Rawhead Rex (1986 film)
Summary
A U.S. historian takes his wife and son to an Irish town where the oozing devil incarnate dwells.
Details
- Release Date: 1986
- Country/Language: UK/Ireland/USA, English
- Genres/Technical: Horror, Fantasy
- Runtime: 1 hr 29 min
- Starring: David Dukes, Kelly Piper, Hugh O'Conor
- Director: George Pavlou
- Writer: Clive Barker
- Producer/Production Co: Alpine Pictures, Green Man Productions
- View Trailer: (link)
Ratings
MPAA Ratings
- Rated: R (Violence, Profanity, Adult Content)
Tentacle Ratings
A rough measure of how "Lovecraftian" the work is:
- S____ (One Tentacle: Debateably Lovecraftian; has almost no direct connection to Lovecraft's work)
The original short story was somewhat more "Lovecraftian" than the film adaptation, which seems to have lost a lot of Barker's subtlety and symbolism (if Shub-Niggurath is taken as a Lovecraftian deity of the feminine principle incarnate as a monster, then Barker's Rawhead is something of the male counterpart, a kind of pagan hyper-masculine "sealed evil in a can" accidentally released on a rural Irish town, where he can only be defeated by pagan symbols of femininity hidden under the local church run by priests turned cultists).
Note: This rating is not intended as a measure of quality, merely of how closely related to Lovecraftian "Weird" fiction the work is.
Reviews
Review Links:
- Hypergorea, (link) - "Really the movie needed to build more of an atmosphere of a dark fairy tale, with a greater sense of the rural landscape - in other words, in needed to draw on the very folk-tales from which Rawhead sprang...."
Synopsis
Spoiler Section (Highlight to Read)
Ireland will never be the same after Rawhead Rex, a particularly nasty demon, is released from his underground prison by an unwitting farmer. The film follows Rex's cross country rampage, while a man struggles to stop it.
Notes
Comments, Trivia, Dedication
Associated Mythos Elements
- fiction: Clive Barker, "Rawhead Rex" (from Books of Blood)
- Deity: Rawhead Rex (compare/contrast to Shub Niggurath)
- Artefact: Stone Idols, Altars, Monoliths, etc.
- Race: human cultists
Keeper Notes
External links, See Also
For more rural Lovecraftian horror, see also:
