Through his work on both the printed page and on screen, Clive Barker is identified by many as one of the masters of the horror genre. Of all of his works, the one that might be his most popular is The Hellbound Heart, the novella that became the basis of Hellraiser, which, of course, spawned numerous sequels. This examination is more interesting than most of these types, as Barker wrote both the novella and wrote and directed the adaptation. It’s easy to point a finger if you don’t like an aspect of a film adaptation; it’s pretty different when you’re responsible for it.
In general, the novella and the movie are not all that different. The basic plot of the film is the same: man summons Cenobites, Cenobites dismember man, husband and wife move into the house, wife revives man through blood, man kills husband and takes his skin, and girl summons Cenobites to kill man again. If your basic expectation is that the plot has to be the same, then you simply walk away at this point, satisfied that the film did its job and honoured the source material.
However, some differences need to be explored between the movie and the novella. The most notable is Kristy’s character. In the film, she’s Larry’s daughter. In the novella, she’s Rory’s (yes, Barker changed the main character’s name) friend who has romantic feelings for him. Kristy still does the same things in the novella: spy on Julia, battle Frank, get the box, summon the Cenobite, etc. However, that relationship change is very interesting. It’s a given that Kristy will be loyal to Larry, given she’s his daughter; it’s something else when your friend, who you have unrequited feelings for, gets you involved in something as terrible as facing down his undead brother and a legion of monsters from a Hell dimension who are into sadomasochism.
The Julia character, while extremely similar, has subtle differences. Yes, she lures men to the house and kills them for Frank. Yes, she is in love with Frank and not her husband. Yes, she is frigid and obviously unhappy in her marriage. In the novella, though, she seems a lost soul throughout; the discovery of Frank in the “wet room” and her murderous behaviour is a psychotic cry for help. She dies in her wedding dress, a clear indication that she realizes that she made a horrible decision to marry Rory and is hoping for a do-over with Frank. In the film, she becomes increasingly bent with every murder but shows humanity, freaking out when Larry is trying to make love to her and begging him not to. It is only after so many murders that she becomes a monster, and unlike the novella, she has sex with Frank after he skins Rory, indicating her complete submission to her darker desires.
Unlike the movie, the novella does not have a bizarre homeless man who turns into a creature at the film’s end and absconds with the box. I feel like that was Barker’s attempt to show that the box can be sold to anyone (which is confirmed in the film’s final scene), setting up a possible sequel without needing to use the film’s characters. In the novella, Kristy possesses the box at the end and observes that broken hearts can be like puzzles, a theme for both herself and Julia, who are both in love with men who don’t love them back.
Other than that, there are slight differences. As mentioned, Rory becomes Larry in the movie. The female Cenobite is more prominent in the book and has a dialogue with Kristy after being summoned to take care of Frank. The Cenobites initially talk to Frank when he summons them, giving him an idea of what’s in store for him instead of attacking him immediately after being summoned. The religious iconography and imagery throughout the film (the large Jesus in the window on the stair landing and the statues in the garden, Frank being “crucified” by chains in the end while exclaiming “Jesus wept”) are missing from the novella. There’s also no boyfriend to assist Kristy in facing off against the denizens of Hell at the end of the film (and no weird monster chases her in a Hell labyrinth when she summons the Cenobites). I assume most of these changes were by Mr. Barker to add run time, thrills, or give deeper insight into characters that he could not do in the novella.
So, there you have it. Reading the book or watching the film will mostly give you the same experience, with the most noteworthy change being the nature of Kristy’s relationship with Frank’s brother. Other than that, there are some minor changes, some that are clear (adding monsters, omitting dialogue from the book for pacing, etc.) and some that aren’t (changing Rory to Larry). Either way, read the book or watch the movie, the experience should be similar, which equals a Hell of a good time.