No tears, please. It’s a waste of good suffering.
The Hellbound Heart was first published in an omnibus edition with works by two other horror authors, a three-novella collection. It’s since been published on its own numerous times for the simple reason that it’s beyond a doubt the most influential work in Barker’s bibliography and a book that becomes a best-seller when you emblazon words on the cover to the effect that this novella was the inspiration for the horror movie Hellraiser and Pinhead himself, the philosopher’s Freddy Kreuger, the Hell Priest himself. The edition I read clocked in at a bit over a hundred-and-fifty pages and the text was pretty large, if you know what I mean. It’s an incredibly fast read despite the fact that Barker’s prose is as dense and beautiful as it always is. But the story and the characters are so compelling that this one keeps you turning pages faster, I think, than any of Barker’s stuff that I’ve read so far.
The story is the kind of thing only Barker could dream up. Frank’s a hedonist who, at twenty-nine, feels he’s experienced all the pleasures this life can offer him tracks down a magical artifact and carries out a ritual that conjures the Cenobites, beings from another realm of existence, who promise to introduce him to physical sensations such as he’s never experienced. Unfortunately for him, this Order of the Gash has in fact ascended to a plane of existence where pleasure and pain are one and the same and Frank finds himself doomed to an eternity of physical torture of the worst kind. Until he gets a second chance when his brother, Rory, and sister-in-law, Julia, move into the house where he’s trapped. Enter Kirsty, Julie’s lovesick sister, and you’ve got a four way game of manipulation, deception, violence and, of course, gruesome suffering.
So this finds Barker on familiar ground. No, aside from the gore, I mean, which is brilliantly handled as always. Barker’s always had a way of tapping into the darkest desires and the ways they drive people to behave and he’s got a batch of secret, shameful desires to explore here. While Hellraiser is probably the better title for a film just because it’s so catchy and punchy, I do love The Hellbound Heart as a title because at first you think it’s Frank that has the titular heart; as the story progresses and the characters develop, Julia turns out to be even more perverse than he is though. But even Kirsty harbors secrets; she’s in love with her brother-in-law, Rory, and she enjoys the emotional suffering she subjects herself to on some level and that’s probably something most of us have some experience with. I think by the end, an ending I wasn’t quite sure about but found myself loving more and more as I thought about it, I figured that Barker is speaking more broadly. The hellbound heart of the title is just the human heart itself.
So, this is right up there with those first two short story collections in my opinion. The plot has a breathless energy with a few very suspenseful sequences and a great climax. The gore and violence is as great as it always is; the Cenobites, who at the end of the day are really supporting characters, are gruesomely and unforgettably rendered and they are genuinely scary as well. And those human characters . . . I was very invested in them, flawed & twisted as they are and by that cathartic climax, I cared very deeply about what happened to who, which characters escaped and which ones . . . didn’t. It’s really not a surprise to me that Hellraiser was such a hit; it’s all right here on the page and this is Barker at his best. 4 stars.
tl;dr – short novella that inspired the Hellraiser film is briskly paced with a fantastic, compelling story and fascinating and well-written characters; gruesome, scary, disturbing and beautiful. 4 stars.