Starring David Dukes, Kelly Piper, Hugh O’Conor, Cora Venus Lunny, Ronan Wilmot, Niall Toibin, Niall O’Brien and Heinrich von Schellendorf. Written by Clive Barker. Directed by George Pavlou. Produced by Kevin Attew, Don Hawkins, David Collins, Al Burgess and Paul Gwynn. Alpine Pictures/Green Man Productions

An American author, Howard Hallenbeck (Dukes), travels around Ireland with his family, doing research for his book focusing on the persistence of sacred sites. The Hallenbecks are staying in a small village, where Howard is checking out the local church’s intriguing stained glass panels, when an enraged, toothsome monster is released from beneath an ancient menhir.

This beast goes on the rampage, and one of the creature’s victims is Howard’s son, provoking the upset & angry author to seek out a way to destroy the monster, but there are those, including the church’s rector, Declan O’Brien, who regard the critter as a pagan god…

RAWHEAD REX started life as a short story included in Volume Three of Clive Barker’s BOOKS OF BLOOD anthology series. The original story is set in Kent, and features a folkloric humanoid monster, a kind of raw-fleshed, ferocious personification of hyper-toxic-masculinity. This berserk, barbaric boogeyman devours innocent children and violates women, though the brutal man-beast has an aversion to pregnant females and those who are menstruating: they cause a sense of fear within the ancient, feral being. Barker wrote the screenplay for the film adaptation, but he was pretty dissatisfied with the way the movie eventually turned out, prompting him to direct the next movie version of one of his stories himself, that film being HELLRAISER (1987), based on Barker’s novella THE HELLBOUND HEART.

Okay, I can fully understand why Clive Barker felt let down by the cinematic representation of his original yarn. There was no way George Pavlou’s low budget flick was going to live up to the impactful, visceral tone and atmosphere of Barker’s source material. I really like that original story, it’s one of my favourite Barker tales. And yet…   

…I believe that this film is definitely in need of reappraisal!

Maybe this sounds like I’m damning the movie with faint praise when I say that the practical effects monster on show here is better than so much of the cheap CGI dross churned out over the last couple of decades, but I do mean this as a compliment. Sure, Rawhead Rex’s scowling face doesn’t have an awful lot of different facial expressions, but it’s still damn satisfying to see an actual creature suit being used, something that is really there, really in the scenes! I love the fact this beast-man is basically a big, leather-clad humanoid monster with a huge maw full of teeth!

The special effects team had a frantic four week deadline to create the Rawhead Rex creature: a body suit, with an animatronic monster head for close-ups, brought the snarling monster to life in the movie. And, by god, it works just fine!

The film is not as transgressive as the short story, but it is enthusiastically gory, and there is a lot of fun/cool stuff to look out for, like the great shot of Rawhead standing on a hill holding aloft a severed head, his beastly breath illuminated as he exhales. And then there’s the attack on the caravan park: faces are slashed and boobs get revealed as the wild, primal creature runs amok! And let’s not forget the blasphemous baptism scene (taken from the original story), where Rawhead bathes the kneeling Declan O’Brien with its urine!

O’Brien tells his boss, Reverend Coot, that Rawhead Rex is a god, a deity that was here long before Christ: before civilisation, Rawhead was the king of this place. Later on, O’Brien utters a classic line as he forces Coot to meet the deadly Rawhead: “Get upstairs, fuckface, I can’t keep god waiting!”

The barechested, muscled Rawhead (played by Heinrich von Schellendorf) has glowing red eyes, which have the ability to overwhelm the minds of some victims (the creature doesn’t have this power in the original story). “For you!” Says a burning cop, who has become one of Rawhead’s acolytes, as he immolates his fellow officers!

Salvation is hidden within the church’s altar, in the form of a small, stone earth-goddess-style idol, which a woman must wield, leading to an optical FX-drenched showdown, as Howard’s wife Elaine (Piper) uses the idol to unleash supernatural forces to drive Rawhead back into the ground. This is a colourful, rousing fantasy-horror finale!

Honestly, I don’t believe RAWHEAD REX deserves the derision levelled at it from many critics. It is an unpretentious, cheesy-but-satisfying, 80s-tastic entertainment, a B-movie that makes sure its rampaging, rubbery, rockin’, rampant god-beast is given a lot of time on screen! And for that I respect it!