HELLRAISER (1987)

"Jesus wept."

Do I really need to waste both of our time recapping the story of HELLRAISER? What, I do? Fuuuuck. Alright.  A dude, Frank, buys this mysterious puzzle box. Up in his creepy attic, he starts messing with the box. Chains with hooks shoot out of it and grab into him, next a group of demons come and drag him to Hell. Sometime later his brother, Larry and his wife Julia, move into the house. Larry has an accident and spills blood onto the floor in the attic. The blood is soaked into the floor and this somehow brings Frank back from Hell, but only partially. He's all gooey and doesn't have any skin. Frank was having an affair with Julia so he confronts her and asks her to help bring him back to life. How's she gonna do that? He needs human blood and lots of it. Added to this fucked up story is Larry's sexy teenager daughter and the group of demons who are looking for Frank. There, you happy?

I remember seeing HELLRAISER as a young sexy teenager and it scared the fook out of me, not as bad as the original TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE which damn near killed me, but it still freaked me out. Watching it again now for the first time in a number of years I was kinda shocked at how dark and fucked up this movie was...especially for a mainstream release from the 80's! I thought the story held up really well and even though I knew what was gonna happen, I was glued to the screen. The story captures your attention, the demons were scary as Hell, good acting, budget restraints kinda hamper the look of the film a little bit but it adds to the charm, quick pace, awesome violence and best of all: Pinhead. That dude is just fucking awesome! Behind Jason and Leatherface, I think he's my favorite horror movie villain. Of course, he's appear in a few shitty movies and even a Satan-awful Motorhead music video, but still the basic idea of Pinhead is totally badass.

As far as Part 1 goes, it's easily the best of the series and a legendary horror movie with a really cool and original idea. Highly recommended.

Part 2 - Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1988)
Part 3 - Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth (1992)
Part 4 - Hellraiser: Bloodline (1996)
Part 5 - Hellraiser: Inferno (2000)
Part 6 - Hellraiser: Hellseeker (2002)
Part 7 - Hellraiser: Deader (2005)
Part 8 - Hellraiser: Hellworld (2005)
Part 9 - Hellraiser: Revelations (2011)
Part 10 - Hellraiser: Judgement (2018)
Remake - Hellraiser (2022)

LOCKOUT (2012)

A secret agent dude is set up and accused of killing another agent and stealing Top Secret information. His punishment: 30 years of sleepy time in a space station prison, MS One, where everybody is put in a cryogenically frozen sleep. But then, right as he's being prepped to to be transported to jail, the President's daughter, who was on a humanitarian mission to MS One, is kidnapped during a riot. Now the only chance of saving her is sending in this half-sleepy dude to kick a bunch of ass, crack a bunch of surprisingly humorous jokes and get her to an unmarked escape pod.

I enjoyed LOCKOUT.  A lot of No Fun Club members will probably complain that LOCKOUT borrows heavily from the whole ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK story idea, but that's fine with me cause EFNY was a fucking snoozefest. But whatever, Guy Pearce was really good, the chemistry between him and the President's daughter was fun to watch (I especially enjoyed the scene where he was doctoring her leg), there was a lot of CG but outside of the motorcycle chase scene it all looked pretty good, the pace was quick, the space station was cool. The biggest complaint is the violence wasn't violent enough. When you think of prison you think of it as the extreme in violence and ungentlemanly behavior, but outside of murdering and talking at an outside voice level while inside these guys weren't very threatening.

As far as B-level sci-fi/action flicks go LOCKOUT is fairly entertaining and you could definitely do worse...SPLIT SECOND I'm thinking about you! If you enjoy cheesy action movies, I say check it out.