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Weird Studies

Episode 144: On Clive Barker's 'Hellraiser' and 'The Hellbound Heart,' with Conner Habib

Weird Studies

Phil Ford and J. F. Martel

Society & Culture, Arts, Philosophy

4.8 • 688 Ratings

🗓️ 12 April 2023

⏱️ 103 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In the 1980s, Clive Barker burst onto the cultural scene with The Books of Blood, collections of unforgettable tales of horror, depravity, and decadence the likes of which had been seldom seen since the days of Lautréamont's Les Chants de Maldoror and Huysmans' Là-Bas. In the decades that followed, he went on to create an astounding body of work in fantasy and horror as a writer, artist, and film director. In this episode, author, lecturer, and podcaster Conner Habib joins JF and Phil to discuss what is arguably Barker's best-known work, the 1987 horror classic Hellraiser, as well as the novella that inspired it, "The Hellbound Heart." Preorder Pierre-Yves Martel's album Mer bleue. Support us on Patreon and gain access to Phil's ongoing podcast on Richard Wagner's Ring Cycle. Listen to volume 1 and volume 2 of the Weird Studies soundtrack by Pierre-Yves Martel Find us on Discord Get the T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau! Get your Weird Studies merchandise (t-shirts, coffee mugs, etc.) Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop References Clive Barker, The Hellbound Heart Clive Barker (dir.), Hellraiser Tod Browning (dir.), Freaks Clive Barker, “In the Hills, The Cities” in Books of Blood Wes Craven, A Nightmare on Elm Street Angela Carter, English writer Susan Sontag, “Happenings: An Art of Radical Juxtaposition” Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, What is Philosophy? Sturm und Drang, 18th-century artistic movement Gayle Rubin, American cultural anthropologist Stephen King, It Robert Wise (dir.), The Sound of Music Slavoj Zizek, The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema Robert Wise (dir.), The Haunting David Mamet, On Directing Film Mark Hedsel and David Ovason, The Zealotor David Lynch (dir.), Mulholland Drive Stanley Kubrick, The Shining Coil, Hellraiser Themes Bela Bartok, Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta Golden Section, mathematical ratio Kevin Williamson,, American screenwriter Susan Sontag, Against Interpretation Special Guest: Conner Habib. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Spectrevision Radio

0:02.0

Welcome to Weird Studies, an arts and philosophy podcast with hosts Phil Ford and J.F. Martel.

0:20.0

For more episodes or to support the podcast,

0:23.3

go to weirdstudies.com. Hi, welcome to Weird Studies. This is Phil.

0:54.0

This week we are joined again by Connor Habib.

0:58.1

You might recall Connor's previous appearance on this show when we talked about Joy Williams' novel Breaking and Entering.

1:05.1

You might have heard J.F. and me, or any number of Weird As Fear intellectuals, turn up on his podcast, against everyone with

1:13.0

Connor Habib, which I've always considered a spiritual sibling to weird studies. Or you might

1:18.8

have read Connor's widely praised debut novel Hawk Mountain, or attended one of his classes or live

1:24.8

events, or read some of his sharp-eyed writings on society,

1:29.3

culture, and politics. Conner is a man of many talents. As he says, he is the only person

1:36.0

who has ever won awards for writing, teaching, and porn. In the intro for the show we did with him

1:42.6

on breaking and entering, I borrowed Henry Miller's

1:45.3

line about how listening to Alexander Scriabin's poem of ecstasy is like taking a bath in ice,

1:51.7

cocaine, and rainbows, because that's what it's like to talk to Connor.

1:56.8

And it's also a good description of what it's like to watch Clive Barker's 1987 horror film Hellraiser, and to read the novella on which the film was based,

2:06.5

The Hellbound Heart.

2:08.1

These two texts tell the story of a magical puzzle box that opens the path to a hell realm

2:14.5

of unimaginable pleasures and tortures, unimaginable in part because they occur at a zero point where human distinctions between pleasure and torture collapse entirely.

2:27.8

Connor, J.F., and I jumped into our discussion with very little in the way of preamble. So let me quickly summarize the story told by

2:35.1

Hellraiser and the Hellbound Heart. Frank Cotton is a corrupt sensualist who is sodden and jaded

2:41.9

by the pleasures he has chased all his life. He obtains a magical puzzle box, which, it is said,

...

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