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Hello, and welcome to the All Eighties Movies Podcast, the
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podcast where we talk about the blockbusters, stuff loops, and
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everything in between. One of the freshest decades for movies,
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the nineteen eighties. I'm your host Bill Bant Long with
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me on this journey revisiting eighties movies is by co
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host Jason Massek.
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Hello, Jason, I want to hear him confess himself. Then
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maybe maybe, But if you cheat us, we'll tear your
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soul apart.
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That's right, listeners, we're discussing with spoilers of plenty the
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nineteen eighty seven supernatural horror movie hell Raiser, who was
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produced by Film Futures and distributed by Entertainment Film distribut
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The movie stars Andrew Robinson, Claire Higgins, Ashley Lawrence, and
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Doug Bradley. Written directed by Clive Barker, this movie is
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rated R with the running time of one hour and
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thirty four minutes. It is based on Barker's nineteen eighty
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six novella The hell Bound Heart. So what is this
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movie about? What's on the box if you grew up
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in the nineteen eighties, and what's your local video store
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to rent this movie? You would find this description on
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the back of the VHS box. It is what's on
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the box. Take it away, Jason.
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From beyond the outer darkness, from the blackest corners of
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a family's past, from the nightmarish realm of the imagination,
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comes Hell Raiser. An old family home holds untold mysteries
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and horrors for Larry Cotton and his wife Julia. Floorboards
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that rattle, rooms that absorb blood, the heavy and haunting
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air of things long past and better left forgotten, all
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fueled by the fugitive spirit of Larry's brother Frank, who
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hovers halfway between this world and the next, between extreme
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pleasure and excres cruciating pain, and between family devotion and
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a deadly instinct for survival. Slowly, the old family home
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begins to swallow the Cottons, and there is no escape
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for Secret alliances and murderous deductions have been made which
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will propel the Cotton family into the horrifying and shocking
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conclusion of.
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Hell razor Hell Raiser. So that was what's on the box.
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Sorry to cut you off, I just wanted to have
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a little commentary on that. I thought that was a
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pretty awful synopsis, to be honest, makes it sound like
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this is a haunted house movie does and it really
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doesn't tap into the actual story whatever it might be.
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You know, it's it was a really weird one. Like,
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it sounds good, it's not poorly written, it's hard to read,
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but doesn't do this movie service. That's all I'm saying. Yeah, quick,
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what's on the box commentary?
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Let's move on to our eighty snapshot as we highlight
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some of the creative forces from this movie. Jason, who
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do you have?
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I have our writer director klaw Wife Barker Mister Barker
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was born in Liverpool, England. He is an English writer, director,
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and visual artists, best known for his works in the
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genres of horror and dark fantasy. In the early days
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of his artistic career, he supported himself by working as
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a male prostitute. In nineteen seventy eight, he co founded
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a theater group called The Dog Company, among whose members
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was Doug Bradley, who later went on to star in
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Barker's hell Raiser movie series. As we Know. He came
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to prominence in the nineteen eighties, this being Clyde Barker
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with a series of short stories collectively named The Books
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of Blood which established him as a leading horror author.
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So here's his eighties snapshot. In nineteen eighty five, he
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published his debut novel, The Damnation Game, and the same
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year he wrote his first feature movie scripts Underworld from
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nineteen eighty five and Rawhead Rex from nineteen eighty six.
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The end effect of these two movies disappointed Barker so
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much that he decided to adapt his prose into a
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movie he would direct himself, leading to the creation of
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hell Raiser in nineteen eighty seven, which is based on
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his novella, as Bill mentioned, The hell Bound Heart. Then
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he moves on to the sequel, hell Bound hell Raiser two,
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where he gets a based on a story by credit,
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And that's in nineteen eighty eight, and that's pretty much
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his eighties highlights. Of course, all the hell Raiser sequels
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that would follow, he would also get the quote unquote
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based on characters by credit. Moving on, in nineteen ninety
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he directs and writes the screenplay for one of my
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cult favorites, Night Breed, which was based on his novel Cabal.
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Then in ninety two, Candyman Comes Out, and that was
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based on The Forbidden which was one of the books
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of Blood short stories written by Barker. In ninety five,
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Lord of Illusions comes out, which he directed and wrote
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the screenplay for, and that was also based on one
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of his stories, The Last Illusion He Gets that based
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on characters by credit for some of the Candyman sequels.
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Beyond that, he's done some writing for various video games,
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TV episodes, and at one point he actually lost control
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of the Hell Raiser franchise, but regained it in twenty
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twenty and then there was a remake of Hell Razer
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in twenty twenty two, for which he has an executive
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producer credit. Clive Barker primarily known as an author for
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the Books of Blood short story series, also those works
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such as the Damnation game, We've World Cabal, the Hell
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Raiser series, Books of the Art series, and the Books
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of Abarat series. Clive Barker man of many talents.
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All Right, so I went with Ashley Lawrence. So. Ashley
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Lawrence is an American actress best known for her role
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as Kirsty Cotton in Hell Raser. She began her career
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on television with her curring role on the CBS soap
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opera Capitol. In guest appearances on shows like Highway to
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Heaven and Hunter. Her breakout role came with hell Raiser,
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a role she reprised in hell Bound hell Raser two,
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earning her a lasting play and horror history. Throughout the
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late eighties and nineties, Lawrence continued to take on genre roles,
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appearing in the horror anthology Monsters, the Lovecraft inspired Lurking Fear,
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and the supernatural thriller Warlock three The End of Innocence.
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She also took on dramatic and genre bending roles in
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projects like Er Hercules, The Legendary Journeys Beyond Belief, Fact
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or Fiction, and the indie film Lightning Bug. In addition
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to her live action work, Lawrence expanded into voice acting
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with her debut as Missy Carter in the atmospheric video
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game The Vanishing of Ethan Carter. She returned to voice
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work in twenty twenty for adult swims twisted animated comedy
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JJ Villard's Fairy Tales at California Native Ashley Lawrence continues
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to be a cult favorite in the horror community and
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a versatile painter and artist. So actress Ashley Lawrence.
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I'm glad you picked her, Bill Bantt, because she's good.
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She's good in this and I immediate is when you
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chose her? I had to go of course, and just
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doing general research look at her filmography and what and
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I'm glad she continues to work because I thought she
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was quick. Goodness.
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Yes, she's definitely highlighted this one. So this leads us
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to our earliest memories of the movie, Jason, why don't
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you start us off?
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Yeah? Absolutely. For me, the earliest memories are, well, my
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fascination with the mind and or worlds created by Clive
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Barker and this just strange, weird, wild darkness of the
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images provided by this film, Hell Raiser. I don't recall
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when or where with whom I saw this film, but
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I didn't see it in the theater, but it had
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some pull or allure for me, so I saw it
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on cable, probably a few years after it came out,
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so I know I saw it, but I couldn't recollect
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much of the story beats. All I could remember was
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the quote what's your pleasure, mister Cotton, and we'll tell
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your soul. The pollards, of course, the puzzle box itself.
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I remembered the lead Cenobite, which is just a character
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that's indelible, you can never forget. And he would, of
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course then in the sequels come to be known as Pinhead.
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That's the great Doug Bradley portraying the lead cenobite in this,
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and I mean his voice, his presence, all the paraphernalia
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in this. There's just the hooks, the chains, the bodies
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being tortured and torn apart. Those are early memories, just
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these images, right. I just recall that the tone of
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this was so different from other horror films of the time,
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this supernatural blend that was rooted in sato masochism and
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sex and torture, and this vision of hell or some
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sort of hellish in between underworld. I found it all
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very intriguing and disturbing. So it was the look, the field,
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the gore, the gross out factor and who is this
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Clive Barker guy that thought this up? This is just
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what grabbed me as a kid, I remember a teenager.
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After this. I would then watch hell Bound hell Raiser
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too often on cable. That was a big cable watch
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for me. I watched that repeatedly, and now I think
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back and I'm like, wait, did I see the sequel first?
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Before the original I would soon then thereafter become a
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fan of Night Breed, as I mentioned, and it's just
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these dark worlds or other worlds that Barker creates that
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contain these creatures of wonderfully disturbed designs, and I immediately
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want to know their origins and their backstories, and the
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worlds have such a visceral connection to a human's like
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base instincts of pain and pleasure and violence. I recall
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being at the library and finding a copy of Cabal,
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which Night Breed is based on, and reading some passages
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and just got a feel for Barker's writing, which is wonderful.
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I mentioned doing the same when we were doing our
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Dead Zone podcast with the Stephen King novel. I just
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had this morbid curiosity. These stories sparked my imagination because
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of that supernatural, fantastical aspect, but they made me feel
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something on a primal level. So this is just different
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from a Friday the thirteenth or typical eighty slasher that
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I was always too scared to watch, or a summer
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camp teen murder movie. This was just a different type
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of creative that appealed to me. That these ideas just
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had a certain type of ingenuity, and I'll never forget
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later on in the mid nineties reading Barker's The Thief
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of Always, which I think is from ninety two, which
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I still reference to this day, especially the holiday House
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aspect of that book and the character of Rictus. It's wild,
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creepy stuff and it feels original and it's very seductive
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in a strange way. And anyway, that's my memories of
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connection to the Clyde Barker universe in specific regard to
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hell Raiser. One other early memory connection to this Hell
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Raiser universe is that I was a fan of Christopher
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Young's score for hell Raiser two specifically, and used some
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of that for my um that is University in Miami
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Student film the Audition. Love me some Hell Raiser, great stuff.
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Those are some of my early memories. Bill Bant, what
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say you yeah? For me?
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I'm not sure if I saw these in order either,
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because I do remember seeing Hell Raiser available to rent,
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and I was just always passing that one because I'd
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find something else. And then I started watching them on
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late night cable, and I'll be honest, probably the one
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I would watch the most was hell Razer three, just
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because it had Terry Ferrell in it, and Paula Marshall,
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who had the hugest crush on and people are like,
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who the Hell's Paula Marshall. She really wasn't in a lot,
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but I was a big fan, so I think finally,
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when I was living in Florida and I was a
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member of the Dolphins, I had two roommates who happened
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to be Dolphins cheerleaders, so they knew I was the
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movie guy, and they're like, hey, Bill, go rent some
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horror movies. We'll do like a horror movie night. And
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I rented Hell Razer and Evil Dead, and according to them,
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I went over too. They didn't care for either, but
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I think I was arguing more with my roommates over
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Evil Dead. I was like, how can you not like
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Evil Dead? Then with Hell Razer they didn't like either
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of those. I think they wanted more jump scary stuff.
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That was really the first time I watched Hell Razor
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all the way from beginning to end. I think I
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was always watching bits and pieces, and I don't think
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I ever got beyond Hell Raiser three. And it was
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kind of funny because watching it for this episode, I
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was watching it on two b and then it would
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just jump into another film in the series, and I
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think I would watch like ten minutes and go yeah, no, thanks.
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So this is definitely the one of the ones that
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I did like that I've seen all the way through.
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That's great, So shout out to Laurie and Nicole.
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Good stuff, man, I that's funny that you chose those two.
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All right, let's get into initial thoughts. What are initial
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thoughts of Hell Raiser all this time later?
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Yeah, indeed, Well we get a nice running time here,
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Bill band of an hour and thirty three minutes. Not
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too bad.
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Best thing about horror movies.
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They're short and sweet, absolutely so no problem sitting through
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the opening credits of this one for me because of
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that score by Christopher Young. I love the music for this, agreed.
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It's haunting awesome. It is awesome, and it's got a
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triumphant sort of reoccurring theme loud horns and such and
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very big and bombastic. So and it captures that sort
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of fantastical quality of the well done Christopher Young and
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Bill Bann, I'm gonna want your thoughts on this because
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it's just a real interesting introduction of these characters in
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this film. We just really don't know anything about them.
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But the question is does it matter? So I'm going
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to go into this introduction here for those that either
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have or haven't seen this movie, or you haven't seen