As a cultural movement, the Italian Renaissance affected only a small part of the population. Italy was the most urbanized region of Europe, but three quarters of the people were still rural peasants. For this section of the population, life remained essentially unchanged from the Middle Ages.
Although I enjoyed the book, The Hellbound Heart, the movie version, Hellraiser - with the awesomely cheesy blue and yellow 80's FX - is a bit better and mainly because it was more fully realized.
The Dark Half is a very good horror movie which is not surprising considering the novel was written by Stephen King. George Romero a man who has done a wonderful job with horror movies is the man in charge of taking this from a novel to a movie and he delivers. The plot revolves around author Thad Beaumont.