Bruckner, David (Film Director)

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    ‘Hellraiser’ Review: Hurt Me, Please

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    A mystical puzzle box unleashes indescribable agony and knockout special effects in this reimagined horror movie.With its potent blend of sadomasochism, blasphemy and body horror, Clive Barker’s “Hellraiser” (1987) was a genuinely disturbing dip into deviance that multiple sequels failed to replicate. Taking another shot, the suits behind this reimagined “Hellraiser” smartly handed directing duties to David Bruckner, whose résumé might be brief, but whose gift for injecting dread — even into otherwise inert projects — is apparent.Here, Bruckner reveals a new talent: holding his own against practical effects (by a team led by Josh and Sierra Russell) so spectacular that the movie’s lack of a theatrical release is almost criminal. A visual and ideological upgrade on the original, “Hellraiser” centers on Riley (Odessa A’zion), a frazzled addict in her 20s who gains possession of a mysterious puzzle box belonging to Voight (Goran Visnjic), a degenerate millionaire. Configured correctly, the box opens a portal to another dimension, releasing ghoulish creatures called Cenobites who delight in taking the human desire for extreme sensation to its logical conclusion.More intricate and more numerous than their forbears, the Cenobites threaten to steal the show. In particular, Jamie Clayton’s performance as their leader (a role memorably originated by Doug Bradley) has a menacing eroticism that underscores the movie’s thematic focus. Less notable are Riley’s sidekicks, a ho-hum bunch that quickly squanders our patience. And a slack, overlong middle section inside Voight’s mansion — itself an intricately designed puzzle — cries out for a more ruthless editor.As an ambitious allegory for the chaos and torment of addiction, “Hellraiser” works mainly because of A’zion, who gives her scattered character a deeply human desperation. For Riley, demons from hell are hardly scarier than the ones she fights every day.HellraiserRated R for sex, substances and sickening stuff with needles. Running time: 2 hours 1 minute. Watch on Hulu. More

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      ‘The Night House’ Review: Mourning Becomes Her

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      A sensational Rebecca Hall plays a grieving widow besieged by potentially occult forces in this superior creepout.The scares land like blows and the eeriness is pervasive in “The Night House,” David Bruckner’s hyper-focused, unnervingly sure follow-up to his 2018 wilderness frightener, “The Ritual.”Fully owning every one of her scenes, Rebecca Hall plays Beth, a New York schoolteacher whose husband of 14 years, Owen (Evan Jonigkeit), has just taken his own life. Now Beth wanders around the modernist lakeshore home Owen built, guzzling brandy and tortured by the mystery of his death. The only darkness in their marriage, she confesses to her best friend (Sarah Goldberg) and co-workers, was hers, the result of a traumatic experience years before.From among Owen’s things, baffling clues emerge. A creepy suicide note; architectural drawings that appear to reverse the layout of their home; pictures of strange women on his phone, all resembling Beth. Petrifying sights and sounds haunt her nights and inchoate shadows hover around her. A kind neighbor (Vondie Curtis-Hall) tries to help, but it’s clear he can’t see the bloody footprints straggling from the couple’s rowboat and heading toward the house.As the screenplay teases natural explanations for these sinister goings-on — Extreme grief? Nightmares? Mental illness? — Bruckner maintains a death grip on the film’s mood while his cinematographer, Elisha Christian, turns the home’s reflective surfaces into shape-shifting puzzle pieces. The ending is the least daring of the possible options; but Hall is spectacular, flinty and fraying in a role that leaves her often alone and, in one chilling scene, requires her to contort in disquieting ways. As Beth’s skin undulates to an unseen touch and her throat arcs alarmingly backward, Hall shows us a woman for whom terror and desire have become one.The Night HouseRated R for buried bodies and bumps in the night. Running time: 1 hour 48 minutes. In theaters. More