My Weekend-Hellraiser + The Abominable Dr. Phibes

[Mr_Vindictive]

I finally got around to renting Hellraiser after all of these years.  I have seen countless sequels to the film, but had yet to watch the original.  My wife and I sat down Saturday night and watched this flick which actually suprised me.

It was actually good!

It was great to know that in the original Hellraiser the cenobites are secondary characters instead of the road the makers took with the sequels making Pinhead and his crew the main bad guys.  Barker's direction was near flawless and he knew just where to put the gore (the chinese food I was eating at the time of Frank's reanimation didn't go so well).  The only real problem that I had with the film were the sometimes shoddy special effects.  When Frank gets ripped apart with the hooks, the skin FX were blatantly fake.  And what was up with the "Penis-Baby-Scorpion" thing?  Was that supposed to be scary!?  Besides the fx, the film was actually quite entertaining.  Much more so than Hellraiser: Bloodline.  Alan Smithee!!!!


Also got a chance to catch Teh Abominable Dr. Phibes yesterday.  This is another that I'm suprised I had never seen.  Vincent Price plays a doctor who had died in a car crash upon hearing of his wife's death.  He then takes it upon himself to unleash the deadly plagues from the bible onto the doctors who could not save her life.  Well, if you are on this board then you already know the plot.

Price does a great job as he always does.  The kills in the film are inventive and quite fun.  Overall the film is a strange masterpiece and not to be missed!  I'll surely be adding this one to my DVD collection very soon.