Frank, ya basic!
After looking at two very different types of queer-coded bromances in Robert Eggers’ The Lighthouse and Rob Underwood’s Tremors, we took a trip to Poland to analyze the trans allegory in the mermaid horror musical The Lure. This week, we’re heading back into the twisted mind of Clive Barker to discuss his infamous directorial debut, Hellraiser, on the week of its 35th anniversary!
In the film, hedonist Frank (Sean Chapman) inadvertently opens a portal to hell when he tinkers with a box he bought while abroad. The act unleashes gruesome beings called Cenobites, who tear Frank’s body apart. When Frank’s brother Larry (Andrew Robinson) and his wife Julia (Clare Higgins) move into Frank’s old house, they accidentally bring what is left of Frank back to life. Frank then convinces Julia, his one-time lover, to lure men back to the house so he can use their blood to reconstruct himself. That is, until Larry’s daughter Kirsty (Ashley Laurence) gets caught in the Cenobites’ crosshairs, making for a particularly awkward family reunion.
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Episode 195: Hellraiser (1987)
Come to daddy and solve that puzzle box because we’re reveling in the queer, cosmic horror of Clive Barker’s Hellraiser (1987)! Tagging in for the discussion is returning guest (and Hellraiser franchise superfan) Bryan Christopher, who we can only assume is a masochist at heart.
Join us as we go all in on the queer subtext that Barker injects into his directorial debut before heaping all the praise on Claire Higgins’ performance as the complex Julia Cotton. There will be discussions of BDSM and consent, the torture porn label that is unfairly applied to the film, and all things Cenobites.
Plus: Frank’s precious goo, shoulder pads for days, one rude-ass nurse, an angry pet store lady, and the ultimate question: why aren’t these characters diarrhea-ing all over themselves at the sight of some of this shit? And to think that Ebert said this film was a “bankruptcy of imagination”! Jesus wept.
Cross out Hellraiser!
Coming up on Wednesday: After years of requests, we are finally heading to West Berlin to hang with the coven of evil witches in Luca Guadagnino’s remake of Suspiria (2018)!
P.S. Subscribe to our Patreon for more than 195 hours of additional content! This month, we’ve got episodes on our favorite horror movie sequences in non-horror movies, social media slasher movie Sissy, the horror prequel double feature you didn’t know you needed in Ti West’s Pearl and Orphan: First Kill, and an audio commentary on Wishmaster just in time for its 25th anniversary.
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