Bad boy Frank Cotton (Sean Chapman)
purchases a mysterious Chinese puzzle box, which possesses the power to send the owner to Heaven or Hell, if they
can work out how to unlock it. We are then treated to seeing what happens to him when he finally
does manage to open it, as 4 hideous demons, known as Cenobites, suddenly emerge and promptly tear his body to
pieces with hooks.
Meanwhile, Frank's brother Larry (Andrew Robinson) has just taken over his mother's old house, along with his new wife Julia (Clare Higgins) and his daughter Kirsty (Ashley Laurence). However, Franks remains are still lurking around in the spare bedroom and after Larry cuts his hand and spills blood all over the floor, Frank's body begins to reform.
Enlisting the help of Julia, who he'd previously been having an affair with, she agrees to bring him fresh supply of victims so that he can drain their blood, in order for his body to reform fully. So whilst Larry is a work, Julia is hanging round in bars, picking up drunks and bringing them back for Frank to murder.
However, Kirsty discovers what is going on and after finding the mysterious puzzle box, unwittingly unleashes the grotesque Cenobites, basically a group of sadomasochistic demons, lead by a character called Pinhead (Doug Bradley) who live in a realm where pleasure and pain are indivisible. But after they learn about her Uncle Frank, who's escaped their realm, they agree to spare her if she'll take them to him, leading to more bloodied hooks and chains going flying, and buckets more blood being shed in the films climax.
Based on Clive Barker's nove "The Hellbound Heart", if you like gore you will love this movie. Which features some absolutely grotesque scene's of people being ripped apart, although the most gory scenes are actually shown within the first 2 minutes of the film. The movies low budget is rather apparent, supposedly set in America it soon becomes blatantly obvious that it was actually filmed in Britain, but don't be put off by my remarks, this is still great stuff!
