Unleashed: 1988

What evil lurks: This follow-up to Clive Barker’s original is a far more interesting examination into the paradoxical concept that pain is pleasure and vice versa. Barker has an oddly intoxicating fascination with the flesh (as can be said of genius Seth Brundle). In this film that fascination is on full display, in particular his affinity for skinless people who have returned from the dead. Though the story is paper thin, director Tony Randel directs with a touch more flavor than Barker, demonstrating that writers don’t always make for the best directors. There is plenty of gore on display here but it is rendered with a kind of raw artistry. There is an elegance to the way Julia (the villainess of the previous film) looks as she wanders skinless around the mansion in which she was resurrected. The resurrection scene itself is both horrifying and mesmerizing, told from the fractured point-of-view of both the doctor who oversees it and the schizophrenic patient/victim desperate to rid his body of imaginary insects. The labyrinthine vista of hell itself is evocative of an M. C. Escher sketch that travels far beyond the horizon. And the not-so-good doctor’s ultimate reward for his curiosity is ponderously creepy, if horribly rendered.

Highlight from hell: Heroine Kirsty demonstrates her iron will (and iron stomach) by making clever use of Julia’s discarded skin.

Terrifying trivia: Nicholas Vince, who plays the Chatterer, received a hook to the jaw while filming a scene that shows his character impaled on a swinging torture rack… we’ll assume this was unintentional.

Diabolical dialogue: “It is not hands that call us. It is… desire.”

Son of: Hellraiser (1987). I really cannot think of any other film quite like it. Consider it an appetizer for the superior sequel.

Shoddy sequel syndrome: The laughably bad stop-motion effects near the end aren’t likely to terrify anyone, and the nonsensical coda is just baffling.