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Bloody Bodily Horrors: Clive Barker`s Hellraiser & AIDS

1. difficult to conceive they are remotely sexy or sensual In his first screenplay Barker maintained the chirurgical modifications made on the Cenobites bodies and their innuman nature Standing across the room from her lit by a strange phosphorescence that has no visible source are four extraordinary figures They are CENOBITES Each of them is horribly mutilated by systems of hooks and pins The garments they wear are elaborately constructed to marry with their flesh laced through skin in places hooked into bone The leader of this quartet has pins driven into his head at inch intervals At his side a woman whose neck is pinned open like a vivisection specimen Accompanying them is a creature whose mouth is wired into a gaping rectangle the exposed teeth sharpened to points and a fat sweating monster whose eyes are covered by dark glasses IPES International Papers on English Studies 1 2013 25 46 40 Javier Martin Parraga Nevertheless after the complex and superb efforts made by the lead costume designer Joanna Johnston and the team of makeup department the Cenobites that will appear onscreen offer the following aspect IPES International Papers on English Studies 1 2013 25 46 Bloody Bodily Horrors Clive Barker s 41 As the images above clearly illustrate the film Cenobites are still certainly disturbing and uncanny but they are far from being asexual both in their costumes and in their lascivious attit
2. yet invisible that Lemarchand s miraculous box had been constructed to open Everything that Kircher who had sold him the box had promised of it was true He was on the threshold of a new world a province infinitely far from the room in which he sat 1 3 In contrast Barker the screenwriter prefers to postpone this information On the blood spattered floor a box some six inches square which resembles an elaborate Chinese puzzle box Later we ll learn its name and function It s called the Lament Configuration and it s a way to raise Hell LITERALLY For now it remains an enigma If the film prefers to create its atmosphere without getting into further details the novella does not hesitate to dive further into the genesis of Lemarchand s box and how it got into Frank s hands How had he first heard about Lemarchand s box He couldn t remember In a bar maybe or a gutter from the lips of a fellow derelict At the time it was merely a rumor this dream of a pleasure dome where those who had exhausted the trivial delights of the human condition might discover a fresh definition of joy And the route to this paradise There were several he was told charts of the interface between the real and the realer still made by travelers whose bones had long since gone to dust One such chart was in the vaults of the Vatican hidden in code in a theological work unread since the Reformation Another in the form of an origami exercise
3. Un arte el cinematogr fico que hace realidad una de las obsesiones del ser humano a lo largo de toda la historia Nuestros antepasados prehist ricos ya dibujaban bisontes con seis patas en sus cavernas para reproducir o imitar la realidad Aquellos primitivos artistas iban mas all de intentar una reproducci n fiel exacta y completa del medio en que viv an Intentaban darle una nueva dimensi n el movimiento A os m s tarde los egipcios demostraron conocer el principio cient fico de la persistencia de la visi n El fara n Rams s por ejemplo decor el exterior de un templo 12 siglos antes de Cristo con las diferentes fases de una figura en movimiento que al contemplarse sobre un caballo a galope produc an la ilusi n ptica de movimiento 15 As a result no matter how different their technical requirements were films and oral stories did not differ that much in their essence and aims since as Martin M Winkler explains the light of the cinema instigated a profound change in Western culture from reading stories to viewing stories from literature to image from linguistic text to cinematic text IPES International Papers on English Studies 1 2013 25 46 30 Javier Martin Parraga As much as this was a radical break with the past it was also a continuation of the entire tradition of human civilization 4 AMERICAN HORROR FILMS As it has been proved in previous sections films became the natural heirs of
4. clear from the very beginning far from being and innocent victim hit the character of Frank had some knowledge about the puzzle and the repercussions of opening it and takes significant efforts in order to do so This fact is important in two ways Firstly it connects the Hellraiser mythology with that of the ancient myths of Eve s apple and Pandora s box Second and even more important by presenting a character that is aware of the implications of his actions Barker is following one of the most important conventions of horror fiction the victim is never fully innocent In this respect the victims in these contemporary cultural manifestations are heirs to the Aristotelian s tragic heroes that were not fully guilty or innocent a depraved character being severely punished by his evil deeds would not drive audience to pathos neither in Greek tragedies nor Hollywood horror franchises If Eve was trying to satisfy her inherent curiosity and Pandora didn t resist the temptation to know what secrets were hidden inside the cursed box in a similar manner Frank is clearly interested in more fleshly discoveries since he wanted to open the puzzle to get in touch with the Cenobites theologians of the Order of the Gash Summoned from their experiments in the higher reaches of pleasure to bring their ageless heads into a world of rain and failure 8 The following quotation is even more explicit about Frank s urges and motivations All
5. de las masas 209 10 Paolo Chechi Usai agrees with Deleuze and goes one step beyond in the following quotation el principio rector de la Imagen Moral es la pasividad sta comporta un esfuerzo por minimizar cualquier intervenci n que tenga como finalidad la ocultaci n del hecho de que la imagen en movimiento tiene una historia gen ticamente determinada y un tiempo de vida limitado 107 It is also worth quoting Gian Piero Brunetta who explains this same phenomenon in a more aseptic less conditioned by political ideologies way El dato fenom nico es repetido como si la imagen fuese reflejo de una realidad e incluso realidad en s misma sin intervenci n de proceso alguno de semantizaci n de los elementos que entran en su campo ni de pensamiento o principio organizador alguno si no es la estructura mononucleica La imagen refleja la realidad y como tal se torna el lugar de unificaci n fenom nica 30 31 It is important to bear in mind that even when films as we understand them today needed a series of technical advances that were not present till the twentieth century human beings have been trying to reproduce images in movement that would convey both aesthetic pleasure and social and moral messages Antoni Capilla amp Nuria Vidal explain this idea in detail Las enciclopedias suelen definir la cinematograf a como el arte de representar sobre una pantalla im genes en movimiento por medio de la fotograf a
6. dimension As defended in the first sections of this paper horror films in America are the true heirs of folktales and therefore must fulfill both an IPES International Papers on English Studies 1 2013 25 46 Bloody Bodily Horrors Clive Barker s 43 entertainment and a moral function Thus it is highly improbable that Barker made his movie Cenobites look like the members of a radical open sexual community without even considering the socio political implications underlying this decision This fact results even more improbable if we take into account the historical context and the narrative of the movie itself On June 5 1981 the American Government Center for Disease Control published an alarming article in which informs of the apparition of a new infection of unknown origin and etiology But even assuming very little is Known about this new serious health thread the CDC emphasizes the fact that the five victims identified so far were members of the homosexual collective The reasons behind this affirmation were clearly politically contaminated since it is not only impossible but openly absurd to assert that a new disease is exclusive of a collective when only 5 individuals had been studied so far Nevertheless American public opinion did not hesitate to accept that AIDS was sexually related and thus was closer to a Biblical curse than to a natural infection that could affect any citizen independently of his or her sexual orientat
7. folktales in the twentieth century They seduce spectators with their magic at the same time they are transmitting atemporal social messages like not abandoning urban scenarios not trusting unknown individuals valuing family upon any other thing on earth etc Thus from the origins of film industry movies from every nation and genre became loaded with socio political connotations Nevertheless the role of cinematic products as vehicles of propaganda became especially important during World War Il and its aftermath Roosevelt did frequently employed television and short films to get in touch with his citizens The president s masterly use of these new mass media was so impressive that scholars such as Giuliana Muscio don t hesitate to refer to him as an authentic showman 21 Roosevelt did not only took advantage of the many radio and TV stations and film companies in the US but invested an important measure of energy and time to create the Division of Cultural Relations DCR that produced documentaries as well as fiction pieces Le n Aguinaga 2010 161 The impact of the many productions budgeted by DCR on American society was certainly important during the war and became fundamental in the posterior Cold War scenario Nevertheless and important as the public enterprise was DCR was not but the tip of a colossal iceberg that included Walt Disney Universal Metro Goldwyn Mayer or Warner Bros Thus American films became not only the best all
8. that mankind knew of the Order of the Gash he knew And yet he had expected something different Expected some sign of the numberless splendors they had access to He had thought they would come with women at least oiled women milked women women shaved and muscled for the act of love their lips perfumed their thighs trembling to spread their buttocks weighty the way he liked them IPES International Papers on English Studies 1 2013 25 46 36 Javier Martin Parraga He had expected sighs and languid bodies spread on the floor underfoot like a living carpet had expected virgin whores whose every crevice was his for the asking and whose skills would press him upward upward to undreamed of ecstasies The world would be forgotten in their arms He would be exalted by his lust instead of despised for it 9 The movie adaptation is less explicit about the character s sexual intentions but does not hesitate to portray pictures of a good looking intense man in his mid to late thirties Frank in bed with a naked Chinese girl among other objects Frank gathered while travelling around the world in search of the unconventional pleasures that will end up with him meeting the Lament Configuration Barker does not only avoid offering an innocent character but is especially interested in remarking the free will Frank enjoyed and thus the voluntariness of his actions since even after solving the puzzle he is given a final opportuni
9. 5 and Rawhead Rex 1986 As a result of the good reception of The Hellbound Heart and the author s desire to become a film director the novella was soon adapted into a screenplay by Barker himself Taking into account the nature of the project the graphic scenes the final movie would contain and Barker s lack of contacts in Hollywood the production was not easy since none of the big companies shown any interest As a result Barker needed to involve three small companies in order to gather the 1 000 000 dollars budget Hellraiser will finally count with Once finished the prestige of Barker and the resulting products convinced American distributors of giving Hellraiser a solid theatrical release with 1 132 theaters showing the film The first IPES International Papers on English Studies 1 2013 25 46 32 Javier Martin Parraga weekend Barker s opus primum as a director opened with more than 4 000 000 dollars in tickets and during its 4 weeks of exhibition the grand total amounted to 14 564 027 In the UK the film didn t become as successful as in the US but its debut sold 155 348 in tickets and achieved a grand total of 763 412 All in all Hellraiser was not a blockbuster in the line of Indiana Jones but taking into account its more than modest budget became a very profitable film for producers distributors and Barker himself As have shown above the movie constituted a remarkable commercial success during its first theatric
10. 7 GUBERN Ram n amp PRAT Joan Las Ra ces del Miedo Antropolog a Del Cine De Terror Barcelona Tusquets 1979 HEILBURN Carolyn Hamlet s Mother and Other Women Gender and Culture New York Columbia University Press 1990 KANE Paul The Hellraiser Films amp Their Legacy London McFarland amp Co 2007 LAU Kimberley Structure Society and Symbolysm Toward a Holistic Interpretation of Fairy Tales Western Folklore 55 1996 233 44 LE N Pablo Sospechosos Habituales el Cine Norteamericano Estados Unidos y La Espa a Franquista 1939 1960 Madrid Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cient ficas 2010 IPES International Papers on English Studies 1 2013 25 46 46 Javier Martin Parraga MARCUSE Herbert La Agresividad en la Sociedad Industrial Avanzada Madrid Alianza 1968 TATAR Maria The Hard Facts of the Grimms Fairy Tales Princeton N J Princeton University Press 1987 VIDAL Rodolfo La Actividad Propagandistica de Walt Disney Durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial Salamanca Publicaciones de la Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca 2006 WINKLER Martin Cinema and Classical Text Apollo s New Light New York Cambridge Scholar Press 2009 IPES International Papers on English Studies 1 2013 25 46
11. Q International Papers on ae ENGLISH STUDIES ISSN 2341 0000 e ISSN 2341 071X Bloody Bodily Horrors Clive Barker s Hellraiser amp AIDS Javier Martin Parraga Research Group Writs of Empire HUM 682 javier martin uco es Received October 1 2013 Revised version accepted December 23 2013 Abstract From its very origins horror films have fulfilled a double function that is linked to the Horacian tradition of doccere et delectare In other words horror movies are at the same time very exciting free time killers and canaries in a coal mine that alert American society of the problems and threats that might affect their citizens This paper analyzes how Clive Barker s 1987 film Hellraiser satisfies that very same premise since it is both a blockbuster and a reflection of American s fear towards the incipient yet ominous AIDS virus Keywords Horror films Cliver Barker Hellraiser AIDS Folk Tales Resumen Desde sus or genes el cine de terror norteamericano ha ejercido una doble funci n horaciana de doccere et delectare esto es de servir de instrumento de diversi n al mismo tiempo que alertaba a la sociedad de los peligros y problemas que la acechaban El presente art culo examina c mo la pel cula de Clive Barker del a o 1987 Hellraiser cumple ambas funciones puesto que al mismo tiempo que supone un xito de p blico refleja el temor que los estadounidenses sent an ante el incipiente y ominoso virus
12. al release Anyhow the true importance of Hellraiser will be achieved in a gradual manner and nowadays it is safe to say that it is not only one of America s most famous and influential horror films but also a true cult classic with thousands of devotees that create webpages and forums fanzines and even short films and novels inspired on the original movie It is also important to mention that the success of the first installment gave origin to 8 sequels Barker did collaborate with the screenwriter of the first sequel but refused to collaborate but subsequent products As a result from Hellraiser to the fifth movie the sequels will be poorly produced and didn t receive a wide release and Hellraiser V to IX were direct to video releases As Paul Kane explains the last Hellraiser movies have only been produced so the production company Dimension Films could retain the rights for future remakes of the original film In the present paper will exclusively focus on Hellraiser and the novella in which it was inspired The Hellbound Heart Both start with an introduction in which the audience meets the character of Frank He is absolutely absorbed in the solving of a mysterious and we feel uncanny tridimensional puzzle The puzzle is an extraordinary piece due to its overly complex artisanal engineering its subtle and intricate baroque decorations and above all because of its magical and supernatural qualities As the puzzle is being solve
13. and horror films genre pre requisites of a basically decent character that commits a fatal mistake and is thus punished As a result in the movie he does suffer every kind of torment but another more innocent victim must be added in order to connect with the audience in a more fruitful manner This new character will be rooted to the very foundations of the horror genre a young virginal girl who Pandora or Eve like is not guilty of any other crime but that of excessive curiosity which is on the other hand not far away from the hubris of classical tragic heroes like Oedipus or biblical characters such as Lot s wife When this new character which did not know much about the hideous nature of the puzzle and is not looking to satisfy any depraved sexual urge opens the box the Cenobites do not IPES International Papers on English Studies 1 2013 25 46 38 Javier Martin Parraga give her the same opportunity of repenting they gave to Frank CENOBITE The box you opened it We came KIRSTY It s just a puzzle box CENOBITE It s a means to summon us it s called the Lament Configuration KIRSTY Who are you CENOBITE Cenobites Explorers in the further regions of experience Demons to some Angels to others KIRSTY Well didn t mean to open that thing You can go back wherever you came from FEMALE CENOBITE We can t Not alone At this the creature with the wired open jaw chatters like a mad monkey KIRSTY This isn t for
14. d strange and mournful lugubrious sounds escape accompanied in the last instance by bells slowly and distantly tolling dark notes Once Frank completes all the movements the puzzle is solved and the box gets open From that point on it will no longer be a piece of craftsmanship but a door to a disquieting and disturbing realm Both reader and spectator feel there is no way back In the novella the complex puzzle box key is given several names but its most notable one refers to its creator Lemarchand s box As we see the The Hellbound Heart reveals the name of the artefact from the very beginning together with a certain amount of information on the unholy object IPES International Papers on English Studies 1 2013 25 46 Bloody Bodily Horrors Clive Barker s 33 The device had been constructed by a master craftsman and the riddle was this that though he d been told the box contained wonders there simply seemed to be no way into it no clue on any of its six black lacquered faces as to the whereabouts of the pressure points that would disengage one piece of this three dimensional jigsaw from another Frank had seen similar puzzles mostly in Hong Kong products of the Chinese taste for making metaphysics of hard wood but to the acuity and technical genius of the Chinese the Frenchman had brought a perverse logic that was entirely his own The sound was coming from somewhere much more distant through the very door as
15. del SIDA Palabras clave Cine de Terror Cliver Barker Hellraiser SIDA Relatos Populares IPES International Papers on English Studies 1 2013 25 46 26 Javier Martin Parraga POPULAR NARRATIVES AND THEIR SOCIAL FUNCTIONS From the dawn of times folktales have played a fundamental social role at the same time they functioned as entertainment elements for families and small communities that had difficult if not impossible access to more ambitious cultural or leisure options In this way bards first and jongleurs later walked the old paths delighting their audiences at the same time they brought them ideas ideals and myths that cemented the very foundations of the societies religious and political systems of their times Thus it is virtually impossible to separate oral poetry and folktales from the magnificent paintings sculpture or architectonical pieces of the period that were created following the very same principles and to serve identical goals As a result those ancient tales that were narrated from father to son at the heat of the common fire were dual in essence and followed Horatian principles since they were both gates to escapism and knowledge It s in this context that Carmen Gonzalez and Luis Unceta affirm that los aedos o rapsodas hicieron su aparici n convirti ndose en los generadores o guionista de los primeros folletines o culebrones de la historia que tanto hoy como ayer tuvieron el m
16. ered what they would look like His imagination though fertile when it came to trickery and theft was impoverished in other regards The skill to picture these eminences was beyond him so he had not even tried Why then was he so distressed to set eyes upon them Was it the scars that covered every inch of their bodies the flesh cosmetically punctured and sliced and infibulated then dusted down with ash Was it the smell of vanilla they brought with them the sweetness of which did little to disguise the stench beneath Or was it that as the light grew and he scanned them more closely he saw nothing of joy or even humanity in their maimed faces only desperation and an appetite that made his bowels ache to be voided 10 As it results evident Barker s most obvious inspirations in the book are Bosch s and H R Giger s paintings and the undetermined pantheon of monstrous beings that populate H P Lovecraft s fictional universe In a later moment the lack of sexual identity of the Cenobites is made explicit when they are defined as these sexless things with their corrugated flesh 11 Therefore Barker offers a series of creatures that are deprived of any sexual element and whose most prominent features are the scars that covered every inch of their bodies the flesh cosmetically punctured and sliced and infibulated then dusted down with ash 7 No matter how relaxed our definition of erotism might be it would be extremely
17. ic nature and ability to become loaded with symbolism made popular tales an excellent vehicle for the transmission of ideals and values the tendency they show to include grotesque or even horrendous elements also fostered their rapid adoption by societies all over the world Maria Tatar reflects on the morbid elements contained in the majority of fairy tales in the following lines for many adults reading through an unexpurgated edition of the Grimms collection of tales can be an eye opening experience Even those who know that Snow White s stepmother arranges the murder of her stepdaughter that doves peck out the eyes of Cinderella s stepsisters that Briar Rose s suitors bleed to death on the hedge surrounding her castle or that a mad rage drives Rumpelstiltskin to tear himself in two will find themselves hardly prepared for the graphic descriptions of murder mutilation cannibalism infanticide and incest that fill the pages of these bedtime stories for children 3 As Sergi S nchez explains el dolor es fruto de una construcci n cultural Lo que significa que tambi n es un estado mental el dolor es una de las fantas as que las sociedades inventan para respetar el orden codificar el miedo temer a la muerte 180 Thus the IPES International Papers on English Studies 1 2013 25 46 28 Javier Martin Parraga horrid nature of popular stories guarantees audiences attention at the same time it serves a fundamental
18. ies for the local political government but also the best ambassadors of the American Dream in a period characterized by political and ideological division As Pierre Solin explains hoy en dia nos resulta dificil imaginar lo apasionados que eran los sentimientos que Hollywood despertaba entre la gente por m s que sus sentimientos de animadversi n sean comprensibles Por una parte los devastados pa ses europeos no estaban dispuestos a malgastar sus preciosos d lares americanos comprando pel culas americanas pero por la otra dada la debilidad de la producci n nacional era imposible salir adelante sin la f brica de sue os m s grande del mundo 95 From a general perspective any American audiovisual product serves social functions but as Rodolfo Vidal explica los efectos de la comunicaci n de masas tienden a tomar forma de refuerzo m s que de cambio 2006 32 Thus the main ideological target for films and IPES International Papers on English Studies 1 2013 25 46 Bloody Bodily Horrors Clive Barker s 31 television products were the children and teenagers who were supposedly more fragile and prone to be poisoned by the communist propaganda As a result those movies that appealed to younger audiences didn t even try to hide their propaganda overtones And fantastic or horror films have always been the favorite genre for American young generations from the classic monsters of the Universal to contemporary exam
19. ion Thus by 1982 The New York Times had already made popular a new name for the disease GRID gay related immune deficiency Very soon more mature medical evidences alerted that the terrible virus had nothing to do with homosexuality and that even the most pious of the WASP could be at risk But the mass media and consequently a great portion of the public opinion would still take years to accept the possibility of a global thread favoring the much more comforting idea that God was simply punishing sodomites It is important to remember that even some American States did offer gay people equal rights pretty soon a big portion of the country keeps considering homosexuality as an illness or even a crime In this respect would like to reproduce a section of Texas legislation that was not abolished till the year 2008 21 06 Homosexual Conduct a A person commits an offense if he enganges in deviate sexual intercourse with another individual of the same sex b An offense under this section is a Class C misdemeanor htto Avww sodomy org laws texas sodomy html The misleading and extremely dangerous both from a social and sanitary perspective conception that bound AIDS and homosexuality was also consolidated due to the fact that the first famous victims of AIDS were actually homosexual such as Rock Hudson who died in 1984 or Freddie Mercury that died in the year 1991 but whose condition of AIDS victim was known since the
20. l Papers on English Studies 1 2013 25 46 Bloody Bodily Horrors Clive Barker s 27 high art As a result neither bards nor audiences needed any previous formal instruction What is more the simpler the tale the more effective and engaging it becomes At this point it becomes necessary to avoid the mistake of considering pop art as inherently inferior to high art As Bruno Bettelheim explains folktales are not only complex and sophisticated but also subtle through the centuries if not millennia fairy tales came to convey at the same time they overt and covert meanings came to speak simultaneously to all levels of the human personality communicating in a manner which reaches the uneducated mind of the children as well as the sophisticated adult 6 7 Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar reinforce Bettelheim s opinion in the following quotation myths and fairy tales often both state and enforce culture s sentences with greater accuracy than more sophisticated literary texts 36 As Kimberly J Lau explains if folktales are more effective than other artistic manifestations is due to their symbolic nature the coupling of a tale s structure with the social context of the culture in which it flourishes lends insight which is invaluable in deciphering its symbolic significance In turn its symbolic significance is crucial to understanding any social or cultural meaning which it might bear 233 If their democrat
21. mid 80 s At this point it becomes useful to show an image of Mercury IPES International Papers on English Studies 1 2013 25 46 44 Javier Martin Parraga in which the rock star wore some clothes that would equally fit the BDSM and Cenobite communities CONCLUSIONS Folktales like Little Red Riding Hood did not warm young audiences about the dangers of transvestite wolves but about how risky would be to abandon society and enter the forest Not to speak of trusting unknown people In a similar way classic horror and science fiction movies like Invasion of the Body Snatchers were not asking American youngsters to pay attention to any possible hidden alien invasion but rather to spy on the neighbor Just in case he was reading Marx The situation with Hellraiser is very similar indeed A curious morally ignorant character looks for the Lament Configuration trying to experience beyond anything ever known At least that s what was promised when bought it Pleasure from Heaven or Hell didn t much care which Then he is consequently opened the door of a hell in which a group of monsters characterized as fetishistic gays would torture and degrade his body and soul forever and beyond redemption The political reading of the movie is as self evident as conservative stick to traditional sex with no innovation or deviation and your body will be free from the horrors of AIDS and your reputation free from the humiliations inhe
22. ples such as Saw All in all as Roman Gubern amp Joan Prat defend Este g nero forma desde hace a os parte integrante del folklore de la sociedad industrial mitos como Dr cula Frankenstein o el Hombre Lobo resultan tan significativos para entender las neurosis las frustraciones y los d ficits colectivos de nuestra sociedad como lo resultan un dios de la lluvia o una diosa de la fecundidad en viejas culturas neol ticas 11 In previous works have studied the political implications on science fiction horror films like Invasion of the Body Snatchers 1956 The Last House on the Left 1972 or The Exorcist 1973 from a general perspective In this paper will apply the theoretical framework to a very specific historical event and particular movie HELLRAISER 8 HELLBOUND HEART In 1986 British artist and filmmaker Clive Barker wrote The Hellbound Heart a novella that became an instant cult classic and proved that Barker was destined to be one of the most influential fantasy horror writers in contemporary English literature As a matter of fact soon after the publication of this novella Barker will be declared the next Stephen King both by publishers and readers By 1986 Barker s had already shown interest in the film industry and was the author of two experimental short movies Salome 1973 and The Forbidden 1976 and two modest screenplays that were shot and given limited release in the USA Transmutations 198
23. ply Frank made to interrupt but the creature raised a silencing hand There are conditions of the nerve endings it said the like of which your imagination however fevered could not hope to evoke Oh yes Oh most certainly Your most treasured depravity is child s play beside the experiences we offer Will you partake of them said the second Cenobite Frank looked at the scars and the hooks Again his tongue was deficient Will you Outside somewhere near the world would soon be waking He had watched it wake from the window of this very room day after day stirring itself to another round of fruitless pursuits and he d known known that there was nothing left out there to excite him No heat only sweat No passion only sudden lust and just as sudden indifference He had turned his back on such dissatisfaction If in doing so he had to interpret the signs these creatures brought him then that was the price of ambition He was ready to pay it Show me he said There s no going back You do understand that Show me They needed no further invitation to raise the curtain 11 12 In the film version this final negotiation is not shown on screen but rather implied Nevertheless spectators will be clearly explained that Frank accepted the blasphemous present offered to him by the Cenobites Nevertheless the character of Frank is clearly not an innocent one Thus he will not fully fulfil the Aristotelian
24. r a La propia imagen en s misma se mueve En este sentido no es por lo tanto ni figurativa ni abstracta la imagen cinematogr fica hace ella misma el movimiento porque ella hace lo que otras artes se limitan a exigir o a decir ella recoge lo esencial de las otras artes hereda de ellas es como el modo de empleo de las otras im genes Convierte en potencia lo que s lo era posibilidad El movimiento autom tico hace que se eleve en nosotros un aut mata espiritual que reacciona a su vez sobre l El aut mata espiritual ya no designa como en la filosof a cl sica la posibilidad l gica o abstracta de deducir formalmente los pensamientos unos de otros sino el circuito en el cual stos entran con la imagen movimiento la potencia com n de aquello que fuerza a pensar y de aquello que piensa bajo el choque un nochoque Heidegger dir El hombre sabe pensar en tanto que tiene esta posibilidad pero este posible no garantiza todav a que seamos capaces de hacerlo Es esta capacidad esta potencia y no la simple posibilidad l gica lo que el cine pretende darnos al comunicarnos el choque Es como si el cine nos dijera conmigo con la imagen movimiento no pod is escapar al choque que despierta en vosotros el pensador Un aut mata subjetivo y colectivo para un movimiento autom tico IPES International Papers on English Studies 1 2013 25 46 Bloody Bodily Horrors Clive Barker s 29 el arte
25. real CENOBITE You solved the box We came Now you must come with us Taste our pleasures Even they show themselves as uncompromising and yet fair in their own satanic terms when Kirsty explains her mistake and identifies Frank who had escaped from the Cenobites realm thanks to a drop of blood accidentally spilled on the place where he was abducted as the true owner of the box she is given an opportunity As we see Barker is giving the audience a true evil character as well as a mostly innocent one Together with a set of monsters and a final scene in which the righteous one will survive and the cursed one will be taken back to the endless horrors of Leviathan as it is called the Cenobites kingdom THE THREAD AIDS The fundamental difference between The Hellbound Heart and Hellraiser will be the sexual and erotic nature of the Cenobites In the novella the theologians of the Order of the Gash did certainly offer sexual related pleasures and throughout history they had fostered and even made possible the depravity of infamous characters such as Giles de Rais o the IPES International Papers on English Studies 1 2013 25 46 Bloody Bodily Horrors Clive Barker s 39 Marquis of Sade Nevertheless their own sexual features is not clearly defined since they are described in the following terms A fitful phosphorescence like the glow of deep sea fishes blue cold charmless It struck Frank that he had never once wond
26. rent to a disease that is moral in nature and won t affect but depraved and perverted individuals IPES International Papers on English Studies 1 2013 25 46 Bloody Bodily Horrors Clive Barker s 45 WORKS CITED ADORNO Theodor amp Theodor y HORKHEIMER Marx The Culture Industry Enlightenment as Mass Deception London Blackwell Publishers 2001 BARKER Clive The Hellbound Heart London Dark Harvest 1986 BETTELHEIM Bruno The Uses of Enchantement New York Knop 1976 BENNET Vicente La Cultura del Cine Barcelona Paid s 2004 BRUNETTA Gian Nacimiento del Relato Cinematogr fico Madrid C tedra 1993 CAPILLA Antoni 8 VIDAL Nuria Or genes del Cine Valladolid Divisa 2007 CASHDAN Susan The Witch Must Die How Fairy Tales Shape Our Lives New York Basic Books 1999 CHERCHI Pier La Muerte del Cine Barcelona Laertes 2006 DELEUZE Gilles La Imagen Tiempo Estudios sobre Cine 2 Barcelona Paid s 1986 DWORKIN Andrea Woman Hating New York Dutton 1974 GARC A Emilio Cine e Historia Las Im genes de La Historia Reciente Madrid Arcolibros 2002 GILBERT Sara y GUBAR Susan The Madwoman in the Attic The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth Century Literary Imagination New Haven Yale University Press 2000 GONZ LEZ Carmen amp UNCETA Luis Literatura Cl sica Est tica y Cine Contempor neo pica Madrid Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad Aut noma de Madrid 200
27. rito de calar en la mentalidad colectiva creando adicci n en las clases medias y populares por su capacidad de conmover los sentimientos m s hondos y primarios del ser humano 15 Andrea Dworking confirms the seminal role folktales play in the creation and consolidation of the individual We have taken the fairy tales of our childhood with us into maturity chewed but still lying in the stomach as real identity 32 Carolyn Heilbrun agrees with Dworking and states that out of old tales we must make new lives 109 It is not the aim of the present paper to study in depth the many reasons why folktales are so fundamental for the societies in which they were formulated Nevertheless it must be taken into account that the democratic nature of this type of artistic manifestation contributes to this fact in a determining manner Folktales are invented transmitted received and reformulated in an absolutely free manner Free in the economic and artistic senses Since they are oral any person with the ability to participate in a conversation and memorize a short text will be able to enjoy receive first and later disseminate any given folktales Thus the economic burdens painter sculptors or architects found On the other hand the old fashioned binary opposite high pop art clearly included folktales in the second category Thus they were free from the rigid stylistics corsets that were imposed to sophisticated IPES Internationa
28. socio cultural function Once again the Horatian essence of folktales becomes evident The theories of catharsis and the sublime must consequently be remembered at this point because the atrocities and brutalities staged in Oedipus Rex or the darkest Old Testamentary passages are not far away from the ones audiences could face in the original unabridged and non Disney fairy tales FROM THE CHIMMEY TO THE SILVER SCREEN Folktales and oral stories do not disappear in the context of capitalism and modernity but the inner structures of the twentieth and twenty first centuries let few moments to be enjoyed by families in a relaxed environment Thus as Herbert Marcuse states in western capitalistic societies las necesidades sociales deben convertirse en necesidades individuales 106 As a result our children will no longer be explained that leaving the city and entering the forest with an unknown man is dangerous by a fairy tale but rather by a cultural artifact that is disseminated broadcasted through the mass media According to Deleuze films are the ideal socio cultural manifestations of contemporary societies because los primeros que hicieron cine y pensaron en l partian de una idea simple el cine como arte industrial alcanza el automovimiento el movimiento autom tico hace del movimiento el dato inmediato de la imagen Este movimiento ya no depende de un movil o de un objeto que lo ejecutar a ni de una mente que lo reconstrui
29. t the map of the road but the road itself 120 1 Hellraiser on the contrary does not solve the mystery of the box till the film is about half way to its climax and the information is not only succinct but also quite ambiguous FRANK This is what began it JULIA A box FRANK It s not any box It s called the Lament Configuration It s a puzzle JULIA Reaching for it Let me see FRANK Don t touch it It s dangerous It opens doors JULIA What kind of doors FRANK To experience beyond anything ever known At least that s what was promised when bought it Pleasure from Heaven or Hell didn t much care which JULIA Hell IPES International Papers on English Studies 1 2013 25 46 Bloody Bodily Horrors Clive Barker s 35 FRANK was bored I d done everything I d gone to the limits There was nothing left to experience At least nothing could buy on earth Hellraiser is less prone to unveil the secrets of the box due to several reasons On the first hand the nature of the written and visual artistic artefact is quite different and the 90 minutes of celluloid that typically last a horror film offer little time for flashback of this sort Secondly Barker and the producers trusted the film could be economically profitable and felt the necessity to leave some paths open for a future sequel as a matter of fact Hellraiser II will deal with the origins of the puzzle In any case both novella and film are
30. ty The Engineer will arrive should the moment merit came the reply Now again we ask you What do you want Why should he not answer them straight Pleasure he replied Kircher said you know about pleasure Oh we do said the first of them Everything you ever wanted Yes Of course Of course It stared at him with its all too naked eyes What have you dreamed it said The question put so baldly confounded him How could he hope to articulate the nature of the phantasms his libido had created He was still searching for words when one of them said This world it disappoints you Pretty much he replied You re not the first to tire of its trivialities came the response There have been others Not many the gridded face put in True A handful at best But a few have dared to use Lemarchand s Configuration Men like yourself hungry for new possibilities who ve heard that we have skills unknown in your region I d expected Frank began We know what you expected the Cenobite replied We understand to its breadth and depth the nature of your frenzy It is utterly familiar to us Frank grunted So he said you know what I ve dreamed about You can supply the pleasure IPES International Papers on English Studies 1 2013 25 46 Bloody Bodily Horrors Clive Barker s 37 The thing s face broke open its lips curling back a baboon s smile Not as you understand it came the re
31. udes From a merely aesthetic perspective their costumes clearly resemble the aesthetics of some gay and BDSM communities that were emerging and gaining some visibility at the time the movie was shot would like to compare the film images reproduced here with the next set of images that have been taken from a sex shop catalogue The resemblance between the garments worn by the monsters of the film and the models is stunning Clive Barker a homosexual author who did visit San Francisco cradle of these sexual and aesthetic radical movements needed to be familiar with gay BDSM s attires since they were not difficult to find not only on dark more or less hidden clubs but also in art galleries and mainstream magazines The images reproduce now were already iconic in 1987 IPES International Papers on English Studies 1 2013 25 46 42 Javier Martin Parraga Tom Nicholl 50 s Peter Berlin mid 70 s Robert Mapplethorpe 70 s Jim Wigler a os 80 s As it has been proved the connections between Hellraiser s dark deities and the gay and fetish communities in America and the UK are not exactly subtle It could be argued that the deep changes theses characters experience when transformed into film characters can only respond to the undeniable visual shocking values Barker found in the underground radical sexual communities But do maintain that the change is far from being coincidental and goes beyond the purely aesthetic
32. was reported to have been in the possession of the Marquis de Sade who used it while imprisoned in the Bastille to barter with a guard for paper on which to write The 120 Days of Sodom Yet another was made by a craftsman a maker of singing birds called Lemarchand in the form of a musical box of such elaborate design a man might toy with it half a lifetime and never get inside Stories Stories Yet since he had come to believe in nothing at all it was not so difficult to IPES International Papers on English Studies 1 2013 25 46 34 Javier Martin Parraga put the tyranny of verifiable truth out of his head And it passed the time musing drunkenly on such fantasies It was in D sseldorf where he d gone smuggling heroin that he again encountered the story of Lemarchand s box His curiosity was piqued once more but this time he followed the story up until he found its source The man s name was Kircher though he probably laid claim to half a dozen others Yes the German could confirm the existence of the box and yes he could see his way to letting Frank have it The price Small favors here and there Nothing exceptional Frank did the favors washed his hands and claimed his payment There had been instructions from Kircher on how best to break the seal on Lemarchand s device instructions that were part pragmatic part metaphysical To solve the puzzle is to travel he d said or something like that The box it seemed was not jus

Bloody Bodily Horrors: Clive Barker`s Hellraiser & AIDS

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Bloody Bodily Horrors: Clive Barker`s Hellraiser &amp; AIDS

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Bloody Bodily Horrors: Clive Barker`s Hellraiser & AIDS