Rawhead Rex (1986) Review

Rawhead Rex (1986) Review

A farmer tries to move a giant stone pillar from his field and unwittingly unleashes Rawhead Rex: an ancient pagan god with hypnotic glowing red eyes and a taste for flesh. Meanwhile, a man is travelling through Ireland with his family for work, photographing and researching old religious artifacts. He crosses paths with Rawhead, who is being tracked by local authorities, though they have no idea who or what they are after. The scenes with the man and his family are pretty average, but it’s in the scenes with the eponymous demon where Rawhead Rex really excels. 

 

There’s no messing around here; Rawhead is shown in full early in the film, and appears often throughout the runtime. He clomps from scene to scene, killing and devouring people without hesitation, often in quite brutal fashion. There’s no subtlety or build-up, he just runs in and kills. It’s blunt and wonderful. Some of the attacks are even in broad daylight. Rawhead doesn’t care, he just wants to cause mayhem, and does he ever. The gore is juicy and explicit, and the effects for the gore are good, but the effects for Rawhead himself are another matter. 

I saw one review that called him “Rubberhead Rex” and I can’t recall where I saw it exactly, but didn’t want to take credit. It’s a very funny and appropriate name substitution. The look of Rawhead is rather amusing. He’s an eight-or-nine-foot-tall humanoid, with attire and frizzy black hair reminiscent of a lead singer in an 80’s hair metal band, as well as a protruding jaw of giant teeth over another set of smaller teeth, and giant eyes that literally glow red. Two heads were created, one for close-ups, where the face and eyes have more detail, and one for further away shots where the eyes are just plain red bulbs. The effects aren’t terrible, but are very obviously fake, because they’re shown so plainly without being hidden. It makes him more-funny-than-scary, but certainly entertaining and interesting to look at.  

Rawhead Rex was written by Clive Barker, adapting his story of the same name from one of his Books of Blood. In the story, the demon is described as looking like a giant penis, but that was changed for the film for obvious reasons. Apparently, he was upset with the way the movie came out, which is what led to him taking matters into his own hands and writing and directing the adaptation of his novella The Hellbound Heart, which became Hellraiser. Hey, if Mr. Barker’s dissatisfaction with Rawhead Rex is what it took to get Hellraiser, then I’m glad. But, I actually really enjoy Rawhead Rex, even if it isn’t technically that good. 

I can’t think of a better Ireland-set horror film than Rawhead Rex. It takes the typical monster-on-the-loose premise used over and over and makes it a little different, with a badass monster that has a real attitude.