Tony Randel directs Clare Higgins, Ashley Laurence and Kenneth Cranham in this direct follow-up to Hellraiser where Kirsty is committed to a mental institute run by a psychiatrist obsessed with resurrecting Julia and witnessing the cenobites himself.

Even more so than the first entry this has a woozy nightmare logic to the story, so that if you miss five minutes you’ll have no idea where the characters are and how things got quite so bad. For a shortish film, with 10 minutes of “Previously on Hellraiser” padding, there are a lot of ideas moshing for attention. The highlights are Claire Higgins’ Julia taking centre stage, being rebirthed via a blood soaked mattress, and our prolonged trip to labyrinths of hell. The cenobites again stay in the background… slightly ineffectually here… at one point they have Kirsty cornered but decide to let her run loose around hell for… well… reasons? Did you come for tight plotting though? Or absolute psychosexual gore carnage! Skin is flayed, and sliced, and worn, and lost! The terror FX are even more convincing here and the budget is clearly grander (even if is still doesn’t fully match the ambition or scale of the Clive Barker approved vision). Like Nightbreed, this feels more like an adult fairy tale, a fantasy adventure, that leans on horror iconography and 18 certificate violence rather than fairies and dragons. A fitting sequel to a genre classic.

8

Check out my wife Natalie’s Point Horror blog https://cornsyrup.co.uk

We also do a podcast together called The Worst Movies We Own. It is available on Spotify or here https://letterboxd.com/bobbycarroll/list/the-worst-movies-we-own-podcast-ranking-and/

Tim Hunter directs Keanu Reeves, Crispin Glover and Ione Skye in this crime drama where a group of high schoolers are taken to see one of their classmates’ body, lying naked by the riverbank, killed by their friend.

Easily the bleakest teen movie ever made. The casual indifference most of the kids have to seeing their friend’s naked corpse or still hanging with the boy who committed the crime after is chilling. Eventually this becomes a leaping off point for a night of bad behaviour as some try to do the right thing for little reward and others try to abet the killer. Crispin Glover puts in a full shift as the highly strung gang leader who sees this as a chance to prove his loyalty. It is an unusual lead turn matched in intensity by Dennis Hopper’s insane agoraphobic biker whose house they orbit. But Keanu makes the best impression as the haunted good kid. His toxic home life is key to understanding the mindset here. The ambivalence to a murdered human is mirrored by the care he and his little sister put into the mock grave for a lost doll.

8

Check out my wife Natalie’s Point Horror blog https://cornsyrup.co.uk

We also do a podcast together called The Worst Movies We Own. It is available on Spotify or here https://letterboxd.com/bobbycarroll/list/the-worst-movies-we-own-podcast-ranking-and/

Victor Heerman directs the Marx Brothers, Lillian Roth and Margaret Dumont in this early vehicle where the boys find themselves in a garden party farce involving a forged painting.

A couple of pointless songs and some incompressible plot about a painting being swapped around aside, there’s enough wacky vaudeville here that this just about holds its own with their zany best. Harpo is lustier than usual, Groucho gets half a dozen killer lines. Lillian Roth puts in an unusually overeager performance as the totty.

8

Check out my wife Natalie’s Point Horror blog https://cornsyrup.co.uk

We also do a podcast together called The Worst Movies We Own. It is available on Spotify or here https://letterboxd.com/bobbycarroll/list/the-worst-movies-we-own-podcast-ranking-and/

Glenn Ficarra and John Requa direct Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone in this romantic comedy where a newly dumped family man gets a makeover from a charming pick-up artist.

Gorgeous and glossy. Maybe not quite as funny as these confections need to be to become standards of the genre but certainly never dull. Does rely of coincidences a little too often to propel the plot and Emma Stone feels benched for a little too much of the first half… but these are quibbles. On the whole, this is a slick, starry and colourful night on the couch. Ryan Reynolds in particular does lightweight eye candy marvellously and the cast is deep cut quality.

7

Check out my wife Natalie’s Point Horror blog https://cornsyrup.co.uk

We also do a podcast together called The Worst Movies We Own. It is available on Spotify or here https://letterboxd.com/bobbycarroll/list/the-worst-movies-we-own-podcast-ranking-and/

Douglas Buck directs Stephen Rea, Lou Doillon, and Chloë Sevigny in this remake of Brian De Palma’s conjoined twin exploitation cult classic.

Lifeless and pointless.

2

Check out my wife Natalie’s Point Horror blog https://cornsyrup.co.uk

We also do a podcast together called The Worst Movies We Own. It is available on Spotify or here https://letterboxd.com/bobbycarroll/list/the-worst-movies-we-own-podcast-ranking-and/

Rob Zombie directs Sid Haig, Bill Moseley and Sherri Moon Zombie in the horror sequel to House Of 1000 Corpses that sees Captain Spaulding and The Fireflys on the run from a psycho sheriff.

Slightly more grounded… the lingered on victims here are middle-aged and believable which makes their captivity with the unpredictable nutters a little more gruelling but a little less japish. Likewise the final act sees the very same antagonists brutalised. This violence is framed in a way in which we are supposed to view the monsters with sympathy… robs the film of some of its punkish energy and doesn’t sit right with me. Still the soundtrack thumps with Seventies shitkicker classics, there are plenty of moments of transgressive levity – “TUTTI FUCKING FRUTTI!”- and the violence is in turns nasty and slapsticky. Bill Moseley really comes into his own here as Otis. A fearsome force of nature. His scenes are hazardous to the soul. And then that final 8 minutes hellride into oblivion to Lynyrd Skynyrd has to be one of the finest endings to a horror movie ever. Imperfect but with amazing peaks.

7

Check out my wife Natalie’s Point Horror blog https://cornsyrup.co.uk

We also do a podcast together called The Worst Movies We Own. It is available on Spotify or here https://letterboxd.com/bobbycarroll/list/the-worst-movies-we-own-podcast-ranking-and/

Clive Barker directs Andrew Robinson, Clare Higgins and Ashley Laurence in this demonic horror where a puzzle box opens a gateway to hell and the cenobites who guard / persecute its victims.

One of my favourite horrors. The practical FX especially the make-up are unnerving and fantastic. The cenobites are truly fearsome creations that sear themselves into your nightmares with only a garnish of actual screentime here. It wouldn’t be until the third film that they take centre stage.

Yet all of Barker’s creation is enthused with convincing expansive mythology. The seductively ornate design of the lament configuration with its gilt edged, torturous shapes and animated lightning by-product. The keepers of the key who orbit the story… the curious oriental antique dealer waiting to pass hell on to the next fated owner, the bug eating harbinger tramp who stalks our heroine and the monster within the walls between our worlds. A whole universe of terror is hinted at on a limited budget but a limitless macabre imagination. That Clive Barker is some boy.

Now there are problems with Barker’s debut. Occasionally the cheapness takes you out of the otherwise impressive body horror and oppressive atmosphere. A post-production decision to dub a few extras with thick American accents to suggest this taking place in New York rather than North London fudges the gothic effectiveness of the location work. Back street suburban London works well for this tale of murderous stepmothers and rapey undead uncles.

The Snow White and Evil Queen dynamic between Laurence and Higgins labours particularly well at making this videoshop shocker feel like it is of wider import. You can read allegories of abuse and AIDS and incest and BDSM into the runny spills of blood and exposed carrion. The demonic curse of eternal damnation is passed down between generations of a family and spread to random men via one-off sexual encounters. Hellraiser is one of the few Eighties horrors where it doesn’t feel pretentious to add deeper meanings to the violence and carnage. We are confident Barker is toying with fears ancient and contemporary.

“What’s your pleasure, sir?”

9

Check out my wife Natalie’s Point Horror blog https://cornsyrup.co.uk

We also do a podcast together called The Worst Movies We Own. It is available on Spotify or here https://letterboxd.com/bobbycarroll/list/the-worst-movies-we-own-podcast-ranking-and/

Rob Zombie directs Sid Haig, Bill Moseley and Sherri Moon in this horror exploitation love letter where four annoying kids find themselves in a farmhouse with a family full of psychos.

First time I watched this on release I was disappointed. It was too extreme and cartoonish and distracted… promising much in the Sid Haig dominated prologue then only really delivering in the final 10 minutes when all hell seemingly breaks loose and every metal cover from my youth comes alive with convincing aplomb. Now we’ve had a couple of decades to get used to Rob Zombie’s house-style and favoured ensemble the bulk that I found underwhelming then works absolutely fine now. There is a sleazy threat constantly seeping out of the Fireflys as they tease and taunt their new captives. The ADHD editing is oppressive. And moments like the prolonged death of Walton Goggins’ deputy have a bravura that Zombie would grow into in later films. I no longer have any misgivings, Zombie’s debut is one of the very best horrors of the new century. Brashly funny too.

8

Check out my wife Natalie’s Point Horror blog https://cornsyrup.co.uk

We also do a podcast together called The Worst Movies We Own. It is available on Spotify or here https://letterboxd.com/bobbycarroll/list/the-worst-movies-we-own-podcast-ranking-and/

Federico Fellini directs Marcello Mastroianni, Anita Ekberg and Anouk Aimée in this Italian arthouse classic where a journalist spends a series of nights encountering the famous and feckless of Rome, slowly being corrupted.

The voluptuous Ekberg frolicking in a fountain. La Dolce Vita is a cinematic god, iconic for a five minute scene. It is also a three hour film. The remainder is waves of boredom, disappointment, grating bonhomie, isolation. All of it is very beautiful, peaks of it are very affecting… Marcello’s father’s night on the town ending in exhaustion and self realisation. Or another man coming to kiss and grope Maddalena moments after her disembodied voice has asked Marcello to marry her as he sits abandoned in another room. And then there are the glorious metaphors like Christ hanging from the helicopter over the city or the dead fish with its ever watching eye. What art or humanity can happen with the paparazzi always watching, the party guests always clamouring for attention and the streets always full. There is no solitude for grief, or writing, or romance…. no escape from society when it is so packed and constant.

7

Check out my wife Natalie’s Point Horror blog https://cornsyrup.co.uk

We also do a podcast together called The Worst Movies We Own. It is available on Spotify or here https://letterboxd.com/bobbycarroll/list/the-worst-movies-we-own-podcast-ranking-and/

Steve James directs William Gates, Arthur Agee and Gene Pingatore in this groundbreaking documentary about black working class teenagers with the talent to earn basketball scholarships being churned up in the competitive high school system.

Possibly my favourite documentary and indisputably one of the very finest. If you ever have trouble articulating how racism operates and restricts lives then just show someone this perfect film. Witness the unremarked upon back foot and disadvantages the black kids start with when they are just taking shots in their local playgrounds. Watch how the white suburban school system recruits then exploits or abandons these kids. They only have one value, to win trophies, and if they can’t the school ain’t keeping them on. Note the switches in William and Arthur’s home lives as threats to their welfare, grades, street violence and family stability start to encroach in on their dreams to be professional athletes. See how the one lad who does stick with the more prestigious school has his confidence knocked out of him and his self worth emotionally beaten by being one of the few black faces in that environment. Acknowledge the grim reality of the college scholarship the other lad who has coasted his way through the public school system (with zero support from the school who discarded him) finally earns. A MDF divided house populated by the few black boys. They are clearly being unofficially segregated from the white students in the middle of nowhere. That ain’t no university experience where these kids can network and learn professional interaction. They are never being prepped for a future that doesn’t involve them playing college ball but both their horizons shift away from earning from the sport. It is a film with true life villains: the bullying, hectoring, unsympathetic Coach Pingatore makes a terrible show of himself. The filmmakers present all this without comment. The captured evidence speaks for itself. And there are as many moments of triumph as there are adversity and plenty of character arcs that will surprise you as they unfold. My favourite minute came in the final half hour when we see Arthur and William interacting on camera for the first time and, rather than acting like rivals, they clearly have developed a fraternity and affection from being part of this revolutionary four year project. A very sweet, unexpected scene. It has been 25 years since I last watched this… I’m not going to wait that long again.

10

Check out my wife Natalie’s Point Horror blog https://cornsyrup.co.uk

We also do a podcast together called The Worst Movies We Own. It is available on Spotify or here https://letterboxd.com/bobbycarroll/list/the-worst-movies-we-own-podcast-ranking-and/