hellraiser

i had known of this horror franchise but had never seen any of the films. well, i thought i'd give it a try since it was on tv anyway. the story follows a family who moves into an old family house. one of the brothers who had hit hard times had been shacking up there when he got a hold of this strange creepy box. he opened it and out came some chains and horrors and demons. his soul was then trapped in the floorboards of the attic of the house. the new family, mom, dad, and daughter, all move in. the mom, who had had an affair with the now dead brother-in-law, goes up in the attic and sees this creepy creature who has been rebirthed. that creepy creature happens to be the dead man. he needs more blood to return back to normal and grow his body back, so the wife lures in men to have an affair with and then kills them to feed the dead brother. while this is all going on, the demons who had tortured him find out that he has escaped their curse, so they return to get what they feel belongs to them. the whole thing is terribly 80's, with the bad hair and the bad fashion. some of the effects and make-up work on the demons still holds up as being pretty creepy, though. as the film heads to its climax it becomes obvious that the production ran out of money because the ending is absolutely terrible! any good effects are thrown out the window and replaced by obvious puppetry and poorly done green screen. pinhead, the main demon of the film, has since become a famous horror monster, but the start of his reign of terror in this film is only scary because of how laughable it is.