My Heroes Have Always Been Monsters Part 19

from Wikipedia;
Rawhead Rex is a 1986 British/Irish horror film directed by George Pavlou and written by Clive Barker. The film is about a monstrouspagan god's bloody rampage through the Irish countryside, and based on the short story by Clive Barker that originally appeared in vol. 3 of his Books of Blood series. Pavlou and Barker had previously worked together on Transmutations (also known asUnderworld).

There was a tv series when I was a kid that played on USA, hosted by Robert Englund and later re-ran on MTV hosted by Stephen King, all about horror in cinema which is where I learned about Dario Argento, Clive Barker and many others. Rawhead Rex was featured on the program and the sight of that giant freak carrying a severed head through a trailer park put the movie at the top of my get list.

I wasn't disappointed when I got home from the video store! The movie was creepy, violent, and weird and I had little context for what I was seeing, which heightened the thrill. Unlike the slashers of the day, Rawhead reached back to pagan lore and delivered an earthy devil that brought down havoc on an Irish countryside that didn't look so dissimilar to my home in the Tennessee countryside.

By today's standards (and I guess by 1987's standards) Rawhead's look was a bit wonky up close, but the movie still holds up pretty well. Back in 2010 Barker had mentioned that he wanted to remake Rawhead, but I've never heard anything else about that.

Rawhead also showed up in the excellent Nightbreed comic from Epic.

Here's the trailer followed by the best scenes compiled by a fan...

Keep watching the sky, nerds!