Back in 2008 I bought a video game called Clive Barker's Jericho. To me, as an impressionable teenager, it was an awe-inspiring experience. It was filled with unique theological concepts, mix of all kinds of spiritual beliefs, grotesque designs, all wrapped in a dark story, that places itself very believably into the real history, geography and culture. From that point on, I became interested in this Barker fella, but back then I wasn't into horror, so my first real exploration of his material started around 2013. I remember reading about him: most people seemed to praise Hellraiser as his masterpiece. That was fine with me, cause I was never much of a reader. Anyway, when I saw it at the time, I didn't really like it. So, recently I played through Jericho again, and fgained new kind of appreciation for it, because of all the experience and knowledge I've garnered over the years. That lead me to believe, that maybe the same could happen, when I watch Hellraised... But no. Unfortunately. This movie is a mixed bag, no matter how much I tried to like it. The thing I realised, that over the years, despite me learning to appreciate new concepts, this film's problem was always, that it didn't have that many of them, and didn't explore the ones, that it did have. There is literally 2 things, that make this film sorta stand out.

1. The idea of flexibility between pain and pleasure. The idea of going beyond the limits of our current perception of feelings.
2. The whole thing about the box and the Cenobites. The latter one is especially ironic, because it's such a lovecraftian idea, the fear of the unknown: What is this box? Who made it? Who are these creatures? Where do they come from? You are afraid of what you don't see and don't understand. And I said it's ironic, because Clive Barker famously criticized Lovecraft's writing for exactly that: the lack of descriptions of monsters and such. It seems in Barker's mind the violence and gore are more scary. Not for me though. Imo it's just gross and unpleasant to look at. Unfortunately, that's what the majority of the film consists of: gore, blood and guts, all in your stupid face. The nightmarish scenes with Cenobites take around 15 minutes overall. Oh, and the ending sucks all the fear out of these mysterious trans-dimensional demons, because of how the main character disposes of them. They literally wait for her to turn the box, one of them gets defeated by a collapsed ceiling (which made me laugh out loud, I swear). I really can't understand, how the creator of something as profound as Jericho, can make this kind of grounded and shallow "revive a zombie" story. The funny thing is though, Jericho is universally hated, as opposed to this film. :/