philosoraptor42

Tobe Hooper Review: The Sci-fi Horror

For this feature, Tobe Hooper teams up with Dan O'Bannon, the writer of Alien, to bring us what has been labelled by some as "lesbian vampires from outer space". It's actually more bi-sexual than lesbian (or possibly simply bi-curious), it's not really vampires as we understand them (though they're more like vampires than the immortals in Highlander were admittedly), but still the "outer space" element is definitely true.

I also Kind Of have a review of Hellraiser: Bloodline (not a Tobe Hooper movie, of course). I say "kind of", because I found something rather cool on Youtube. A re-edit of the movie including deleted scenes (some of them very rough). At some point I intend to watch the typical theatrical cut, but I had to share this altered version.



Lifeforce (1985)

This does not start off well. We begin on a spaceship with a crew whose acting talent is negligible. In particular, a woman operating a monitor appears to deliver all her lines in an irritating monotone. On the ship they discover three naked figures contained in some kind of pods, two of them male and one of them female. The two males play a much smaller role in the rest of the film. They also discover frozen bat-like creatures.

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Hellraiser IV: Bloodline (1996)

Reviews for previous Hellraiser films found at the following links:
Hellraiser (I changed my mind on this one and would now give it a C+ i.e. 3.5/5)
Hellbound: Hellraiser II
Hellraiser III: Hell On Earth

Okay, so this review is tackling a form of the Hellraiser movie that has never been released. A particularly industrious Youtuber has been involved in a neat little project to reconstruct the movie with deleted scenes and rough-cut footage and shift the timeline to make the plot clearer. I haven't seen the original theatrical version so I have no idea how this compares, but having become a fan of the series upon watching the sequel "Hellbound: Hellraiser II" I can definitely recommend this version.

The Youtube channel is here.

The first video out of 8 parts is here.

And while I'm on the subject of Hellraiser stuff online, the original short story "The Hellbound Heart" can be found as a pdf at this link here.

As I understand it, the original theatrical cut starts in outer space. This version takes a very different approach. The earliest scenes from "Hellraiser IV: Bloodline" used in this version are back in what must be something like the 18th Century. These scenes involve LeMerchant first making the infamous puzzle box of the series known as "The Lament Configuration".

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Hellraiser II: Hellbound (1988)
imdb link
One-line synopsis:  Kirsty Cotton wakes in a psychiatric hospital, owned by Dr Channard. Kirsty begs the homicide detective investigating her family tragedy to burn the recovered bloody mattress, thinking her evil stepmother, Julia, might use it to return from Hell.
Genre: Horror

The intro is pretty similar to the first movie with a figure opening the Lament Configuration puzzle box. However, there's a slight twist on that which makes all the difference (and which I shall not reveal here). That is then followed by a complete recap of the events in the first movie. It would actually be possible to watch this film and completely miss out the previous film and not really miss anything at all. Still, I think the emotional connection due to familiarity with Kirsty's father, her stepmother Julia and her creepy uncle Frank will make you appreciate this movie rather more.

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Tucker and Dale Vs Evil (2010)
imdb link
One-line synopsis: Tucker & Dale are on vacation at their dilapidated mountain cabin when they are attacked by a group of preppy college kids.
Genre: Horror-comedy

Enough reviews have been released for this already that I'm sure it'll come as no surprise to anyone that this is good. What's more confusing is why a film of such quality was a straight-to-DVD release here in the UK. I'd compare this to Shaun Of The Dead in the sense that it's a horror comedy where the horror is in the subject of the film rather than in the content. Nevertheless, I think I laughed at this a lot more than I did at Shaun of the Dead.

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cross-posted to candycorncomm