Watched Hellraiser last night. Twice through, in fact. Once normally, and once with the DVD commentary track on. (I love DVD commentary tracks. I have a boundless appetite for weird movie trivia, and I love to hear creative people talk about how they do what they do.)

Hellraiser is certainly a very good horror movie. I'm still not certain that I like horror movies. At one point during the film (it's where Kirsty is hiding from Frank upstairs, for anyone who's seen it), I realized that I was tensed up, and my heart was sort of fluttering, and I just knew that something nasty was going to happen...and I thought to myself, "Sheesh, people pay to feel this way? For entertainment?" Still, I suppose I'd say that I enjoyed the film.

The part of me that's fascinated by the film-making process was intrigued by Hellraiser as an illustration of effective low-budget film-making. The movie was made in 1987 for $1 million dollars, and it's held up remarkably well. There are one or two effects that look a little bit cheap. What's funny is listening to the commentary, and realizing that there were all sorts of financial considerations that shaped the filming that you never notice. For example, the scene where Kirsty throws the puzzle box through the attic window had to be gotten right on the first take -- because they couldn't afford to replace the window! Lots of shot choices were shaped by the fact that most of the film was shot in a real house, which restricted camera placement -- but on the whole it tends to lend the film a distinctive atmosphere.

Of course, what really makes the film hold up is that it has a good storyline and a remarkably good cast. (Remarkable considering that they were mostly relative unknowns with little film experience, although many of the best performers appear to have had considerable stage experience.) The actress who plays Julia is awesome -- you watch her transform from a woman who's terrified by what she's doing to someone who really enjoys being evil -- and it's almost all conveyed through facial expression and body language.

From a storyteller's point of view, I think the film may have some interesting lessons on handling evil. The film's ultimate bad guys are the Cenobites, a bunch of transdimensional sadomasochists. 'Demons to some. Angels to others.' as the film says. They, especially the character referred to in the credits as 'Lead Cenobite' but instantly nicknamed 'Pinhead', became the iconographic element that defined Hellraiser to the public, and provided fodder for a string of increasingly uninspired sequels. You will recall that "I'm curious about this Pinhead dude." being on my list of reasons for watching Hellraiser.

So, the surprising thing is how little screen time the Cenobites get. After a brief appearance at the beginning, they're absent until the last third of the film. Pinhead probably has eight lines in the entire film, but, boy, does he make those eight lines count.

But the reason why the story works is that it's really about the human characters (well, as long as we count Frank, a reanimated corpse, as one of the humans). It's a story about human lust, greed, and betrayal. The Cenobites serve as kind of tutelary deities for the human characters' drives. They give the story a kind of metaphysical, universal meaning that would be absent if it were just a story of human lust and greed without supernatural elements.

But it only works because the Cenobites are mysterious and inhuman. So it's easy to guess why the sequels, which have increasingly focused on Pinhead as a character, have become increasingly disappointing. The more Pinhead becomes a character that we can observe and understand, the more he loses that air of mystery and total inhumanity that made audiences clamor to see more of him in the first place.

It seems to me that this is a particularly clear cut case of something that often mars sequels. Viewers or readers will clamor, "We want to know more about X!" But often they'll find that what the writer then gives them to know was less satisfying than what they could guess or imagine or intuit.

Although, knowing that still doesn't stop me from wanting to know more about Pinhead. I may break down and rent the sequels. (Well, not all of them. There are 5 Hellraiser movies now, with a sixth allegedly in development. Seeing all five would require a level of fannish commitment I don't think I possess.)