Rawhead Rex (1986)

A British horror directed by George Pavlou, written by Clive Barker.
An ancient monster is awakened when a farmer in Ireland tries to remove a large stone from his field. A photographer/researcher must find a way to stop it.
Typical of '80s horror, but not typical of Clive Barker. The monster was cheesy and so were the special effects. Obviously, the plot was typically cheesy and the characters were shallow and badly acted. There was one shot which caught my attention. When the 2 teenagers were running through the woods and the camera followed behind them, it looked awesome. I rate it tolerable. There is much better 1980s horror cheese out there.

Nightbreed (1990)

An American horror fantasy directed by Clive Barker, Starring David Cronenberg.
A man who has dreams about killing people is confronted by his therapist because those people have been killed as he said. He goes to a certain cemetery where he is shot by police, but vanishes from the hospital. His girlfriend tries to find him dead, alive or undead.
This was almost as cool as Hellraiser. There were monsters and special effects. The plot was in line with the UPO and the "fun & games" section was the girlfriend seeing all the monsters in their underground lair. I thought that was just amazing. I almost cared about the main characters, but when cool monsters take the screen, my attention gets diverted. The camera-work was invisible because I was watching for plot and special effects. Pacing kept a decent jaunt, but I would have put more monsters into 2 hours if it was mine. More demonstrations of monster abilities and those being used in conflicts would have been amazing, but obviously expensive. I really liked it, but I felt that there was not enough monster screen time. Maybe a slow pan of monster faces could have eaten some seconds and given the viewer a better look at the characters. I don't know. I'm rambling. I rate this awesome. Watch it if you like Hellraiser and Subspecies.

Lord of Illusions (1995)

An American thriller directed by Clive Barker.
An evil magician is bound by his protege and buried. The protege then fakes his own death. A police investigator is put on the case to deal with damages.
This was cheesy, but not horrible. The main attraction here was special effects. Plot and characters were like a B movie. Pacing and style were typical of '90s horror and thriller flicks. Special effects began with screws on a metal mask turning themselves into the evil magician's face. There were a few fake monsters and fire effects and the ending was mostly video trickery. Another interesting point to note is the evil magician's pet mandrill in the beginning. I thought that was a nice touch. Overall, a cheesy flick with some interesting things to see. I rate it adequate.

Nightbreed (1990)

A horror directed by Clive Barker, starring David Cronenberg.
A troubled man's therapist is an undead creature. The man tries to get to the bottom of what's happening, becoming an undead creature himself.
The style was alright, but the plot and characters were so stereotypical that it negates any good qualities. This is typical '80s horror applied to a '90s film. I'm rating it bad because it was.

Hellraiser series (1987 - 2005)

A horror directed by Clive Barker, Tony Randel, Anthony Hickox, Kevin Yagher, Joe Chappelle, Scott Derrickson and Rick Bota, starring Doug Bradley.
A magical puzzle box opens a doorway between hell and earth to let demons through into the real world.
Get ready for what I will term "the rainbow effect" because there are a lot of films of varying qualities in this series. The first film was made in my favorite year and is grisly and gruesome as well as being directed by the writer. The plot is good and the characters are decent. The second film is a continuation of the first where instead of Frank coming out of the floor skinless, Julia comes out of Frank's mattress skinless. Kirsty gets a companion in this film named Tiffany. She is a girl who won't speak, but only solves puzzles and is used to open the box. The last part of the film takes place in hell, where one of the doctors turns into a cenobite. This film was good as well. The third film was horrible. The owner of a bar buys the pillar of souls and when his bar is attacked by Pinhead, some of the victims turn into cenobites with cheesy powers like CD throwing or a drink mixer full of gasoline. In the fourth film, the history of the puzzle box is explained as well as the future. This is also the only film to feature the dog cenobite, so it gets an awesome rating. The fifth film follows a corrupt police detective who is following a trail of nasty murders as he goes insane. It's adequate. The sixth film is the story of a man who is married to Kristy and gives her the puzzle box as an anniversary present before supposedly killing her in a car accident. It was o.k. and I could tell that the series was getting stale. In the seventh film, a news writer goes to investigate a group of people who apparently come back from death with the help of their leader. It was really stretching the limits of the series and gets a poor rating for this. The eighth film sucks even worse than the third as young people go to a "hell world" (a popular video game depicting hellraiser memorabilia) party only to get killed. The soundtrack features some whiney alternative rock and nu-metal that will destroy your brain cells. It gets a shit review. How's that for rainbow effect? I'm including a little known picture, the bone dragon who used to be the hairy homeless guy.