Plot
Our story opens on one Frank Cotton (Sean Chapman) in a seedy middle eastern dive, buying an puzzle box. Next, he's in his attic, half naked, opening the box. Suddenly, the lighting goes funky, big spike pillars show up out of nowhere, and hooked chains fly out and start stabbing Frank. Then, his still twitching remains get played with by strange demons called cenobytes (more on them later.)
Yeah, I bet Frank's thinking "whoops!" right about now...
Skip ahead, oh for fun lets say two years, it doesn't really matter much. Frank's brother Larry (Andrew Robinson, some may know him as Garek on Star Trek Deep Space Nine) is moving in with his wife, Julia (Claire Higgins), and getting help from his daughter from a previous marriage, Kirsty (Ashley Lawrence). As Julia looks about the house, she remembers back to a teensy little fact she forgot to tell her husband: That she had an affair with Frank. On her wedding day. On her wedding dress. But then, Frank was a sex machine anyways.
While moving a matress up the stairs, Larry cuts his hand pretty nasty, dripping blood all over. Being the baby that he is, he rushes to Julia, who's remembering the past up in the attic. He gushes all over the floor until she takes him to the hospital. Meanwhile, thanks to Larry's blood, one of the coolest cinematic sequences EVER happens. (Oh, and incidently, the effect is ripped off to much less success in Nightmare On Elm Street 4: The Dream Master) The blood gets sucked into the floorboards, which start to shake and then finally give birth to Frank (now played by Oliver Smith,) one part at a time, leaving him just bones and organs and a mewling mess, barely able to hold himself up. Wow.
Later, Julia discovers Frank. Rather than being scared of this freaky-deaky living "Visible Man", She's intrigued that the man who was her best lay is still (relatively) alive. He explains to her how he needs blood to heal himself. Well "love" always finds a way, so while Larry's at work or whatever, Julia goes off and lures traveling salesmen to the house to give Frank to feed on.
Kirsty, meanwhile, has been suspicious of her wicked stepmother, and starts following her around. She see her take a gentleman caller into the house, so naturally she sneaks in there after them. And she then comes face to face with frank, who's now all muscle (still no skin though.) He comes after her, and in a panic she grabs the first heavy object she can find: The box. Well, Frank doesn't like that, and backs off, so Kirsty, stalling, throws the box out the window, then runs off outside, picking it back up on the way. The shock of unca' Frank is just too much for poor Kirsty, so she collapses right there in the street.
Back at the house, there's far too much tension, as Frank keeps narrowly avoiding being caught by Larry. There's a great moment where Julia stalls Larry by coming on to him, only to see Frank get right behind Larry, torturing a rat with his knife. Creepy stuff, to be sure.
Kirsty eventually wakes up in a hospital bed. She lies to the doctors, and feigns amnesia, knowing full well what they'd think if they heard the truth. A doctor gives her back to box, in an attempt to restore her memory. Then, the box begins to open itself (FOUL! THIS NEVER HAPPENED AGAIN IN ANY OF THE MOVIES! NOT FAIR!!) and walls break open, etc. Kirsty first finds a not-so-scary upside down monster, where you can see the guys pushing the dolly for it if you look close. Then out come the cenobytes.
There's four cenobytes--A big fat one that's the least intimidating of ANY in all the movies (known as "Butterball"), one with his face stretched tight, revealing big chattery teeth ("The Chatterer"), a female one with what looks like a trachyotomy (uh, "The Female Cenobyte"...plus, she's played by Clive Barker's sister!) and the leader, Pinhead. He's got a bunch of nails in his head, which are connected by intercrossing lines etched on him. Pretty boss, if you ask me.
Instead of going to Hell for (NOT) opening the box, Kirsty cuts a deal: If she can prove (through his own words) that Frank is really back, then the cenobytes might spare her. When she gets back to the house, she tries to warn her father, who looks strangely bloody, and seems to be talking a little different. He explains how he already discovered all that mess with his brother, and he "took care of it". Kirsty goes upstairs and finds a skinless corpse on the ground. Good enough for her. But not for the cenobytes. They pop up and demand the man who made that mess. Kirsty runs downstairs to warn her daddy, but it turns out that it's not daddy anymore. See, Frank skinned Larry, and is pulling a Leatherface on Kirsty.
Dang, but does that suck. But on the bright side, Andrew Robinson is an awesome actor, and it's almost painfully obvious that he's Frank now, just based on his mannerisms.
He and Julia start going after Kirsty, and Frank accidently stabs Julia. Oopsy Kirsty gets Frank into the attic, and then tricks him into saying who he really is. Faster than you can say "Myxyplyx", the cenobytes are there to exact their punishment, and it's not going to be cleanly.
Remember when I said that the cenobytes MIGHT spare Kirsty? Well, they changed their mind. Now they're after her. Kirsty gets a moment of inspiration and decides to try and use the box against the cenobytes. She finds it in Julia's cold dead hands lying chained to the bed (how did she get there?) Turns out the box does work both ways, but as she's zapping the bad guys, the house starts to fall down, and her meddling boyfriend from a subplot so small I didn't mention it comes investigating. Well, eventually they both win out and make it out in time to see the house burn down. Then a weird vagrant who's also from a tiny subplot involving Kirsty comes, takes the box, then turns into a flaming dragon skeleton puppet and flies away. The end. What?
Ruminations
There's a constant debate over which is better, this movie, or its sequel. I've always been in the camp that part two was better. First, this one has to spend time in introductions, while sequels don't worry about that. Second, this had a much smaller budget, and subsequently less effects, and more cheesy ones. And finally, third, not enough Cenobyte action! They're barely in the dang movie! AND, they're not very scary. At one point Butterball goes after Generic Boyfriend WITH A KNIFE. A KNIFE. ooh, scary!
Don't get me wrong, I love this movie. There's so much to this that's one hundred percent original, something very few horror flicks have these days. Also, the DVD commentary is so dang interesting, due to all the little behind the scenes info. Turns out the movie was made even cheaper than the worst effects look like it was. Shows what a little imagination'll do.
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