Hellraiser: Hellseeker
This is another attempt at doing what Hellraiser: Inferno did, only not nearly as well in any regard. Basically another guy has unwittingly found his way into Hell, only he doesn't realize it yet. Here the film operates again as a mystery, but it's much more blatant and obvious than Inferno. The execution isn't nearly as good, and while it tries to convey an amount of nightmare imagery, that imagery tends just as quickly to fall flat. The hallucinations don't offer the visual spectacle of Inferno, and the movie feels confused, often trying to rely on rapid cuts to convey pain and illusion which instead make the movie feel more than a little disjointed.
In short, it doesn't work. Hellseeker falls flat as a "me too" cop out trying to follow in the wake of the flawed but much more interesting Inferno. If anybody else makes the mistake of wandering this far down the Hellraiser rabbit hole...maybe it's best to turn around here.
But don't expect me to.
I Walked with a Zombie
The Leopard Man
I watched Hellseeker between these two Val Lewton/Jacques Tourneur movies, which probably contributed to why I ended up disliking it so much. Both I Walked with a Zombie and The Leopard Man make use of shadow and darkness to convey mood and build suspense, manipulate the horror by never showing the audience too much, and also offer complicated love stories in which strong characters are forced to eventually reveal their emotional vulnerabilities, something that is generally far scarier than any actual monster that could be shown.
Truth is, Lewton and Tourneur didn't make monster movies. They often made romances where the shadows and the fear were a reflection of the main characters' hearts as they grappled with both the internal and external. Yes, people are dying, the strange and exotic can quickly turn nightmarish, and much is left to be explained. In I Walked with a Zombie, we are presented with multiple possibilities of the truth of the story, while in The Leopard Man, we can only piece together the motivations of the killer from the hero's musings and insights, as the killer never gets a chance to explain why he is how he is. He simply is.
Instead of vampires and werewolves, people are scary in Lewton pictures. The hard-edged guy in the office may actually be afraid of showing his sensitivity, while the bookish professor may in fact be a serial killer who can't help to sate his need for blood. The person you think you know best may be someone you don't know at all, and anyone is capable of murder. Yes, there's a touch of mysticism in both of the two films here, be it the voodoo of the black people in Zombie or the reading of cards by a Latina psychic in Leopard Man. But these are never the real threat, they're just there.
I've read that Lewton's mother and aunt were major influences on his work and are the reason why women are often portrayed as strong and capable in his films, something quite out of step with the horror film "norm." Lewton also portrayed minorities in normal situations and as human beings, and race is generally not a major consideration. Yes, it's more of an issue in I Walked with a Zombie due to the nature of the relationship between the white plantation owning family and the former slaves that populate the island. Some of the lines here feel excruciatingly lacking in empathy or understanding...but then the offspring of slavery know more than they're letting on, and they fall silent when they believe they need to.
They're smarter than the white folks fully understand, and the heavy imprint slavery has left on them is still felt in their culture, one that cries when a new baby is born and still cheers when someone dies and leaves a world of strife and bondage.
In Leopard Man, the Latinos of the small New Mexico town it takes place in are no different from the white people in the same town expect perhaps economically, but while the whites generally have more money(and not always, as some upper class Latinos are also part of the character roster), they feel empathy for their fellow man. Lewton films don't portray white people as the norm and minorities as lesser, instead showing people as human beings, individuals with flaws, hopes, fears, dreams, loves, and anxieties. This makes these movies such a treat to watch, as they handle their subject matter with a maturity and grace usually not seen in the genre.
