SnoReptilePlenty Memorable, crazy movie

Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good

ThedevilChoose When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

Plustown A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

Machiavelli84 In a quiet town in contemporary Ireland, an ancient pagan monster dating back to pre-Christian times, and known as Rawhead Rex, is unleashed from the burial site where he was contained. He proceeds to kill at random, striking at country homes and trailer parks. An American writer doing research on ancient religious sites becomes involved in taking down Rawhead after the monster kills his own son.Generally speaking, the acting is decent in the film, and the setting of the simple Irish town is well realized. The music, composed by Colin Towns, is awesome. As for the overall delivery of the story, well...like a lot of horror movies, it's a cool premise, and the story has potential, but a lot of problems end up marring the experience.Part of the problem is the use of the monster. Rex is pretty much exposed in his full form just about seven minutes into the movie - no build up to the exposure, no suspense about this mysterious thing in the dark, nothing. He pops out of the ground, lifting up his arms and crying out right in front of the camera...and it's not scary. In fact, he looks like a professional wrestler making his entrance. I seriously expected John Cena's theme music to start playing in that scene. It's like taking out the build up of a joke and cutting straight to the punchline; there's something lost in the process.Another problem is how the monster looks. For one, the reason he's called "Rawhead" in the original story is because his head looked like raw meat. The monster in the film, by contrast, looks like an orc from some fantasy movie. I can see why Clive Barker later said he was unhappy by how the monster came across in the movie. For another, the costume looks like something designed for quick close ups or mid shots, rather than prolonged long shorts or action scenes. In some sequences (such as when Rawhead attacks the little boy, or when Rawhead slashes about in the church), it comes across way too obvious that it's a guy in a suit, given how little Rawhead's face moves aside from his mouth.Perhaps one surprising fault was all the clichés or tropes in this movie. You have the lovers out kissing who encounter the monster. You have the police who are annoyingly dense and hostile to the hero's common sense. You have a girl who gets her clothes ripped off by Rawhead for no discernible reason other than we need those bare breasts. And of course, the ending gives you the typical monster cliché of "OH HEY THE MONSTER'S NOT REALLY DEAD! DERPY DOO!" There's absolutely no purpose to the latter - it's like someone said, "Hey! We need to put that in there! Because if a horror movie needs anything, it's an overused jump scare at the end!" All these clichés were especially shocking for me because one of Clive Barker's other films, "Hellraiser," is one of my favorite horror movies precisely because it's so original and unique.It also doesn't help that a lot of things explained in the original story aren't really explained here, or it adds things that aren't satisfactorily explained. Why does Declan automatically join Rawhead? Never explained. What's the deal with Rawhead urinating on people? Never explained. Why is Rawhead so afraid of pregnant woman, and what's the backstory of the special idol that can defeat Rawhead? Never fleshed out. Why is he called "Rawhead Rex" when they establish that he existed before the Roman Empire, and hence the Irish use of Latin ("rex" is Latin for "king") wouldn't have been utilized? Why does NO ONE at the Roman Catholic church know about the story of Rawhead and what lies in the altar, when most Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches out there openly claim to have the pinky finger of some saint from 2000 years ago? Never explained. At some points in this movie I imagined Clive Barker sitting next to me saying, "Yeah, uh...just go with it for now." I've heard Barker and others have thought of remaking this film. I say go for it! It's a cool story, and there's a lot of potential that could probably be realized in a refined second take.

robertmfreeman To sum up the movie, overall: Rawhead Rex is a monster that hunts and devours young boys, stopping only to violate women, and be worshipped as a God. How does he react to the worship? He pisses over his followers, which they eagerly accept as a blessing from their God.This movie is one of the creepiest and most disturbing ever made, and it doesn't matter how cheesy the makeup is. It's creepy and disturbing for the same reason all of Clive Barker's stories are: it's as much sexual fantasy as it is horror.Clive Barker is the creepy old man that sits on his porch all day, asking the young boys who pass if they'd like to sit on his lap and hear a scary story. We're too young to realize why these stories include so much torture and sado-masochistic imagery, and we understand even less why the storyteller seems so excited as he tells it, made all the more excited by the young listener's fear. As a straight, relatively well adjusted man, these dark dreams are all the more chilling, especially at a young age, when everything is already so confusing. Ultimately, no Clive Barker movie is ever as scary or disturbing as the concept itself, and no movie studio will allow the story to be as dark and horrifying as Clive Barker wants it to be. That's why Clive Barker's stories are so great. It's not really about selling books. It's about satisfying dark urges, and terrifying young boys.What I'm getting at is that it doesn't matter if Rawhead Rex looks scary. It's what he does, and the mere concept of his existence that is both terrifying and disturbing, made all the more terrifying when you're young, because let's face it: If Clive Barker dreamed of hunting and devouring young boys, then plenty of others have dreamed it to...and perhaps they aren't as willing as Clive is to merely allow his dark dreams to remain a fantasy.Like it or laugh at it, the story of Rawhead Rex is a dark reflection of the author's soul, and it is that reflection which is truly horrifying.

Alex Webster Awful, awful, awful. I am so disappointed I wasted 89 minutes of my life watching this dross. I'm thinking of turning to mighty god and asking for those valuable minutes back. I remember wondering into the video shop with a mate asking for a video to 'scare us out of our wits'. He told us about Rawhead Rex, and the box read just what we were looking for. How could we not be scared by something described as Pure evil, pure terror and so on. We had hardly got comfy when the film had started and you saw the 'purely evil' Rawhead Rex in the first nano second of the film. So the suspense vanished in a nano second too. So from there the film, leaps from awful to disgraceful. I never thought that the most 'evil thing in history's' idea of being evil would be to trash a caravan by spilling sugar, smashing trinkets and generally making a bit of a teenage mess. If you do see this video nestling in some box at Oxfam, pay no more than 20p (give a £1 to charity) and are curious about it, I suggest you do watch it, just to see how bad it really is. Then dispose of the video promptly to stop anyone else being exposed to it. I wish I had protested at the time, to the maker and protested in the most serious terms about him taking up another career, and also asking for my £1.00 back. I did ask for that back from the video shop arguing that the goods were not sold as described. I suggest that you just watch the hell raiser films over again and again... and again.

jed-estes At my local video store they were selling out old VHS's to make room for DVD's (gotta love progress) and I went searching. It is times like these that you can find rare stuff for almost nothing and that is what I found that day. I found Raw Head Rex. I had to have it because I had heard so much about and while I would rather have a DVD copy this VHS will suffice for. I wanted it because it was Clive Barker's first theatrical film even though he did not direct. I knew he had disowned it but that does not always mean a film is bad. In Raw Head Rex's case Barker was right to disown it. The creature is a muscle guy walking around in a rubber mask and tights. This would be forgivable had the film not been so polished looking. This film reeks of stupidity. The director should have learned a lesson from Steven Spielberg on Jaws. Less is more. They show Raw Head constantly and it makes it look phony. They should have just done some quick cut aways and made it more dark and scary. My opinion on this film is swayed a little in that while I was trying to watch it my roommate insisted on watching 8 mile and turning that up as loud as he could. The whole time i was watching Raw Head kill I was treated to the sounds of Eminium in the background. I don't know if that helped or hindered the movie. Watch this if you like Clive Barker.