1987 – Clare Higgins –Hellbound: Hellraiser II

One of the few, few, few movies who actually made me ill in a theatre remains Hellraiser, first and best of an unending franchise. My main problem was when the father character played by Andrew Robinson got his hand pierced by a forgotten nail when moving a mattress. Quite a classic horror stereotype. Could have lost my lunch right then and there, on a near empty viewing room of the now closed and forgotten Atwater Cinema. Yeah, there are skinless ghosts walking around, some resolute S&M demons looking for fresh victims to brutalize, a diabolic Rubik’s Cube is turning reality on its head… but I was close to fainting by a simple nail. That hit closer to home, I guess.

There was also something quite amazing in Hellraiser: the presence of a gravely beautiful actress named Clare Higgins, who portrays a kind of repressed wife beginning an affair with her hubby’s brother (a resurrected skinless cannibal corpse brother, to be precise). Well. You though you had problems with your brother-in-law George? Does George needs to eat your flesh to reconstitute himself? Or is he just stealing your hockey cards and drinking all your Drambuie?

Clive Barker became an even more mainstream name with the success of this movie, which he directed himself. I briefly spotted Clive at his private party at the 2005 FanExpo in Toronto and boy did he not look well. Let’s see what the Internet Movie Database’s plot outline of Hellraiser has to say: “An unfaithful wife encounters the zombie of her dead lover, who’s being chased by demons after he escaped from their sado-masochistic Hell”. Quite tasty. Don’t forget these fun-loving Cenobites, otherworld pain freaks whose ranks include the charmingly named Pinhead, the major force behind the following episodes of the series, always played with chilling accuracy by Doug Bradley. Included in the cast was Clare Higgins, a then 32-years old British actress more known for her theater work (from which she has received many awards). Hellraiser was her first leading role for motion pictures, in a part that grew more and more monstrous as the plot ascended to its horrible conclusion. Yes, she played along with her gooey-looking lover, bringing him victims to dispose of for his imminent revival.

For Hellbound: Hellraiser II, her character of Julia Cotton came back, this time trying to return to life in the same fashion as her ill-fated lover in the first installment: slowly eating unsuspecting victims to gradually grow back her physical organs. My favorite scene remains when she’s in a state where she looks like a walking bloody steak, at a stage when only her skin is missing and when can enjoy seeing her walking around with her shiny musculature showing. She even fatally kisses a male protagonist in that state, sucking up his insides as an afterthought. Talk about a wet kiss! Playing the ultimate bitch from hell in a most convincing manner in these eccentric plot twists, Clare Higgins made us all fall in love with her. Well, a little bit. Often bandaged like an mummy princess with only her piercing eyes visible and wearing an elegant cocktail dress, she remains one of the most memorable female monsters in movies.

Clare will be next seen on big screens for The Golden Compass, an ambitious fantasy film starring Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig.

Coming soon: The most beautiful female dead person ever. Yes, ever.