Hellbound details

A sequel of sorts to my earlier post... Chris Herzog's warm appraisal of Arrow's Hellraiser boxset in the latest issue of Video Watchdog has me regretting my decision to make-do with my old Anchor Bay set. Chris is especially complimentary about the transfers, particularly Hellbound which I'm most keen to see in HD. I've always been fond of spotting cultural references tucked away in the corners of the frame, say a book or a record casually placed within the camera's field of vision by a director or set designer. Hellbound includes a few sequences set inside Dr. Channard's study which is littered with all sorts of esoteric lore - spectral photographs, prints of pentagrams and sigils, Enochian symbols and so on. The limitations of DVD doesn't permit much scrutiny, but one can easily make out the famous 1912 photo of Aleister Crowley in his magician’s robes hanging on the wall, or when the camera fleetingly gazes upon Channard's preserved specimens, a copy of David Barash's renowned book The Whisperings Within: Evolution and the Origin of Human Nature sits nearby. In a later scene when Kirsty grabs the photograph of Captain Elliot Spencer, one can briefly glimpse a book entitled The Internal Inferno, which I believe is a mock-up, but nevertheless a nice little addition by the set designer Michael Buchanan that 99% of the audience will pay no attention to. Perhaps, the increased clarity Hellbound Blu will reveal more interesting curios...