Written by Clive Barker
Directed by George Pavlou
Starring David Dukes, Kelly Piper, Niall Toibin, Cora Venus Lunny, Ronan Wilmot and Donal McCann
Ireland/UK
Another movie from the Hollywood Theater’s all-night horror movie marathon, RAWHEAD REX comes with the name Clive Barker attached to it – based on his short story, he wrote the screenplay. Now, Clive Barker is a name famous among horror circles, and usually names become famous due to the quality of their work. Right?
This one left me wondering what’s so great about Clive Barker. You see a name like Clive Barker and you think a movie might have an interesting premise. Well, get a load of this: this movie is about a guy trying to remove a cement pillar from a hole. He can’t move it. The pillar gets struck by lightning. At the same time, a monster called Rawhead appears. The implication is he came out of the hole, I guess. He goes around killing people. There’s some intrigue at a local church where the priest becomes a disciple of Rawhead and blah blah. Who cares. Long story short (too late) a monster goes around killing people.
The monster looks stupid – it’s a low-rent costume with a not-very-articulated mask. I guess this is some kind of Irish folklore, or something, because the movie takes place in Ireland and our “hero” has traveled there to research religious artifacts.
The movie’s claim to fame is a blink-and-you-miss-it scene in which the demonic Rawhead baptizes his priest servant by peeing on him. Edgy, Clive. Real edgy.
The ending made me sad because apparently the researcher “hero” whose son is killed in the course of the movie apparently has his kid buried in an Irish graveyard and then flies back home to America. Why not have your kid’s dead body shipped back home where it can be close to you and your wife and daughter? He’s gotta be buried in a cemetery in Ireland, instead, where Rawhead’s liable to pop out of the ground again at any moment, exactly as he does in the final moments of the movie?
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