The ’80s Horror Game-Changer That Started A Cult Franchise, Stream Without Netflix

What is the first Hellraiser movie actually about? After his brother dies, Larry and his wife (who previously had an affair with said brother) move into a new house. It turns out that a monstrous form of the brother is still alive and needs to regularly be fed victims, but this gruesome plan runs afoul of Larry’s plucky daughter and some freaky demons from another dimension for whom pain and pleasure are one and the same.

The cast of Hellraiser is quite good…as a Star Trek nerd, I’m quite fond of Andrew Robinson, who does a killer job here as Larry and, years later, an even better job as Garak on Deep Space Nine. Larry’s daughter Kirsty is played wonderfully by Ashley Laurence, someone who soon became a scream queen in her own right. Sean Chapman and Clare Higgins are characters you love to hate as a couple whose forbidden love threatens to destroy them and everything they hold dear.

Above all, though, Hellraiser is Doug Bradley, who plays Pinhead, the prickly face of the franchise. He instantly became a horror icon after this film, and for good reason: his character is neither overly monstrous nor overly humanized, someone who seems incredibly blithe about the carnal chaos he causes. He’s a pain-obsessed pleasure seeker who seems largely incapable of truly experiencing pleasure, adding immensely to both his pathos and his menace.

While the franchise later goes off the rails (and into space, like future Star Trek star Robinson), the first Hellraiser film is like its infamous puzzle box: something that appears simple at first glance but is filled with surprising terror.

Credit for that goes largely to director Clive Barker…this was his directorial debut, and he did an amazing job of translating his captivating novella The Hellbound Heart to the big screen. His later movies left me a bit cold (sorry, Nightbreed fans), but there is something genuinely captivating about Hellraiser, a movie whose embedded BDSM themes make this truly unlike any other mainstream horror film outside this franchise.

You might think this combination of s*x and violence would be too much for 1987 audiences, but Hellraiser was a modest hit: it made $14.6 million against a budget of only $1 million, making a sequel downright inevitable. Critics were surprisingly impressed by the movie, which currently has a 70 percent critical rating on Rotten Tomatoes. For the most part, critics praised Barker for his “fiendishly unique vision,” which offered “a disquieting – and sadistically smart – alternative to mindless gore.”

That’s pretty much my take on this first film, which is still the best in the entire franchise. Later, movies would get too caught up in the mythos of Pinhead and the Cenobites, all of whom have admittedly cool designs. But the more this franchise leans into splatter and spectacle, the more it leans away from what made the first film so great.

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The original Hellraiser is anchored by a story of characters with such remarkable sexual chemistry that they will stop at nothing, including murder, to be with each other. Through Barker’s naughty sci-fi horror lens, this is ultimately a cautionary tale about how our own relentless pursuit of pleasure threatens to make us a bit like the Cenobites. If we are like Frank and Julia and pursue carnal joy at all costs, then we may end up like Pinhead, someone who doesn’t know when pleasure ends and pain begins.

Will you find Hellraiser the ultimate source of pleasure, or will this movie be nothing but pain? You won’t know until you stream it on Tubi. Afterward, you can check out more of the franchise, but maybe skip Revelations…trust me when I say the only pleasure in that film is the joy of turning it off.