56
Metascore
17 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 80The GuardianPeter BradshawThe GuardianPeter BradshawUtterly bizarre and entirely ridiculous – and yet effective, an imaginative Guignol festival, like the goriest of soap operas, in which one wrong move opens a portal to hell.
- 80Time Out LondonNigel FloydTime Out LondonNigel FloydA serious, intelligent and disturbing horror film.
- 80The A.V. ClubKeith PhippsThe A.V. ClubKeith PhippsPinhead barely appears in Hellraiser, a film that, with its intense and uncomfortable family drama, might have even worked without him. With him, however, it becomes one of the most innovative and memorable horror films of the '80s.
- 78Austin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenAustin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenThis skillfully creepy film tells the story of some housemates who experience unwelcome visits from a partially decomposed former resident who rises from beneath the floorboards. Seems he wants the flesh and blood of the new residents in order to settle some old scores.
- 63Slant MagazineEric HendersonSlant MagazineEric HendersonBarker’s vision cribs equally from the mythos of vampires and zombies, but Hellraiser‘s overriding ridiculousness (and nagging budgetary shortcomings) can’t disguise the fact that the movie is at least unwittingly a product of the AIDS crisis.
- 60Washington PostWashington PostHellraiser is certainly a cut or two above the slasher films that seem to proliferate on Friday the 13ths and Halloweens. It's a decidedly adult picture, with some disquieting sexual tensions that simply wouldn't work with the usual teen crew. It's also a treatise on the thin line between pleasure and pain and how easily crossed it can be.
- 50Chicago ReaderJonathan RosenbaumChicago ReaderJonathan RosenbaumMinor grisly fun, but don't expect the movie to linger when it's over.
- Mr. Barker is no more successful in making the big leap from literature to film than Norman Mailer. He's cast his film with singularly uninteresting actors, though the special effects aren't bad - only damp.
- 12Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertChicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertThis is a movie without wit, style or reason, and the true horror is that actors were made to portray, and technicians to realize, its bankruptcy of imagination.