Movies - The Hellbound Heart

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	Movies - The Hellbound Heart

The Hellbound Heart is a horror novella by Clive Barker. It was the basis for the movie Hellraiser
. The novella, which had been unpublished at the time Barker adapted it for the screen, was brought out by HarperCollins in 1988 (reprinted by HarperTorch in 1991) after the success of the movie. It retains the gory, visceral style that Barker introduced in his series of collected short stories, The Books of Blood, and distorts clichéd narrative devices to depict ordinary people drawn into a confrontation with spiritual terror beyond traditional definitions of morality.

Plot synopsis

The story, ostensibly about one man's experimentation with the occult in order to satisfy his jaded appetite for sexual pleasure, revolves around a tragic love triangle. Vaguely set on the outskirts of an unnamed English city, it concerns three members of the Cotton family: Frank; his younger brother, Rory; and Rory's wife, Julia. Frank's pursuit of pleasure has trapped him in an extradimensional hell, and his brother's wife provides him the opportunity for escape. Frank's resurrection provides Julia with the opportunity for respite from her failing marriage. Rory, who naively adores his more worldly wife, becomes their innocent victim.

Plot summary

Frank is a traditional "bad boy". He is a career petty criminal with no interest in stable employment. He roams the world in search of his next score and in pursuit of greater and more extreme sexual delights, always one step ahead of the law or his creditors. Approaching thirty years of age, he feels life no longer worth living, his every desire yielding to ultimate disappointment, unable to find anyone whose passion matches his own. In various countries while traveling among others of his ilk, he hears rumors of a puzzle box, the Lemarchand Configuration, created by a French toymaker in the style of ancient Chinese puzzles. The box purportedly gives access to unimaginable pleasure. Unsure of what to expect but fixated on the possibilities of sexual heights beyond anything he has known, he performs the required rituals and solves the puzzle...and the fabric of the universe begins to unravel.

The box creates a "Schism", a doorway to another reality that touches ours. Frank gets a glimpse of impossible numbers of carrion birds and scenes of torture before the Schism is concealed. Through the Schism have arrived the Cenobites, hierophants of the Order of the Gash. These four ash-colored beings are mutilated, tattooed, scarified and pierced in horribly painful ways yet seem to delight in their disfigurement. As they question Frank as to his intent and desires, they promise sensual experiences beyond that known in this world. He gleefully submits to them, only to be overwhelmed by the blinding, deafening and excruciating intensity of his suddenly heightened senses. He begins to realize that he may have been deceived about the box or perhaps the Cenobites definition of "pleasure" does not match his own, when the sensory overload subsides and he is presented with the fourth Cenobite. Unlike her apparently genderless associates (who have vanished), the fourth one is visibly female, nude, with scarred genitalia. She perches on a mound of rotting severed heads and wears their tongues as an apron. Frank realizes that he has made a terrible mistake.

The story jumps forward a year, as Rory and his wife of four years are moving into the same house where Frank experimented with the Lemarchand box. The house was left to Frank and Rory by their grandmother; Rory is aware that Frank had stayed in the house for several weeks before disappearing again, and Rory now wants to renovate the place and make it a home. Rory is the prototypical "good boy", a hard-working wage earner and solid citizen. Julia is a great beauty whose every word and movement is graceful and charming, but inwardly she is petty and cold. The marriage is in trouble, but Rory is oblivious to the growing distance between himself and Julia. Julia, who had an intense and violent fling with Frank just days before her marriage, grows increasingly bored and annoyed with Rory and finds her thoughts returning to Frank.

Julia has nameless reservations about the house and finds the moving process frustrating. Her annoyance is further incensed by the frequent presence of Kirsty, an old friend of Rory.

Kirsty is the opposite of Julia. Plain and socially awkward but intelligent, she envies Julia's beauty and grace. Kirsty is also somewhat intimidated by Julia, and has harbored a crush on Rory for years.

Julia finds herself increasingly drawn to the shuttered upstairs front room. Although it's the best candidate for the master bedroom, Julia is disturbed yet strangely comforted by the room and refuses to let Rory move the bedroom furniture into it. Over time she finds herself obsessed with the room and spends much of her free time there, alone in the dark.

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