Let me now relate to you the tale of the first time I saw Hellbound. I was about 12 years old and well into my Fangoria and Gorezone fuelled horror film obssession. My best friend and I would spend every weekend renting the films we read about, using the the words of Chas Balun and others to educate and guide us through the history of horror. That was a fantastic era of my life to say the least. I'd give anything to go back in time and witness films such as Phantasm, City of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Evil Dead 1 and 2 and Re-Animator for the first time again. Ah, to be a caffeine addled lad adrift in the ephemera of all things dead! Despite now being married, a proud father and employed in the sort of 9 to 5 office job I never imagined I would be, little has changed. In any case, we had seen the first Hellraiser and having read wild reports of how unrelentingly gory the sequel was, made seeing it our top priority. One Friday night, we rented it only to be driven back home to find the clerk had mistakenly put Mystic Pizza (the Julia Robert's vehicle, not some esoteric Little Ceaser's creation) in the video box! We were incensed, but my compatriot's father was not in the mood to drive back to the video store, so it had to wait til' the next weekend.
The moment having arrived, we put it in the VCR at his house in fervored anticipation. Things were going swimmingly with the expository prologue and establishment of new characters and loony bin setting. Then, without warning, Dr. Channard gave that delusional inmate that scalpel on that matress and my life was changed forever. Never before or since have I felt such conflicting waves of terror, revulsion and fascination. It was common place in my viewing regimen to see a hulking brute do terrible things to dim witted teens with a sharp, blunt instrument, but to witness a character in a position of authority purposefully enable someone in his care to brutally mutilate themselves to further his own depraved interests was a whole new pool of sick that I wasn't at the time entirely certain I wanted to dip my toes into. I danced around behind the sofa, embarrassed by my difficulty with viewing the scene, which I now realize had more to do with my innate sense that I shouldn't be seeing something so transgressive at such a tender age than anything else. Needless to say, I have pushed beyond that early compunction and have made searching out boundary pushing, stomach turning experiences with much gusto. My film collection holds titles such as Cannibal Holocaust, Salo, Cannibal and VanBebber's The Manson Family and without hesitation, I can pinpoint my first time seeing that scene as the catalyst for all the heinous celluloid that has followed in the intervening 2 plus decades.
The scene still holds up, but the film is a gem for a million other reasons. I love the dime store, funhouse aesthetic of the labyrinth. A sterling example of imagination and atmosphere triumphing over budgetery limitations if ever there was one. I love the matte paintings which occupy a place both glorious and cheesily dated. The Peter Atkins script is a piece of fucking ART! It expands the universe brilliantly while effortlessly incorporating the characters and motif's of the first film. It also gives you lines as imminently quotable as "We have an eternity to know your flesh", "Your suffering will be legendary, even in Hell!" and of course, "To think, I hesitated." Doug Bradley owns Pinhead in this film. His intelligence shines through those shark eye contacts and he projects a marvelous weariness that makes the character so singular and interesting.
Which brings me to my absolute favorite aspect of the film. Kenneth Cranham's Dr. Channard. Easily the most impressive Cenobite of all time, the character is just as devious and despicable in his human incarnation. He exploits and hides behind his patients and before his forced transformation, is a cowardly voyeur unwilling to pay the price of pain to play at the Lovecraftian level he aspires to. He's a delightfully British twist on the Burroughsian evil physician archetype personified by Naked Lunch's Dr. Benway. A velvet voiced smooth talker who has your worst interests at heart and is nowhere to be found when the check arrives. The Cenobitization of Dr. Channard is one of the more fantastically repugnant moments of 80's gore and his phallic, serpentine head swivel more than speaks for itself. Such a great character and so expertly portrayed with such amazing make-up, it baffles me he isn't more referenced and celebrated in the genre appreciation circles I run.
This is a real desert island movie of mine. It has everything I love about horror films. Brooding atmosphere, outrageous gore, clever writing, mythic performances and a lush, operatic, grand guignol sensibility that infuses the darkest and most morbid humor imaginable to the grim proceedings. When people moan and wail about the demise of 80's horror, this is the film that springs to mind for me. I haven't seen the likes of its playfulness and creativity in a damn long time.
The moment having arrived, we put it in the VCR at his house in fervored anticipation. Things were going swimmingly with the expository prologue and establishment of new characters and loony bin setting. Then, without warning, Dr. Channard gave that delusional inmate that scalpel on that matress and my life was changed forever. Never before or since have I felt such conflicting waves of terror, revulsion and fascination. It was common place in my viewing regimen to see a hulking brute do terrible things to dim witted teens with a sharp, blunt instrument, but to witness a character in a position of authority purposefully enable someone in his care to brutally mutilate themselves to further his own depraved interests was a whole new pool of sick that I wasn't at the time entirely certain I wanted to dip my toes into. I danced around behind the sofa, embarrassed by my difficulty with viewing the scene, which I now realize had more to do with my innate sense that I shouldn't be seeing something so transgressive at such a tender age than anything else. Needless to say, I have pushed beyond that early compunction and have made searching out boundary pushing, stomach turning experiences with much gusto. My film collection holds titles such as Cannibal Holocaust, Salo, Cannibal and VanBebber's The Manson Family and without hesitation, I can pinpoint my first time seeing that scene as the catalyst for all the heinous celluloid that has followed in the intervening 2 plus decades.
The scene still holds up, but the film is a gem for a million other reasons. I love the dime store, funhouse aesthetic of the labyrinth. A sterling example of imagination and atmosphere triumphing over budgetery limitations if ever there was one. I love the matte paintings which occupy a place both glorious and cheesily dated. The Peter Atkins script is a piece of fucking ART! It expands the universe brilliantly while effortlessly incorporating the characters and motif's of the first film. It also gives you lines as imminently quotable as "We have an eternity to know your flesh", "Your suffering will be legendary, even in Hell!" and of course, "To think, I hesitated." Doug Bradley owns Pinhead in this film. His intelligence shines through those shark eye contacts and he projects a marvelous weariness that makes the character so singular and interesting.
Which brings me to my absolute favorite aspect of the film. Kenneth Cranham's Dr. Channard. Easily the most impressive Cenobite of all time, the character is just as devious and despicable in his human incarnation. He exploits and hides behind his patients and before his forced transformation, is a cowardly voyeur unwilling to pay the price of pain to play at the Lovecraftian level he aspires to. He's a delightfully British twist on the Burroughsian evil physician archetype personified by Naked Lunch's Dr. Benway. A velvet voiced smooth talker who has your worst interests at heart and is nowhere to be found when the check arrives. The Cenobitization of Dr. Channard is one of the more fantastically repugnant moments of 80's gore and his phallic, serpentine head swivel more than speaks for itself. Such a great character and so expertly portrayed with such amazing make-up, it baffles me he isn't more referenced and celebrated in the genre appreciation circles I run.
This is a real desert island movie of mine. It has everything I love about horror films. Brooding atmosphere, outrageous gore, clever writing, mythic performances and a lush, operatic, grand guignol sensibility that infuses the darkest and most morbid humor imaginable to the grim proceedings. When people moan and wail about the demise of 80's horror, this is the film that springs to mind for me. I haven't seen the likes of its playfulness and creativity in a damn long time.
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