro, Michael Angelo Stuno, Keith Brunsmann
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt0113690/