Yeah, we have a history. He used to look at me from the horror section of the video store. And that section was "hidden" in a cardboard cubby house that was dimly lit to stop kids looking in there. When that became the porn section, I can't remember if it was before or after the horror section was in the main area. But he'd look at me from the shelf and I was very curious about the guy, but wouldn't get to find out anything about him for a long time.
Now I'm pretty sure I read the book the Hellbound Heart before I saw Hellraiser, because the movie was disappointing in its amendments. I felt the relationships were more interesting, i.e. Kirsty is the friend of Rory (Larry in the film) and has an affection for him and isn't his daughter, so Frank isn't her uncle. The book also is a bit more intricate in its building of the Cenobite lore. The box is the Lemarchand Configuration not the Lament Configuration. It all gets very watered down and literal, glossing over the more nuanced concepts. I get Barker wrote the script, probably to have a more mass-market appeal. But when people go on about the franchise and Pinhead, I roll my eyes so hard. Because Pinhead originally didn't go by this title, played little significance in the book and had a kind of childlike, almost babyish voice. But because his face was on that damn video cover, because he became synonymous with the franchise, because the viewers "blessed" him with the nickname, he became the pivotal character.
I believe Barker resurrected the world and Pinhead in the Scarlet Letters as a joke - a book I wasn't thrilled with. I forgot the detective Harry D'Amour was part of the Barker Universe, I'm not into the Art Trilogy given Everville bored me to a degree as well, where Harry also appears, I'm not going to read the third one now I've hit saturation point. Imajica infuriated me eventually. So I'm off the Barker bus.
But in terms of iconic horror characters, Pinhead isn't really worthy of that much hype. Somehow, they've sucked now ten movies out of the franchise alone, five of which were straight to DVD, and some of those fell victim to the "Cloverfield Curse" (this was actually way before Cloverfield), where bad scripts with no home to go to found the light by adopting the Hellraiser brand. I gave up after the fourth installment, which I have very vague memories of, as well as the third and second installments. I think all those films are kind of a weird montage in my memory where I can match the scenes to the films, but can't remember half of what really happened overall. I watched them out of curiosity, and I still try to mention how little there was of the character in Pinhead to draw on from the original book. He's kind of a parody of Pinhead in the Scarlet Letters, and probably in the other films as well. I went through a youtuber's commentaries about it, and he mentioned the Engineer, who is also an original character, so it was clear the later films tried "harder" I suppose to draw on source material elements for the hardcore fans. Visually, the book is more interesting, but the time we spend in "hell" and with the Cenobites is so limited. The book is also a novella, that was part of an anthology of horror. And it's a pretty great book, so I was expecting more from Scarlet Letters, which turned out to be a kind of caper/romp story through the greater regions of Hell, where Pinhead is hanging out making origami birds, and basically just being a downer who wants to overthrow the Devil in so many words. There's a big cliffhanger at the end but I'm not hanging out for more. This book more felt like a fuck you to the "fans" of the film who made Pinhead out to be more than what he was, like it was a cynical cash-in with a chance to also bring back Harry D'Amour for another spin as well and kill two birds a la Blood Canticle by Anne Rice, one of literature's saddest, most money-hungry tie-ins. (If you know not what I speak, Blackwood Farm and Blood Canticle were strange excuses for marrying the Mayfair Witches with the Vampire Chronicles, and it could've worked had Mona not ended up an insufferable immortal, Lestat hadn't been plagued by his own cognitive dissonance and lack of continuity and Rowan hadn't fallen for Lestat only to COMPLETELY vanish by the Prince Lestat - which I also read and more or less hated.)
The Hellraiser franchise suffered from poor titles, repetitive story lines and hopeful Easter egg-style nods to the true fans, who have basically ruined this franchise by being so obsessed with Pinhead. He doesn't really work on his own. He doesn't work with a crew or a cohort, or personal adversary, he doesn't work as a possible tortured human who turned evil, or a fallen angel type cursed to wander the real world without "sweet suffering". I'm not even sure the guy who watched the films then commented on them did much research into the books or paid that much attention to the last film, or whoever wrote the Wikipedia entry didn't, because their plot accounts did not match at all. No matter, they're trashy parts of the horror/slaughter genre. He is an icon. He has more originality that Jason or Freddy, in a way. He's supposed to be more nuanced, less pure evil and more bent on pain for pleasure's sake taken to an extreme. Frank, in the book, is warned if he chooses to follow the Cenobites into their world, there's no way out. They care more he managed to escape them than they do about his desire to come into their world. The Cenobites sort of became evil over time. And it wasn't truly a comment on heaven or hell, or religion at all. It was more subtle than that. We can have arguments about canon and I'm not here for that at all, because I'm not that well versed. I'm just here to put my point across.
Pinhead and I have a history. I was always curious about Barker's Universe, but never read the Books of Blood. Cabal's okay, and again I was correcting people over Nightbreed being Cabal as the book, because again, Cabal doesn't work as a movie title. Barker inspires me but leaves me frustrated more too. I guess he and I have a weird history too, I'll always credit him for helping my own style of writing sort of evolve into something more free-flowing and creative. But I won't forget looking at Pinhead's face, staring for a while, curious, a little scared, and patient enough to wait for when I could deal with him as a grownup. Then I was off to the kid's section to rent The Last Unicorn for the 80th time. (By rights if VHS movies stayed out in the stores long enough, our parents could've saved so much money buying these and a VCR rather than renting them out with a VCR from our local video stores).
Monday, 27 August 2018
Saturday, 25 August 2018
The Before Trilogy
Your Movie Sucks.org brought me here. I'd had Before Sunrise on my watch list for years, aware of its ties to Waking Life (which, full disclosure, bored me). The sequel came out and I glossed over it, curious for a moment about the original and passing it by yet again. Until YMS gave it some glowing praise in his review on Before Midnight, and I dove right in to be pleasantly surprised.
Somehow Before Sunrise manages to paint a believable night in the life of a pair of young travelers who fall in love after one follows the other off a train in Vienna. It presents a romance that transcends cynicism while being acutely aware of its own sappiness and unlikeliness. The pair speak philosophically and romantically, and realistically, about their possible newfound love. We're invested from the beginning, we chase them off the train and all around the city, delighting in their ribbing and fawning, falling for them as they fall for each other. And we live through the heartbreak of their separation. We're left with a what if that manages to survive the years to the next movie. It's something you couldn't remake in this age of social media and phones, because they'd just find one another and be more tempted to make contact when they're promising not to write or call. It's only six months until they see one another again, right? It's happening in that perfect and painstaking time when communication wasn't so easy to maintain. The deal is made they meet again and the will they/won't they factor is bittersweet and cute. And we close with a montage of scenes from their evening and the pair contemplating each other alone on their respective rides away.
Nine years pass, rather than six months, and Linklater may have planned this out, but I feel it's more the director sees the opportunity arise when he meets with the original leads, and it births an idea to make a sequel (which it's not, it's part of the long game and the three of them have worked together on this project). Jesse has written a book about his one night of romance and this is used as a mechanism to recap where we left off, while skirting around whether he and Céline have survived or not by discussing the ambiguous ending. There's a genuine disappointment in knowing they didn't reunite until now, Céline confessing she was unable to come to the station. They have to catch up and discover there were missed moments in New York they were close but far away. Jesse has ended up with a strained relationship and a son (who we meet in the third film) and the will they/won't they dilemma plays stronger for the time limit imposed on Jesse and whether he'd be willing to leave his wife for Céline (and of course the wife isn't present physically and the marriage is failing from joylessness and unmet expectations. She has to be Céline's antithesis, but Jesse doesn't want to hurt this other woman any more than he wants his son to grow up in a joyless home). Céline has a photographer boyfriend who's decent but conveniently absent, (another on the list of reasons for your leads to cheat without abject remorse) She's tricked herself into being happy with his absence so she can be together with someone and alone. Céline has suffered more for losing Jesse and he's been broken in his own way, now terrified he'll be trapped in a loveless marriage. All the sparks are there and we're longing for this to happen. And again, we're left hanging, but with more optimism.
By the time another nine years passes, Jesse and Céline have rekindled their love (but remain unmarried), and had twins. Jesse's meta-narrative books serve to recap once again through conversation on the content of the stories and how "the third is better than the original two." But now the tension is coming from the certain strains of differing and disjointed occupations, Jesse getting to continue his writing and having success and traveling while suffering over not being more present in Hank's life, Céline making sacrifices for the sake of her twins and so on. The bickering grows tiresome but in that horrible, realistic way bickering with your lover becomes exhausting because you're still in love but not making headway. (Which is all more poignant for the addition of Hawke and Delphy's personal input into the script.) We can't have the joy of the romance from the first film without the pain of two human beings coming to terms with growing older and seeing the attraction degrade, Céline questioning if Jesse would pick her up on a train now as she is and how she'd refuse him as 41 year old due to real world practicalities. You want them to survive. It presents the cynicism as plainly as the first movie. You'd be disappointed if it was all roses with these two. There are more people in their lives who we actually spend time with this time around. Conversations with others occur, breaking the conventions of the first two films. I can see this as being the least charming and lovable of the three. I liked it ends with some ambiguity and the flourish of hope these two will actually grow old together. And Linklater takes the opportunity to explore the idea of sex and romance online that the first film had yet to consider. Most of his philosophical suppositions and commentary on reality comes out in his films somewhere along the way, it's his ability to twist this into his dialogue so effortlessly makes it more of a joy to listen to. Boyhood did try to cram all of this with a lot of political discourse into the story, but with less effectiveness than he has in other films.
You wouldn't have found this chemistry with another pair of actors over this amount of time. There's no way you could remake this trilogy and capture the same electricity and intrigue you have learning about these two purely through conversation and tension. I think these films work purely through being as natural as they possibly can be. If the dialogue had been forced or stilted, and the chemistry hadn't been there, the original would've been a disaster. No amount of beautiful shots of Vienna and perfect camera work on the train would've saved it.
If you can sell a born cynic like me for three whole films on the notion of romance and love spanning nearly two decades, you've won. If you can discuss the futility of romance and reality forever being at odds without leaving someone like me rolling my eyes and shaking my head, you've succeeded. I did think these would all be pretentious or slow, or unconvincing and contrived. But no. Not at all. It's such an easy trilogy to watch and enjoy. So it goes on my list of amazing and underrated trilogies.
Somehow Before Sunrise manages to paint a believable night in the life of a pair of young travelers who fall in love after one follows the other off a train in Vienna. It presents a romance that transcends cynicism while being acutely aware of its own sappiness and unlikeliness. The pair speak philosophically and romantically, and realistically, about their possible newfound love. We're invested from the beginning, we chase them off the train and all around the city, delighting in their ribbing and fawning, falling for them as they fall for each other. And we live through the heartbreak of their separation. We're left with a what if that manages to survive the years to the next movie. It's something you couldn't remake in this age of social media and phones, because they'd just find one another and be more tempted to make contact when they're promising not to write or call. It's only six months until they see one another again, right? It's happening in that perfect and painstaking time when communication wasn't so easy to maintain. The deal is made they meet again and the will they/won't they factor is bittersweet and cute. And we close with a montage of scenes from their evening and the pair contemplating each other alone on their respective rides away.
Nine years pass, rather than six months, and Linklater may have planned this out, but I feel it's more the director sees the opportunity arise when he meets with the original leads, and it births an idea to make a sequel (which it's not, it's part of the long game and the three of them have worked together on this project). Jesse has written a book about his one night of romance and this is used as a mechanism to recap where we left off, while skirting around whether he and Céline have survived or not by discussing the ambiguous ending. There's a genuine disappointment in knowing they didn't reunite until now, Céline confessing she was unable to come to the station. They have to catch up and discover there were missed moments in New York they were close but far away. Jesse has ended up with a strained relationship and a son (who we meet in the third film) and the will they/won't they dilemma plays stronger for the time limit imposed on Jesse and whether he'd be willing to leave his wife for Céline (and of course the wife isn't present physically and the marriage is failing from joylessness and unmet expectations. She has to be Céline's antithesis, but Jesse doesn't want to hurt this other woman any more than he wants his son to grow up in a joyless home). Céline has a photographer boyfriend who's decent but conveniently absent, (another on the list of reasons for your leads to cheat without abject remorse) She's tricked herself into being happy with his absence so she can be together with someone and alone. Céline has suffered more for losing Jesse and he's been broken in his own way, now terrified he'll be trapped in a loveless marriage. All the sparks are there and we're longing for this to happen. And again, we're left hanging, but with more optimism.
By the time another nine years passes, Jesse and Céline have rekindled their love (but remain unmarried), and had twins. Jesse's meta-narrative books serve to recap once again through conversation on the content of the stories and how "the third is better than the original two." But now the tension is coming from the certain strains of differing and disjointed occupations, Jesse getting to continue his writing and having success and traveling while suffering over not being more present in Hank's life, Céline making sacrifices for the sake of her twins and so on. The bickering grows tiresome but in that horrible, realistic way bickering with your lover becomes exhausting because you're still in love but not making headway. (Which is all more poignant for the addition of Hawke and Delphy's personal input into the script.) We can't have the joy of the romance from the first film without the pain of two human beings coming to terms with growing older and seeing the attraction degrade, Céline questioning if Jesse would pick her up on a train now as she is and how she'd refuse him as 41 year old due to real world practicalities. You want them to survive. It presents the cynicism as plainly as the first movie. You'd be disappointed if it was all roses with these two. There are more people in their lives who we actually spend time with this time around. Conversations with others occur, breaking the conventions of the first two films. I can see this as being the least charming and lovable of the three. I liked it ends with some ambiguity and the flourish of hope these two will actually grow old together. And Linklater takes the opportunity to explore the idea of sex and romance online that the first film had yet to consider. Most of his philosophical suppositions and commentary on reality comes out in his films somewhere along the way, it's his ability to twist this into his dialogue so effortlessly makes it more of a joy to listen to. Boyhood did try to cram all of this with a lot of political discourse into the story, but with less effectiveness than he has in other films.
You wouldn't have found this chemistry with another pair of actors over this amount of time. There's no way you could remake this trilogy and capture the same electricity and intrigue you have learning about these two purely through conversation and tension. I think these films work purely through being as natural as they possibly can be. If the dialogue had been forced or stilted, and the chemistry hadn't been there, the original would've been a disaster. No amount of beautiful shots of Vienna and perfect camera work on the train would've saved it.
If you can sell a born cynic like me for three whole films on the notion of romance and love spanning nearly two decades, you've won. If you can discuss the futility of romance and reality forever being at odds without leaving someone like me rolling my eyes and shaking my head, you've succeeded. I did think these would all be pretentious or slow, or unconvincing and contrived. But no. Not at all. It's such an easy trilogy to watch and enjoy. So it goes on my list of amazing and underrated trilogies.
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