Almost fairytale-like with a fantasy horror twist
Last night I watched Hellraiser for the umpteenth time and something dawned on me that I never thought about before. Maybe I'm not the first one to hit upon this.
More than just a standard horror picture about a twisted family drama with supernatural elements, Hellraiser is like a child's fairytale for grown-ups.
It plays upon the classic step-daughter vs evil step-mother concept that is most popularly known through works like Cinderella. It's not exactly like that, but close enough where Julia is the sinister queen of the castle and Kirsty is the sweet and innocent step-daughter who loves her dad, but is merely on amicable terms with Julia. To add to Kirsty's almost too-perfect Disney-like qualities, she's an employee of a pet shop, which makes her animal friendly, ala Cinderella again.
The casting of the two actresses who play Julia and Kirsty seem to be subconscious in an effort to communicate their malice and innocence to the audience. Claire Higgins has the facial features to visually portray Julia with her small, slitlike eyes, denoting that she's malicious and distrustful. And Ashley Lawrence couldn't look any more different. Her big eyes are genuinely friendly and inviting, and in context it gives her the quality of a Disney princess - someone you can sympathise with even when she doesn't have centre stage in the first half of the film. In RedLetterMedia's YouTube review of Avatar, Mr Plinkett digs deeper into this visual convention that James Cameron may have used to provoke subconscious sympathy for the Na'vi and distrust for the human colonists.
And where does Pinhead fit into all this? He might very well be a stand-in for the Mad Hatter, as Kirsty quite figuratively ventures into the proverbial "rabbit hole" after she solves the Lament Configuration.
I'm not sure if this analysis has some tenuous points, but I think Clive Barker was more inspired by fairytale literature and classic fairytale/fantasy cinema than what's been previously stated or discussed.