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The horror/fantasy genre has been a notoriously difficult one in which to be genuinely original in for some time so it's an event when something comes along that stands out as unusual. Most work is derivative for the most part, often exploitational to find an audience without the backing of a decent story. "Hellraiser" is a seminal movie from 1987 that finally gave the horror genre something fresh and new and became a franchise, catapulting the author Clive Barker into the long overdue limelight.

Frank Cotton is a man who lives life on the edge. With blurred boundaries of decency and a warped version of right and wrong, he purchases an ancient puzzle box that can supposedly take him to the very boundaries of ecstasy. However, on discovering its secret, he is taken instead to the depths of the Hell of pain and terror where horrific creatures impose the ultimate in sadomasochism in an alternate dimension of death and decay. Frank's brother Larry moves into the empty house in which Frank's soul is now trapped under the floorboards. Following an accident to his hand in which blood seeps through the floor, Frank's soul absorbs the red corpuscles and starts to re-generate. Needing more blood to recover, he talks his ex-lover and wife of Larry - Julia - into helping him by luring lonely men to the bedroom and killing them in order for him to extract their blood. Meanwhile, his original captors and jailors - the cruel cenobites - are oblivious to his "escape". Kirsty, Larry's daughter and Julia's step daughter, stumbles upon the plot and flees to seek advice along with the puzzle box, recovered during a melee with the half-formed Frank. Unfortunately, she works out how to open it and is confronted by the Cenobites. Bargaining for her very soul, she tells them that she can lead them to Frank.

Written and directed by Clive Barker, "Hellraiser" was inspired by Barker's novella "The Hellbound Heart". Exploring the boundaries of masochism and cruelty, the movie translated Barker's lurid imagination into a cinematic work of great craft and creativity. Not only is it a great story but the movie illustrates graphic horror in a form of exploitation that re-enforces the story rather than simply replacing it entirely as in so many low-budget horror flicks. For Barker himself, it went to show how multi-skilled he actually is through his books, movies, artwork and screenplays that have taken him from Liverpool to his home in Los Angeles.

For a low budget production, the cast is exemplary.

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