In Search of Darkness 1990-1994: A Journey Into Iconic '90s Horror

In Search of Darkness: Part II


            
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In Search of Darkness

In Search of Darkness 1995-1999: Journey Back Into Iconic '90s Horror

Smoke and Mirrors: The Story of Tom Savini


            The movie opens with Captain Elliott Spencer (Doug Bradley) playing with the Lament Configuration box, only to have it send him to Hell and transform him to the Cenobite "Pinhead". Flash forward to the present, where Kirsty Cotton (Ashley Laurence) is placed inside the Channard Institute, a psychiatric hospital, and is questioned by Homicide Detective Bronson (Angus MacInnes). After the police search the house where her father, Larry, her stepmother Julia and her uncle, Frank, all died, they stumble upon the bloody mattress Julia had died upon (from the first film) and bag it as evidence. Kirsty meets Dr. Phillip Channard (Kenneth Cranham) and his assistant Kyle MacRae (William Hope) and she tells her story. Before leaving, Kirsty begs Bronson to burn the mattress as it is the only means of bringing Julia back from Hell. Channard goes and talks to Bronson.During her first night, she has trouble falling asleep when she comes across a young girl named Tiffany (Imogen Boorman), who has a knack for solving puzzles and has been institutionalized for six months. Kirsty has trouble falling asleep as she begins to hear voices and receives a bloody message written on the wall from a skinless human whom she believes is her father: "I AM IN HELL. HELP ME." Kirsty explains the entire story to Channard after she expresses to Kyle that her father may still be alive.Channard steals the mattress and takes it to his home. Kyle sneaks to his house to find that Channard is obsessed with the Lament Configuration box and the portal to Hell. Kyle watches from behind a curtain as Channard brings back a masochistic patient from the ward, handing him a straight razor. The patient slashes himself several times, bleeding onto the mattress. After a few moments, a skinless body emerges from the mattress, draining the patient. The body in the mattress is actually Julia, whom Channard is trying to resurrect with the promise of learning about the afterlife. Channard brings more corpses to his attic where he hides Julia, binding them to the ceiling so Julia can reconstruct her body. After a few victims, she has much of her skin back.Kyle informs Kirsty about what he saw and that he now believes her. They go to Channard's house together, as Kirsty finds a picture of Spencer before he'd become Pinhead. Kyle runs into Julia: at first he has no idea who she is. Julia locks herself with Kyle in Channard's attic, where the corpses of Julia's victims hang rotting. Julia approaches him and envelopes him with her arms. At first, the weak-willed Kyle has no idea who she is, but then he realizes she is the skinless, monstrous thing that destroyed the mental patient on the mattress. Kyle panics and tries to escape, but Julia's grip prevents him from doing so. Julia makes as if she's kissing Kyle, and works him through a process of sucking him dry. Julia and Kirsty finally meet again, and Julia smacks Kirsty as Channard brings another patient: Tiffany.Tiffany is not to be another victim, but is merely being used to open the puzzle box so Channard can experience Hell. The tunnels of Hell are opened and the Cenobites are released, but Pinhead stops the others from killing Tiffany; he notes that it is not merely her solution to the box that opened the gateway, but Channard's. Channard and Julia have both entered the tunnels themselves and begin to explore. Kirsty wakes up and, after seeing what has happened, heads for Hell with the box. When she arrives there, Pinhead finds her and changes the configuration of the box into a long, diamond shape that appears unsolvable. Kirsty takes the puzzle with her, seeking Tiffany to solve it.Julia introduces Channard to the box's realm, which is a series of pathways that form a strange maze. Leviathan, the god of the realm, represented by a much larger version of the puzzle box in the diamond configuration rotates at the center of the maze. Channard sees the horror of Leviathan's Hell and realizes it's beyond his comprehension. When he tries to leave, Julia forces him into a much larger version of the box, where he endures unimaginable pain when his face is strung with wires and organic injection devices fill him with hideous fluids. He emerges from the box some time later, now a Cenobite. A large, slimy tentacle painfully grips the top of his head and becomes his new form of mobility.Kirsty eventually finds Tiffany, and they both try to find an exit. Kirsty sees her father's house, and runs in thinking her father might be inside, but it turns out to be Frank. He is the one who sent Kirsty the message, wanting Kirsty to join him. Frank presides over his own chamber of Hell where shrouded women taunt him, never allowing him any pleasure from them. He tries to attack Kirsty and she responds by starting a fire in the chamber, which also engulfs Frank, burning off his flesh. Julia enters with Tiffany, and Frank invites her to kiss him. Julia betrays him, ripping his heart out as the girls make their escape. The girls try and get sucked through, but Julia catches them and grabs onto Tiffany. In the ensuing scuffle, Julia's flesh is torn whole from her body.Kirsty and Tiffany make their escape back to the hospital, but the Channard Cenobite finds them and gives chase again. Kirsty encounters Pinhead, Butterball, Chatter, and the Female Cenobite. Kirsty gives Pinhead the picture of Elliot Spencer and reminds them that they were all human at one time, until the pain and pleasure of the box got the better of them. Channard arrives to capture Tiffany, while the remaining Cenobites all choose to protect Kirsty. Channard kills all the Cenobites (reverting them back to human form), using strange tentacles with sharp blades and turns Pinhead's face into Elliot. Elliot smiles at Kirsty and allows her to escape before succumbing to his death; Channard slits Elliot's throat.Tiffany decides to go back into Hell and finish what was started. Kirsty follows her, but understands that it's all a puzzle. Tiffany attempts to solve the puzzle, but Channard interferes and attacks both girls. Kirsty retreats. As Channard stalks Tiffany, Julia reappears and distracts him with a kiss, long enough for Tiffany to solve the puzzle. As he tries to kill Tiffany, Channard's tentacles become embedded in the floor and his mobility tentacle rips the top of his head off at the jaw. Tiffany falls over the edge, but Julia catches her and pulls her up (but not before it is revealed that Kirsty has disguised herself in Julia's skin). Both of them escape back to the hospital as the portal closes and they both leave the hospital.Some time later, two movers arrive to pack up all of Channard's belongings before one notices the bloodied mattress. It kills him as the second mover enters the room. A pillar rises up and spins around, showing the near-dead Cenobite Pinhead screaming (Geoffrey Portass) as well as "Skinless" Julia, before stopping. The last head (Little John) is revealed to be the same man from the first film, who ends the movie by asking: "What is your pleasure, sir?" (the similar line the first film ends with).
    

Hellbound: Hellraiser II

Leviathan: The Story of Hellraiser and Hellbound: Hellraiser II

The United States of Horror: Chapter 1

Jim's Gift

Shepherd on the Rock

I Heart Monster Movies


            After the confrontation in Hellraiser II, the Cenobite named Pinhead is trapped, along with the puzzle box, amongst the writhing figures and distorted faces etched into the surface of an intricately carved pillar - the Pillar of Souls. The pillar is bought by the rich and spoiled J.P. Monroe (Kevin Bernhardt), owner of a popular nightclub called The Boiler Room. An ambitious young television reporter, Joey Summerskill (Terry Farrell), slowly begins to learn about Pinhead and the mysterious puzzle box. She is introduced to the pain the box can bring when she views a teenage club-goer being ripped apart by the box's chains in a hospital emergency room. She tracks the box and a young woman named Terri (Paula Marshall) to The Boiler Room, from which Terri had stolen the puzzle box.Through video tape interviews with Kirsty Cotton recovered from the Channard Institute, Joey and Terri learn about the demonic Cenobites and the power of the Lament Configuration, the only means of sending Pinhead back to Hell. Pinhead remains dormant until one night several hooked chains shoot out of the pillar and rip into one of the club goers, Brittany Virtue (Sharon Percival), Monroe had recently slept with. After killing her she is absorbed and her face appears on the pillar. Pinhead convinces Monroe to bring him club members so he can feed on their blood and be freed from the pillar.Now more dangerous than ever before, since he has been separated from his human self - a World War I British Army officer named Elliot Spencer who takes Joey on a walk round a trench filled with the corpses of what are presumably his men, explaining the nature of himself and Pinhead - and is simply the manifestation of Elliot's dark side and no longer under the control of Hell and purely out to cause chaos and destruction (in the previous movies the Cenobites were creatures of order, not chaos). Pinhead slaughters everybody in The Boiler Room, creating several new Cenobites in the process. Pinhead sets out to destroy the puzzle box so he need never return to Hell again. As time runs short, Joey must think of a plan to bring Pinhead and his newly-created Cenobites back to the realm of Pinhead's human self or else doom both herself and the mortal world to an eternity of pain and suffering.================================A young, rich club owner, JP Monroe, stops in an art dealer's shop. As he looks around he notices a large, plaster column with several relief sculptures on it, mostly of humans contorted in pain. Also on the column is a small sculpture of a puzzle box. The owner of the shop approaches him and sells the piece to JP, telling him to "take pleasure in it."At a hospital emergency room, a young TV reporter, Joey Summerskill, is doing a piece on the abilities of the staff, however, the ER is strangely vacant that night. Suddenly, a man is wheeled inside the ER on a gurney. Sharp hooks at the ends of long, bloody chains are embedded in his flesh. As he passes Joey, the man whispers, "Help me." A young woman follows after him, hysterically chattering about his condition. Joey interviews her briefly and the woman tells her that she & the man came from a club called The Boiler Room. When the doctors and nurses try to treat him, the chains are suddenly lifted by an unseen force, tearing at his flesh, and the man screams in pain. As the doctors and the young woman watch horrified, his head explodes. Before she leaves, the young lady retrieves a small puzzle box the man had been holding. She asks for the young woman's name and finds out it's Terri.Joey is ultimately bored with her job; she's only given puff pieces to report on. She also experiences nightmares about her father, who'd died in the Vietnam War.She goes to the Boiler Room and asks about Terri, who turns out to be JP's former girlfriend. They tell her that she's out with JP at a restaurant. Joey finds JP there & gives him her card, asking to call if he sees Terri. JP tries to hit on her but she rebuffs him. Later, Joey wakes up from another nightmare and receives a phone call from Terri & invites Terri to her apartment. Terri shows Joey the puzzle box, which allows anyone who solves it to experience a strange realm of Hell. Terri concludes that the man who died in the ER must have stolen the puzzle box from the sculpture JP had recently bought.At the Boiler Room JP, a self-absorbed and cruel man, examines the sculpture he'd bought. JP finds a hole in the column where the puzzle box had been. JP reaches into the hole and a rat bites him on the hand, drawing blood. JP's blood splatters across the column and is inexplicably absorbed into it. JP is fascinated. Later, while slyly watching the women who come to his club, he spots a lovely blond girl at the bar and has one of his employees give her a single rose, an invitation to meet with him privately. He lures the girl to his apartment, attached to the club, and has sex with her. As he does, the sculpture shows slight signs of animation. After he's finished with the woman, he harshly tells her to leave his apartment, having only wanted her for pleasure. Angry at being spurned, she begins to berate him for being such a cad when hooked chains emerge from the sculpture and snare her skin. She's forced to turn around and face the pillar. One of the faces, belonging to the Cenobite Pinhead, suddenly comes to life and hooks her forehead with another chain. Her skin is yanked from her body in a single jerk and as she screams, she's swallowed into the sculpture. JP is horrified but listens intently as Pinhead tells him he can grant JP all the pleasure, wealth and fame he seeks if he'll supply the statue with fresh blood and flesh. JP is unconvinced and shoots at Pinhead with a pistol; the shots are useless -- Pinhead spits the bullets out effortlessly. JP promises to bring what Pinhead asks for.Joey continues to be plagued by the nightmares about her father. She also continues her investigation into the young man who died in the ER and JP's club. Her efforts continue to be fruitless. She also receives news that she's been offered a job in another city -- since she and Terri had struck up a mild friendship, Terri is upset and leaves Joey's apartment after receiving a call from JP, who asks her to come back to him.At JP's apartment, JP tries to talk Terri into starting up their romance again. Terri is very reluctant but still starts to fall for JP's charms. As he talks to her, he walks her closer to the pillar, suddenly grabbing her and trying to force her even closer to it. Pinhead's face suddenly comes to life and growls and Terri retreats. When JP tries to grab her again, she hits him in the face with a set of brass knuckles. He falls on the floor unconscious. Just as Terri is about to leave the room, Pinhead stops her, demanding she give him JP's body. She pushes his limp body closer to the pillar and watches in horror as JP is hooked and yanked into the pillar. The sculpture explodes, tossing bits of flesh around and Pinhead emerges, free of his prison. Terri is too frightened to retreat.Joey has another nightmare about her father while he fights in a battle in Vietnam. This time, she's confronted by a young British man in an army uniform. He identifies himself as Captain Elliott Spencer, a World War II veteran, whom, after the war, had acquired the puzzle box in the Far East after the war and had discovered, while trying to solve it, that it was a doorway to an alternate world much like Hell, where wanderers can experience the extremes of pain and pleasure. Spencer had unlocked the doorway and had eventually become a demon of the netherworld, subjecting thousands of victims to extreme torture. He'd also had several demon assistants who'd themselves been victims of the puzzle box. Having been challenged previously by a young woman, Kirsty Cotton, who's own father had been a victim of her crooked uncle, Pinhead was banished and his accomplices were destroyed. Joey learns of the box's power by watching a videotaped interview with Kirsty taken from the Channard Institute, where she was held as a psychiatric patient.Spencer himself wants to regain his human form and asks Joey to help him. He wants her to, using the puzzle box, lure Pinhead into the spirit realm Spencer currently lives in so he can capture him and break his curse. Joey agrees.Back at the Boiler Room, Pinhead bursts into the club and begins to torture, mutilate and kill the club-goers. Joey sees a news report on the carnage and calls her cameraman, Doc, who tells her he'll meet her there. When Joey arrives, Pinhead has finished his rampage. Joey runs from the club, chased by Pinhead. In the streets, she sees an odd-looking man approaching her: Doc has been turned into a Cenobite with a camera embedded in his head where his right eye used to be. Escaping Doc and another Cenobite -- the DJ from JP's club, who makes use of compact discs as weapons -- she retreats into a church. A priest meets her and doesn't believe her fantastic story about "demons." Pinhead suddenly bursts into the church, shattering its stained-glass windows and melting the priest's steel cross in his hand. Over the priest's loud protests, Pinhead tortures the priest, forcing him to eat entrails plucked from his chest.Joey taunts Pinhead with the box and flees the church. In a nearby construction site she meets two more Cenobites: the first is JP, who has two drilling devices thrust through his head. The other is Terri, who wields sharpened hook blades and has a cigarette jutting from her throat. They are about to torture her when Pinhead stops them, demanding Joey give up the box. The box activates and Joey is sent to Hell with the Cenobites. In the alternate dimension, Joey meets her father. He asks for the box to break the spell and reveals himself to be Pinhead in disguise. He prepares to torture and transform her into a Cenobite when Elliott Spencer appears and forcibly fuses himself with Pinhead. While Pinhead is distracted, Joey stabs him with the reconfigured box, destroying him and restoring Spencer's humanity. The box remains and Joey drops it into a foundation block of the construction site. She walks away, believing that the terror is over. The building is constructed; the lobby features an elaborate decor of the box itself.
    

Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth


            The film begins at Space Station Minos in the year 2127. Paul Merchant, the man who built the station, has a robot solve the Lament Configuration (the robot is subsequently destroyed). However, several guards led by Rimmer capture Paul. Paul tells Rimmer the story of his bloodline.A flashback is shown to around 400 years ago. Philip Lemarchand, a French toymaker, makes the Lament Configuration for a wealthy aristrocrat named Duc de L'Isle, who is obsessed with dark magic. He and his apprentice, Jacques, kill a woman and remove her skin. L'Isle uses dark magic with the Lament Configuration to summon a demon princess named Angelique to inhabit the woman's skin. She is theirs to command unless they stand in Hell's way. However, Angelique and Jacques betray and kill de L'Isle. Lemarchand, in the process of inventing a design (the Elysium Configuration) to destroy the demons, attempts to steal back the box but is discovered. Jacques callously informs the toymaker that he and his bloodline are cursed until the end of time because of the box he created, before ordering Angelique to kill him. However, his wife survives.Around 200 years later, John Merchant has built the building from the last scene of Hellraiser III. Upon realizing that the Merchant bloodline has survived, Angelique turns on Jacques and mutilates him, killing him for "standing in Hell's way" and attempts to seduce John. She finds the Lament Configuration in a cement pillar in the basement and makes a man solve it, and he is killed by Pinhead.Pinhead wants to make John use the Elysium Configuration to keep the gateway to Hell open so he can come and go as he pleases. After turning two twin security guards into a two-headed Cenobite, Pinhead tells Angelique that the best way to make John go along with their plans is to threaten his child, Jack. He gets John to use the Elysium Configuration, but it does not work, so Pinhead kills John. John's wife, Bobbi, sends Pinhead, Angelique, and a beastly demon called Chatter Beast back to Hell.Returning to the present, in 2127, Rimmer has Paul locked up. However, he has already summoned the demons: Pinhead, Angelique (now a Cenobite), the Twin Cenobite, and Chatter Beast. One by one, the guards are picked off by Cenobites. Parker is killed by Pinhead, Carducci by Angelique, Chamberlain by Chatter Beast, and Edwards by Twin Cenobite. Rimmer releases Paul, who has a plan to destroy the Cenobites (and built Minos for that specific reason). Rimmer escapes to a space shuttle, and kills Chatter Beast by raising the pressure in a hallway.Paul distracts Pinhead with a hologram while he gets on the shuttle with Rimmer, and activates the Elysium Configuration. A series of powerful lasers and mirrors create a field of perpetual light, while the station transforms and folds around the light to create a massive box. The light is trapped within the box, which then self destructs, destroying the Cenobites and severing the connection between Hell and Earth forever.
    

Hellraiser: Bloodline

Lucifer's Unholy Desire

Pumpkinhead: Ashes to Ashes

Dominator


            Fresh from seminary school, a new Reverend (Stuart Brennan) arrives at his first parish; a small chapel in an apparently idyllic country village. But something sinister lurks beneath the surface, and late one night it comes to his door in the guise of a frightened little girl Waking the next morning with a bloody bite, insatiable hunger and no sign of the girl; The Reverend sets out on his mission.With striking visuals from one of Britain's rising directors and a stellar cast of horror legends (Rutger Hauer) and Brit heroes (Shane Richie, Tamar Hassan), packed with action sequences, gore, Vampires and chicks and an original story loosely based on the Biblical book of Job; The Reverend promises to leave you thirsty for more...
    

Doug Bradley

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