- Director: Clive Barker
- Writer: Clive Barker
- Stars: Andrew Robinson, Clare Higgins, Ashley Laurence
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 34 Minutes
- Link: https://amzn.to/39nU8dv
This week, we’re looking at the Horror Guys’ all-time favorite horror films, where each of the guys pick his top two favorite well-known horror films. First up is Kevin’s #1 all-time horror favorite.
Synopsis
We begin in a market, somewhere in Asia. Frank buys the golden puzzle box from the peddler. “It’s yours. It always was,” states the seller. At home, Frank works the box, shifting and dialing the mechanisms. Lights surround the room and strange noises emanate. At last, he hits the right (or wrong) combination and fishhooks tear at his flesh.
The room becomes a different, dark place where creepy looking pasty-faced creatures roam around. One of them takes the remnants of Frank’s face and reassembles it. Pinhead resets the box, and the room returns to normal.
Later, Larry and Julia come to the house; Frank’s been gone for quite some time. Frank was Larry’s brother. Larry likes the house, but Julia says “it’s better than Brooklyn.” There’s a lot of religious iconography around the house, and Julia doesn’t care for it. Larry talks to his daughter, Kirstie while Julia goes through Frank’s stuff. They move in. Julia and Kirstie don’t get along very well.
We flash back to see when Frank and Julia met. They hit it off and almost immediately have sex. She loved Frank way more than husband Larry. Meanwhile, Larry cuts his hand on a nail and bleeds all over the floor. The floor slurps up the blood, and we see a tiny heart beating under the floor– the blood has activated it. Cells grow, arms grow, and a thing crawls out of the floorboards. Before long, it looks vaguely human.
That night, Julia finds the thing upstairs, and it knows her name. It’s Frank. He wants her to help him. He needs more blood; lots more blood. She thinks about it for a bit, but finally agrees to bring him victims. The next day, Julia goes to a bar and picks up a man to take home. She doesn’t find it difficult at all, as she leads him upstairs. She kills him with a hammer and lets Frank do his thing with the body. Afterwards, Frank looks more intact, but he still needs more, since he has no skin. Every drop of blood she spills puts more flesh on his bones. Frank says it’ll only take one or two more victims to restore him totally. They need to hurry before the Cenobites come.
Kirstie works at the pet store, where she finds a scary looking man who eats crickets. Julia brings home another man, and she doesn’t seem to hate it as much this time. Frank is looking more solid, and he even has a little skin now. He shows Julia the golden box. “It opens doors to the pleasures of Heaven and Hell,” he explains.
Larry hears a noise upstairs and goes to investigate. He goes into Frank’s room, but Frank’s not there. Julia and Larry go into their bedroom together, and Julia senses that Frank is in the closet watching them. She convinces Frank to back off and let Larry live. Larry whines to Kirstie about the situation with Julia, and she agrees to go over to the house and try to be Julia’s friend.
Kirstie goes over there just as Julia takes another man inside with her. She jumps to the obvious conclusion that Julia’s sleeping around, but then she hears screaming coming from inside. Kirstie goes inside and confronts Frank. They fight, and she grabs the puzzle box. She throws it out the window. She runs out and takes the box away but soon passes out on the street from shock.
Kirstie wakes up in the hospital. The doctor places the puzzle box on the nightstand and leaves her alone. The police will be by to question her soon. She works the box, and things happen. Before long, the wall tears open, revealing a passage. She goes in and finds the Cenobites. Pinhead explains that they want to take her back with them. She offers them Frank’s return for her freedom, and they want him back.
Larry comes home, and Julia decides she’s avoided it long enough; she’s going to give Larry to Frank. Kirstie runs to the house to warn Larry, and they embrace. She doesn’t notice that Larry’s covered in blood. It’s too late. This isn’t really Larry, it’s Frank wearing Larry’s skin. It doesn’t take long for Kirstie to figure it out.
Frank accidentally stabs Julia, but it doesn’t make much difference to him as long as he gets the blood. He chases Kirstie around the house until he corners in the attic room. Then the Cenobites come for him. Frank tries to kill Kirstie one more time, but the chains and fishhooks get him first.
The Cenobites finish of Frank quickly, and then they come after Kirstie. She grabs the puzzle box and starts working it as Pinhead says, “We have such sites to show you.” She twists the box and sends the Cenobites away. Kirstie and her boyfriend escape the house and the monsters from Hell.
Kirstie then drops the box into a fire. The weird homeless guy approaches and takes it out of the fire. He burns up and becomes a dragon, who then flies away. We then see the Eastern Merchant selling the box to another seeker.
Commentary
What was up with the homeless guy turning into a dragon? No idea.
This is easily the lowest budget of the four films we’re looking at this week. Clive Barker even explains that he ran out of money at the end and did the final animations on his own. Still, the low-budget look really makes this one feel grittier and darker. It’s brilliantly shot and perfectly paced. The creatures look good, and they get a lot of screen time.
This is another one of those films that was great just because it was so different. The monster can’t even leave the house, so he has to get Julia to kill for him. Then we find out that he’s not the monster, he’s just another victim trying to escape Hell. The visions of Hell (or whatever; it’s not really explained in this film) are fun and terrifying, and the Cenobites are so distinctive that it’s not hard to think about them after the film ends. They offer so much unexplained possibility that it was impossible that they wouldn’t have a sequel.