Whether it is a ghost story around a campfire or a horror film in the theater or on late-night television, scary tales and slasher movies are more than just a visceral thrill for those audiences drawn to them. They are expressions of the battles between societal needs and the individual, as well as the struggle that takes place between good and evil in the internal self. They are our current society's cautionary tales about life and acceptance. Hellraiser (1987), written by Clive Barker, as well as being his directorial debut, was a significant contribution to the American horror genre and typifies the style, content, and themes found in such movies.
Hellraiser, produced by Roger Corman of New World Pictures, follows in the tradition of other low-budget horror films produced by such minor production companies as Universal (Cook 312). These movies drew upon German Expressionism to create Gothic atmospheres for such movies as Frankenstein (1931), Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932), and The Invisible Man (1935) (Cook 312). With their use of the monstrous "other" and the setting of the foreboding house, these movies also set the stage for what was later to become the "slasher" film. As Metz point out, most current horror films, which meld the Gothic monster with family melodrama, owe a "spiritual debt" to Psycho (1960), one of the first movies to bring those two elements together (Metz 42). Further, he notes "it is a rare example that does not pay a visual tribute, however brief, to the ancestor--if not in a shower stabbing, then in a purling drain or the shadow of a knife-wielding hand" (42). Hellraiser, the first in a series of tales about a hellish Pandora's box, added significantly to this legacy by creating a female lead who, although she does her share of horrified screaming and running, survives to the end of the film through wit and determination. Although most slasher films have been dismissed because of their reputatio...