Highly Overrated But Still Good

It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

Clive Barker is one of my favorite authors and his probably most famous work are stories published in six Books of Blood. First three definitely belong in horror hall of fame. This is adaptation of second story from third book. To what extent is this adaptation faithful to original story I can not say with much certainty because I read Books of Blood last time 17 years ago, but this movie inspired me to read them again as soon as possible. Considering fact that Barker personally adapted story for screen I believe that faithfulness is not too questionable. Story is great and it will be obvious to everyone who ever read any Barker's work that he is behind this plot, even if they did not read this particular story. Acting, directing and effects are decent and atmosphere is right. But Rawhead himself is complete failure. Monster is so unconvincing that he nullifies all horror effects other elements of the movie achieved. They should have used good old tricks to avoid showing it directly. They could have show it in dark, just glimpse of it, or its shadow, or even shoot its scenes through its eyes. If my memory serves me right, in original story that's exactly the way it's done and story is written from monster's point of view. This way they would amplify horror and avoid spoiling everything with stupid and unconvincing monster mask. Overall, this is must watch for fans of Barker and 80's B production, but the rest of you should skip it.6/10

For a film that quickly found obscurity RAWHEAD REX is a horror film with a very poor reputation . On its release it quickly disappeared without a mummer and even in the VHS era it was a film that hardly anyone thought was worth hiring from a video shop . One legacy it did do was that screenwriter and original author Clive Barker decided if you wanted someone to adapt your work as a film then it's a good idea to direct the movie yourself which led to Barker directing HELLRAISER , one of the most memorable and haunting horror films ever made . So is RAWHEAD REX as bad as is often made out ?In truth it's not dreadful but neither is much good . Seen over 20 years after it was produced there's something painfully old fashioned in every aspect of its conception and execution . ,. A monster stalking the nocturnal countryside , it's something that we've all seen in science fiction B movies from the 1950s or DOCTOR WHO , or read about in medieval folklore , it's a story that's effectively centuries old and RAWHEAD REX brings nothing to to this type of tale . Perhaps most disappointingly Barker brings little new to his original short story and merely pads it out with needless characters and the occasional bloody set piece One obvious problem with the film is the production values which are often laughable and unfortunately this extends to the eponymous monster itself which resembles a man in a badly fitting rubber suit and is never menacing and often laughable as it head wobbles around whilst dispatching sundry monster fodder . victims . . The horror genre is not known for its cerebral ethos but when you've got a monster that elicits chuckles rather than chills then someone has made a huge mistake In summary RAWHEAD REX is a very cheesy old fashioned creature feature . That said it's completely unpretentious which is not something that can used to describe much of Barker's output and many of us have a soft spot for this type of silly B movie horror

I've given this a 10 to bump up the average, because 4.2 doesn't reflect the core 'horror' quality that is a strong undercurrent to this movie. I saw Rawhead when I was quite a bit younger but all those who saw it with me said the same thing; that this movie contains a genuine flavor of something you can't quite put your finger on, but other directors / collectors of horror should take note of.Don't dismiss this movie, its stupid on many levels, but like Evil Dead (One) contains that low budget horror magic that only a few directors can capture.Am I wrong?

Awful, awful, awful. I am so disappointed I wasted 89 minutes of my life watching this dross. I'm thinking of turning to mighty god and asking for those valuable minutes back. I remember wondering into the video shop with a mate asking for a video to 'scare us out of our wits'. He told us about Rawhead Rex, and the box read just what we were looking for. How could we not be scared by something described as Pure evil, pure terror and so on. We had hardly got comfy when the film had started and you saw the 'purely evil' Rawhead Rex in the first nano second of the film. So the suspense vanished in a nano second too. So from there the film, leaps from awful to disgraceful. I never thought that the most 'evil thing in history's' idea of being evil would be to trash a caravan by spilling sugar, smashing trinkets and generally making a bit of a teenage mess. If you do see this video nestling in some box at Oxfam, pay no more than 20p (give a £1 to charity) and are curious about it, I suggest you do watch it, just to see how bad it really is. Then dispose of the video promptly to stop anyone else being exposed to it. I wish I had protested at the time, to the maker and protested in the most serious terms about him taking up another career, and also asking for my £1.00 back. I did ask for that back from the video shop arguing that the goods were not sold as described. I suggest that you just watch the hell raiser films over again and again... and again.