11. Hellraiser (2022).

The Hell Priest (Jamie Clayton) torments a victim.

Release Date: Sept. 28, 2022. Running Time: 121 minutes. Screenplay by: Ben Collins, Luke Piotrowski. Story by: David S. Goyer, Ben Collins, Luke Piotrowski. Directed by: David Bruckner. Produced by: David S. Goyer, Keith Levine, Clive Barker, Marc Toberoff.


THE PLOT:

Riley (Odessa A'zion) is a recovering alcoholic and drug addict. She's staying with her brother, Matt (Brandon Flynn), his boyfriend, Colin (Adam Faison), and their roommate, Nora (Aoife Hinds) while working a dead-end job and dreaming of better things. In short, the perfect setup for a sitcom.

At least, until Trevor (Drew Starkey), whom she met in a twelve-step program, offers an opportunity for some easy money by breaking into an abandoned warehouse. They're hoping for gold bars or bonds. What they find is a puzzle box, which captures Riley's attention enough for her to bring it home with her.

After an argument with Matt drives her out of the apartment, Riley relapses with some pills, opens the box, and sees a vision of demons. Then her brother comes to rescue her. He cuts his hand on a secret blade in the puzzle box, only to disappear immediately after... and Riley sees the box change shape with his disappearance.

Riley connects the box to Roland Voight (Goran Višnjić), a wealthy businessman who disappeared six years earlier. She goes to his now derelict mansion and finds Voight's journal, which describes the box and its six configurations, which move from the initial cube-like Lament Configuration all the way to its final form, the Leviathan Configuration, which grants the user an audience with "God."

Riley believes that if she can solve the puzzle, she can get her brother back. But each of the box's configurations requires a new blood sacrifice. She still has three steps left to get her wish - but the price may be too high!

Riley (Odessa A'zion) and her friends are hunted by the Cenobites.

CHARACTERS:

Riley: The Riley we first meet is selfish, defensive, and more than a little belligerent - a fair characterization for an addict but not necessarily one that encourages viewers to want to spend time with her. We see enough of her daily life to know that she relies heavily on her brother. When the Cenobites begin stalking her and her friends, her first impulse is to say that Matt would know what to do (unlikely). She gradually emerges as a leader in her own right, keeping the group moving toward the relative safety of Voight's house and hatching a plan to try to save them, even as she still hopes to somehow get her brother back.

Colin: The boyfriend of Riley's brother, who is emotionally supportive to both of them. When Matt gets angry and kicks Riley out, Colin urges her to stay, insisting that this is just a bad night and that things will be better in the morning. Matt's disappearance has to be affecting him too, but he only truly lets that show in the immediate aftermath before setting his feelings aside to try to help Riley. True, his initial worries are more about her relapsing than about running into literal creatures from hell - but even when the demons appear, he manages to keep it together better than almost anyone would.

Trevor: Riley's new boyfriend, who kicks off this situation when he leads her to the puzzle box. After Matt disappears, he tries to take the box away from Riley, which she sees as a betrayal. When they come to find her in the second half, he and Colin fall to arguing almost immediately, leaving it to Riley to keep them both focused on the immediate problem.

Nora: Matt and Colin's roommate, Nora seems like an entirely decent person. She's not above teasing her friends, casually and visibly eavesdropping when Matt and Riley argue, but she's also ready to drop everything to help when needed. At Voight's house, when Trevor starts to pour a drink, she lightly reproves him for it: "We don't drink when Riley's around."

Matt: Riley's brother, whose disappearance motivates her actions for the rest of the movie. He behaves almost like her father, trying to set rules and boundaries that she inevitably kicks against. He kicks her out, only for the initial anger to fade, at which point his guilt leads him out to search for her. When he finds her in a stupor, he focuses on getting help for her, even when he cuts his hand - quite badly - on the puzzle box.

Voight: Goran Višnjić, as the occult-obsessed billionaire, grants considerable screen presence. His Voight conveys complete self-interest. "I get what I want!" he declares defiantly, treating dealings with demons as if he's in the midst of a real estate transaction. He cares nothing about others, and the movie opens with him tricking a young man (Kit Clarke) into solving the puzzle box so that he can sacrifice him for a wish. You don't have to have seen any of the other Hellraiser films to guess that Voight gets his wish, but not in the way that he'd have preferred.

"We want you to proceed." Pinhead urges Riley to continue solving the puzzle.

JAMIE CLAYTON AS PINHEAD:

"What is it you pray for? ...What would it feel like? A joyful note, without change, without end? Heaven? There's no music in that... There is so much more the body can be made to feel - and you'll feel it all before we're through."

This film bills Pinhead simply as "The Priest," because co-producer Clive Baker, author of the original novella and writer/director of the original film, hated the "Pinhead" nickname. Nice try, Mr. Barker, but I'm pretty sure everyone will continue referring to the character as Pinhead.

The book describes the Hell Priest as having no gender and a feminine voice, something Jamie Clayton conveys. The heavy costume severely restricted Clayton's movements. This has the same effect as it did on Doug Bradley's initial performance, with the stillness and rigid posture granting a formality to every step and gesture. Also like Bradley in the first film (far less so in the sequels), Pinhead doesn't threaten; she teases and promises, and you are best advised to avoid receiving any of her "gifts."

Though Clayton is more book accurate, I'm not remotely saying that she's better than Doug Bradley. Bradley's Pinhead is a horror icon. At his best, he was mesmerizing, alternating between anger and amusement, between impatience and weariness, often with just the tiniest shift of tone. Still, Clayton's a reasonably close second, and I would not in any way object to more films featuring this version of the character.

Riley stares at the puzzle box's newest configuration.

THOUGHTS:

David Bruckner's 2022 Hellraiser reboot is the first entry since Bloodline to have official involvement from Clive Barker. It's probably no coincidence that it's also the best film in the series since the first two, and probably the best since the 1987 original. 

That said, and as fond as I am of the early Hellraiser movies... This doesn't exactly clear a formidably high bar. The first movie remains excellent even decades later. Other entries are "flawed but ambitious," while the rest range from mediocre to downright awful.


WHAT DOESN'T WORK:

Hellraiser (2022) is a reboot, so it's fair enough that it changes some of the lore. A few of those changes are ones that I like... but I don't like Cenobites claiming innocent victims. "It is not hands that call us" is a lot more interesting - though, in fairness, after the first two films, the original series deviated from that principle more often than it stuck to it.

The movie's biggest problem is its length. The story here would make for a really good 100-minute horror flick. At 121 minutes, it feels overstretched. The plot doesn't properly kick into gear until Riley reaches Voight's estate, and that doesn't happen until the 50-minute mark. It gets rather good at that point and stays good through the end - but I did a fair amount of seat-shifting before then, with the first half hour coming distressingly close to boring me.

This would be fine if that time had been used to build memorable characters. Except for Riley, the members of the core group are as two-dimensional as the supporting casts of the direct-to-video entries. They never move beyond their initial descriptors: Brother, Boyfriend, Brother's Boyfriend, Roommate.

There's a memorable kill scene at the halfway mark in which one of the group is left to Pinhead's nonexistent mercy. Everything about the scene works: the victim's terror, Pinhead's speech, the ghastly cleverness to Pinhead's act and how that act ties in with her words. It's a great horror movie bit, disturbing and gripping all at the same moment - and if I had actually cared about the victim, it would have been truly unforgettable.

Voight's estate is a puzzle box in its own right.

WHAT WORKS, AND OFTEN QUITE WELL:

This film makes good use of the idea of the puzzle, something that was entirely lost in the earlier sequels. Each new configuration requires effort, and the progression from one shape to the next provides a goal beyond merely opening it. The individual bits of the box rotate, with shifting patterns according to those manipulations. Voight's is a puzzle box in its own right. It's surrounded by metal gates and doors that open and close with the flip of switches. The landscape shifts in ways that resemble the shifts of the box, an ominous visual to herald the demons' arrival and a terrific visual echo.

Riley is an addict, and her use of the box echoes facets of addiction. In narrative terms, the puzzle box is Riley's only hope of getting her brother back. It also works as a stand-in for her addiction. As Voight demonstrated, the box's promise is much like a drug's promise of satisfaction - a lie, a trick. There's no way to "win," and the Cenobites' gifts will not please those who receive them. But when the others try to get her to see this, she lashes out, even snapping at Trevor for betraying her when he tries to take it from her. Whether Matt even can get his resurrection or not is questionable. What's not in question is that Riley's fixation threatens to destroy not only her, but also the people who came to help her.

Though the first half is too slow, patient viewers will be rewarded with a strong second half. The barrier surrounding Voight's house allows the characters to get to something approximating safety, which allows them to think, react, and plan. But they are also under siege from that moment, with the Cenobites waiting outside: patient and unmoving as they await the blood that is their due. It's a situation well-suited to building tension.

I also quite like the ending. I won't discuss it, because I don't want to risk spoiling it for anyone who hasn't seen the movie. But it's an excellent finale in terms of both story and theme, and I found it vastly more satisfying than a "Final Girl" manipulating the box and shouting, "Go to hell!" at Pinhead.

Riley confronts the Cenobites.

OVERALL:

Hellraiser (2022) is a good movie on its own terms, and it's exactly the resurrection that this series needed after years in the low budget direct-to-video graveyard. It has its issues, notably a painfully slow start and a bland supporting cast. It's clear watching it, however, that thought and effort went into its making.

There's room for improvement. But for the first time in a long time, I find myself hoping that there will be another Hellraiser. If another movie refined and built on the elements that worked, and rejected the ones that didn't, I think the result might be something special.


Overall Rating: 7/10.

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10. Hellraiser: Judgment.

An obsessed detective (Damon Carney) hunts for a serial killer.

Release Date: Feb. 13, 2018. Running Time: 81 minutes. Screenplay by: Gary J. Tunnicliffe. Directed by: Gary J. Tunnicfliffe. Produced by: Michael Leahy.


THE PLOT:

Detective Sean Carter (Damon Carney) and his brother, Detective David Carter (Randy Wayne) are investigating a series of murders committed by "The Preceptor," who targets victims who violated one of the Ten Commandments. After several killings, the Carters are no closer to finding the culprit, leading to Detective Christine Egerton (Alexandra Harris) being assigned to assist - something that Sean does not appreciate.

Sean follows a lead at the next crime scene to an apparently abandoned house. But the house is actually a gateway. Soon, the detective finds himself in the company of demons, being interrogated by the Auditor (Gary J. Tunnicliffe) in a bureaucratic process that vaguely resembles a trial.

Sean manages to escape, but not before grabbing something to prove this experience was actually real: a mysterious puzzle box...

Detectives Carter and Carter, a little too ready for action.

CHARACTERS:

Det. Sean Carter: Tell me if you've heard this one before: Detective Carter, a war veteran who suffered from PTSD, is taking his current case far too personally. He forgets his wife's birthday, leading to friction with her. Oh, and he once had a drinking problem, so you know that it's only a matter of time before he ends up in the bottle again. Actor Damon Carney is fine given the limits of this stock character... but I have to admit that, while watching, I kept mentally labeling him "discount Christopher Meloni."

Det. David Carter: Sean may be a walking cliché, but at least he has a personality. That's more than can be said for his younger brother, who's just sort of "there" until the final Act. David is more accepting of Christine's addition to the team than Sean is, and he's generally friendlier and more composed, but there's not much more to say about him than that. It doesn't help that Randy Wayne gives the weakest performance of the main cast.

Det. Christine Egerton: The detective newly assigned, which would seem to make her an obvious point-of-view character. Nope. For the first half, she's mostly on the periphery, with Sean receiving the bulk of the screen time. We eventually learn that she was assigned in part to evaluate Sean's mental state. This should have been revealed to us at the start, as it would have added a layer to the story and to her interactions with the two brothers. Instead, it's saved up as a particularly limp plot twist, with the grand reveal being her... um, just telling David about it.

The Auditor: "Pain is nothing more than a common currency. I will spend some on you, if you like." Writer/director Gary J. Tunnicliffe pulls triple duty as the demon clerk who hears and types up confessions as the first step in the "judgment" process. Normally, I'd be wary about the writer/director casting himself in the best role... except that Tunnicliffe is terrific. The Auditor is a wonderful creation. He's unfailingly polite, even when threatening a victim. When Sean skips the usual pleading and agrees to simply get on with the process, the Auditor is impressed, sharing information about the Lament Configuration as a reward for his cooperation.

Paul T. Taylor as Pinhead. At least this time
it's a good Doug Bradley impression.

PAUL T. TAYLOR AS PINHEAD:

This is another case of an actor doing a Doug Bradley impersonation... though unlike Stephan Smith Collins and Fred Tatasciore in Revelations, actor Paul T. Taylor does a good job with what he's given. It helps that he actually looks the part. His voice is treated so that it carries the appropriate timbre. He's also kept, for the most part, in shadows, making the physical differences less glaring than in the previous film.

The biggest issue with this film's Pinhead isn't the actor. It's that the script gives him very little to do. For the first hour of the movie, he just sort of lurks around the periphery, only getting any focus at the very end. Then he gets so much focus that the script seems to suddenly not care about the fates of the other characters. That said, Pinhead gets a nice reaction when an interloper talks about suffering, with him taking genuine offense at someone daring to think they actually comprehend what the word means:

"You know nothing of suffering. I welcome its warm embrace. I exist only to share its meaning."

That's just a bit of an upgrade from Pinhead sneering, "Fool!" at victims in Revelations.


THOUGHTS:

It is instantly apparent that Hellraiser: Judgment is trying. Like Revelations, it's harmed by an aggressively low budget. Unlike Revelations, real attempts have been made to mitigate this. Lighting is kept low, both to disguise the limits of the sets and to lend atmosphere. The camera is placed to maximize visual effectiveness. Most scenes are kept short, with intercutting between locations creating a sense of momentum. Writer/director Gary J. Tunnicliffe may be working with a very low budget, but he does all he can to keep it from feeling "cheap."

Unfortunately, while he does a creditable job as director, his script has issues, particularly with the serial killer plot that takes up the bulk of the running time.

Detective Egerton (Alexandra Harris) at a crime scene.

WHAT DOESN'T WORK - THE PRECEPTOR:

The main thread follows three detectives as they hunt for The Preceptor, who picks his victims based on their violations of the Ten Commandments. Yes, it's an ultra low-budget retread of David Fincher's Seven... which mainly makes me wish I was watching that film instead.

This isn't new ground for Hellraiser. Inferno, the first and best of the direct-to-video sequels, already did a serial killer storyline. That film had its issues, but it took time to make viewers understand why its otherwise hopelessly corrupt protagonist was so obsessed with finding "The Engineer," seeing it as a path to redemption. Here, despite the characters repeatedly talking about how much Sean is losing himself in the case, I never feel any sense of urgency, not from him and not from the other detectives either.

Thanks to the very small budget, there are few characters outside of the three detectives, leaving little opportunity for them to properly investigate. They mostly just visit crime scenes and chat about what's in their files. As a result, there's not much sense of the story moving forward until the halfway mark. Also, because there are so few characters, it's remarkably easy to guess who the killer is.

The Auditor (Gary J. Tunnicliffe), hell's bureaucrat.
He's by far the most interesting thing in this movie.

WHAT DOES WORK - THE DEMONS:

The serial killer plot may be a bust, but the scenes involving the demons are surprisingly good.

A cold open sets up the "judgment" procedure and introduces the Adjudicator, Assessor, and Jury. It's a long sequence, with a full twelve minutes following the process from start to finish before the titles. I think it goes a little too far with gross-out moments, but there's still something genuinely eerie in the sheer bureaucracy of it. The steps are bizarre and increasingly grotesque, but they have a certain formality. The results feel a bit like Saw or Hostel got cross-bred with Franz Kafka's The Trial.

That opening makes it all the more effective when Sean follows a lead to that same house, only to find himself going through the same trial. The film opened by showing us the normal procedure. When the process takes a different route with Sean, it's immediately intriguing for those differences.

The demon strand ends up taking over near the end. It's too bad it didn't take center stage sooner, as it is vastly more interesting than anything about the half-hearted police story.


OVERALL:

I'd rate Hellraiser: Judgment as the second best of the direct-to-video sequels. Admittedly, that doesn't exactly clear a high bar, and this remains a very flawed movie. The serial killer plot wouldn't pass muster on a midseason Criminal Minds episode, and it's never very convincingly linked to the demon strand. However, the thread involving the demons is genuinely interesting, with the idea of a hell with its own bureaucratic processes an intriguing one.

It's a shame that couldn't have been at the center of this film, rather than a subpar Seven knockoff. But the scenes with the Adjudicator, and later with Pinhead, are enough for me to consider this worth a watch despite the other shortcomings. If nothing else, the Dimension Hellraiser series manages to end with at least a little bit of dignity, something that seemed unimaginable just one film earlier.


Overall Rating: 5/10.

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9. Hellraiser: Revelations.

Emma Craven (Tracey Fairaway) finds a puzzle box
among her missing brother's possessions. Tedium ensues.

Release Date: Mar. 18, 2011. Running Time: 75 minutes. Screenplay by: Gary J. Tunnicliffe. Directed by: Victor Garcia. Produced by: Aaron Ockman, Joel Soisson.


THE PLOT:

Nico (Jay Gillespie) and Steven (Nick Eversman) take an impromptu trip to Mexico, with Nico enthusing that this trip will allow his friend to finally lose his virginity. Their little vacation quickly goes awry. A series of events that seem like the plot of a rejected Hangover knockoff culminate in Nico opening the Lament Configuration and summoning the Cenobites, while Steven looks on in horror.

A year later, their families gather together to eat and drink and... not much else, really. Emma (Tracey Fairaway), Steven's sister and Nico's girlfriend, is upset at everyone's refusal to talk about the missing boys. She sneaks into Steven's room and finds among his things a tape the boys had made of their misadventures and the puzzle box. She begins playing with the box, partially opening it.

She's interrupted by an unexpected visitor: Steven! He has returned, weak and disoriented, raving about he escaped from "them" and how Nico didn't want to come back. His father wants to take him to the hospital. But when he checks the driveway, both cars are gone, and the phone is out of service.

They decide to wait for morning, putting Steven to bed to recover. But the long night has only just begun, and not everyone in the house will survive to see the morning...

Ross (Steven Brand) tries to get answers
from a disoriented Steven (Nick Eversman).

CHARACTERS:

Ross: Steven and Emma's father, a psychologist of some sort, though that never plays into the story. He's presented as someone upright and responsible, and he takes charge once the characters find themselves cut off from the world. He's not a particularly interesting character, with even the secret he's hiding being pretty mundane. Still, actor Steven Brand at least has a hint of screen presence, which is more than can be said for the rest of the cast.

Steven/Nico: Of the two missing friends, Nick Eversman's Steven is very much the "beta," following Nico's lead in all things, even when he knows that he shouldn't. Jay Gillespie's Nico swaggers around like someone who believes himself the king of all he surveys. Flashbacks show that Nico not only led both of them into trouble, but that he was a monster long before the Cenobites ever showed up.

Emma: Steven's sister and Nico's girlfriend, which makes her the most direct connection between the two families. And that, and being upset about the boys' disappearance, is about it for her character. We're told that she harbors a "darkness," but we never really see it. Well, unless you count her flirting with Nico's father (Sebastien Roberts), another element that never goes anywhere. Actress Tracey Fairaway is pretty... which is about all I can say, as there is little opportunity for her to act either well or badly.

This movie's lead Cenobite. I refuse to call him "Pinhead."

STEPHAN SMITH COLLINS AND FRED TATASCIORE AS NEEDLE-FACE:

Doug Bradley turned down Revelations, citing a script that he felt was "unfinished" and a payment offer that was inadequate. As a result, this movie's version of the lead Cenobite is portrayed by two actors: the physical form of Stephan Smith Collins and the voice of Fred Tatasciore.

Tatasciore is generally a very good voice actor, and I specifically praised his performance as the villainous Saren in my review of Bioware's Mass Effect. But here, he just sneers his lines in a generic villain voice, while Stephan Smith Collins unsuccessfully attempts to project a menacing presence. Google "Pinhead cosplay," and you'll find far more convincing and threatening Pinheads than this.

I'll be fair: It's not like the filmmakers could help Doug Bradley turning them down. They could, however, have given his replacement a chance by keeping his characterization consistent with other entries. Nope. At one point, he tells the boorish Nico that he has "a darkness that rivals my own." Pinhead's human form was in the trenches at World War I; he'd have found the likes of Nico tediously ordinary long before he came into possession of the puzzle box. This guy doesn't even deserve to be called Pinhead, which is why I've decided to refer to him only as "Needle-Face."

Pinhead was a "Hell Priest" who believed in order and abided by a certain set of rules. By contrast, Needle-Face is a generic slasher. Even when Bloodline threatened to reduce Pinhead to that state, he retained a certain reflective eloquence. Needle-Face just growls, "Fool," at his human victims, like he's been possessed by the spirit of Mr. T. One scene sees him straight-up murdering a victim who neither opened the box nor desired anything. Why? Because that person directly provided him with relevant information. He claims another victim, one who also had nothing to do with opening the box. This is done to punish another character, one who - you guessed it - also had nothing to do with opening the box.

Back in Hellbound, when the evil Dr. Channard made Tiffany open the Lament Configuration, the real Pinhead refused to claim her. "It is not hands that call us. It is desire!" Based on this movie, Needle-Face would not only have pounced on Tiffany - He'd have also told his minions to massacre everyone in a 5-mile radius.

But then, at his best, Pinhead was an interesting character. Needle-Face is just a bad costume.

The families on the anniversary of their sons' disappearance.
In retrospect, I think they were celebrating.

THOUGHTS:

"If they claim its from the mind of Clive Barker, it's a lie. It's not even from my butt-hole."
-Hellraiser creator Clive Barker's response to the release of Hellraiser: Revelations.

Doug Bradley would later refer to Hellraiser: Revelations as an "ashcan movie," and that's fairly accurate. This was not made to actually do anything with the Hellraiser franchise. Revelations was cranked out, script to (sole) theater screening, in a matter of weeks so that Dimension films could retain the franchise rights. Wikipedia lists its estimated budget at $300,000. If you told me the actual amount was a tenth of that, I would absolutely believe you.

You can make a good movie with very little money. Genuinely fine films have been made on lower budgets than Hellraiser: Revelations. But if you have no money, then you need time to get the script right. On the reverse end, studios can still sometimes make watchable movies with no time by throwing money at them.

Take away both resources, and... well... (shrugs)

From its opening moments, Revelations resembles nothing so much as a bad fan film. It's cheap, with most of the story unfolding in just a couple of sets. The story has one halfway clever element... one that's a direct lift from the original 1987 Hellraiser. And yes, the presence of Needle-Face destroys any semblance of a professional product every time he lurches onto the screen.

Nico bullies Steven. With competent writing, their
toxic friendship might have been interesting.

GLIMMERS OF UNREALIZED POTENTIAL:

There are ideas that could have worked, had the script gone through multiple drafts and had it been given to a director not best known for such works as Return to House on Haunted Hill. The story moves back and forth between the present-day timeline and flashbacks of Nico and Steven's ill-fated Mexico trip. As presented, this is annoying, mainly because Nico and Steven are instantly unbearable. But had the script pared back on their jerkiness and made them seem like average kids, only gradually revealing that Nico is a sociopath who has made Steven emotionally dependent on him, it might have been interesting.

The present-day plotline could also have worked. The idea of structuring a low budget Hellraiser as essentially a stage play, with character relationships and secrets gradually unveiled, has potential... but only if the characters have layers worth peeling back. Emma flirts with Nico's father, who is entirely responsive to that. Instead of following up on this, it ends up being a single interaction that no one ever even comments on. A secret is revealed at the very end. Fine, except there is absolutely nothing that builds to it and practically nothing proceeds from it, making it just a bit of soap opera theatrics. I've already mentioned that Emma is two-dimensional eye candy. Well, she's an Ibsen heroine compared to the two wives, who say little and do nothing.

So yes, there were a couple of ideas with a hint of potential. Hellraiser: Funny Games? I wouldn't mind seeing a decent take on that. But as it stands, most of the film just has us waiting around for the Cenobites to show up and put these characters out of our misery.


OVERALL:

Gore effects are decent, which I think shows where the production's priorities lay. That aside, this movie fully lives down to its terrible reputation. It isn't even comically bad, save for a few chuckles and facepalms courtesy of Needle-Face. The bulk of this can be summed up with the most damning descriptor I can think of for any movie:

It's boring.


Overall Rating: 1/10. Can we have Rick Bota back?

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8. Hellraiser: Hellworld.

Chelsea (Katheryn Winnick) feels uneasy
while attending a Hellraiser-themed party.

Release Date: Sept. 6, 2005. Running Time: 95 minutes. Screenplay by: Carl Dupré. Based on the short story, Dark Can't Breathe, by Joel Soisson. Directed by: Rick Bota. Produced by: Ron Schmidt.


THE PLOT:

Hellworld is an online computer game based on the Hellraiser mythology. Adam, one of a group of teens addicted to the game, kills himself, leaving his friends to debate whether they could have done something to save him. Chelsea (Katheryn Winnick) thinks they should have gotten him to stop playing. Jake (Christopher Jacot) blames all of them for Adam's death. And Mike (Henry Cavill) blows off the thought of any responsibility, scoffing that "it's just a game."

Two years later, they are all attending Generic College in Somewhere USA. Jake has no more contact with them. Chelsea is still friends with the others, but she has stopped playing the game. Still, when she learns that Mike, Derrick (Khary Payton), and Allison (Anna Tolputt) have gotten invitations to a "Hellworld Party," it doesn't take much prodding for her to join them - and sure enough, they learn that Jake is there too.

The party is at a remote and rather spooky mansion. The Host (Lance Henriksen) welcomes them to his party. But Chelsea senses something not quite right about him. All too soon, the friends become separated. And then they begin to die, one by one...

The Host (Lance Henriksen) offers Jake a very special gift...

CHARACTERS:

The Host: He is all smiles as he welcomes the group to his party and shows off his collection of Hellraiser memorabilia, but his eyes are cold and his smile creepy even before he becomes openly malevolent. He doesn't actually have much screen time after his big introductory scene, mostly just popping in and out of the movie to whisper creepy words in the victims' ears. Even so, Lance Henriksen is always good, and he seems to be having fun with this, winking just enough at how silly this all is to entertain without crossing the line into sending it up. His sheer screen presence does much to keep Hellworld watchable.

Jake: The broody loner of the bunch, Jake (Christopher Jacot) resents the others for continuing to play the game even when it was clear how badly it was affecting Adam. He stopped playing Hellworld and cut all ties with the group, meaning that he had to be lured to the party. The bait? A first date with his online girlfriend. Because if you bitterly resent a thing, you're going to absolutely want to date someone whose ideal first date is a party dedicated to that thing. In any case, he's a bit smarter than the others. This is not an impressive feat, but there are at least enough neurons firing for him to pick up on clues the others miss.

Chelsea: Future Vikings star Katheryn Winnick, paying her dues as this film's "final girl." Chelsea feels guilt over Adam's death. She stopped playing and is trying to move on with her life, even as her friends insist on dragging her back into it. There's not much else to say about her as a character, though she does think to do something that few horror heroines do: When events turn creepy and she finds herself unable to simply leave, she calls 911.

Derrick: Future Walking Dead co-star/Cyborg voice actor Khary Payton, paying his dues as this horror movie's "designated black guy." So you know what happens to him (though to the film's credit, he's not the first to fall). Derrick suffers from "Hollywood asthma." An attack is both severe enough to require an inhaler, yet mild enough to allow him to traverse a room and a spiral staircase and even retain coordination to use an item as a screwdriver. My wife suffers from asthma. A severe attack would allow her to do exactly none of these things. We're not talking about some rare and obscure condition - Surely somebody on set could have said, "Yeah, none of that's how asthma actually works."

Mike: Future Man of Steel and Witcher star Henry Cavill, paying his dues. Mike is the cocky jerk of the group, and that's pretty much where his characterization begins and ends. So... Yeah, if you've ever seen a horror movie, then you already know he's dogmeat; I was legitimately surprised that he made it into the second half. Credit to Cavill, though, who shows flashes of the screen presence that would carry him to better things.

Doug Bradley's final performance as Pinhead. It is not a worthy exit.

PINHEAD:

This was Doug Bradley's final appearance in the role, and he's once again barely in the movie. Pinhead appears in quick, seconds-long flashes just before the victims meet their deaths. He's in full slasher mode, snarling about how "Adam was right" before murdering his victims. None of which sounds much like Pinhead... though in fairness, there is a narrative reason for that.

Alas, the same reason means that Pinhead gets no good scenes. He was barely in Inferno too, but at least he got that wonderful speech about humanity's refrain of, "I don't understand." Hellseeker was awful (worse than this, frankly), but at least Bradley got to sink his teeth into Pinhead's desire for Kirsty.

Forget any of that here. He might as well just be what Henry Cavill pulls from the Tarot deck early on: a Pinhead-decorated Death Card. It's far from a fitting exit for an actor who took what was little more than a bit part and made him into the face of a horror franchise. I honestly feel more dread at the next two "imitation Pinhead" sequels than I've ever felt at any of the movies.

A harmfully addictive MMO in 2002. When Final Fantasy XI
already existed and World of Warcraft was around the corner.

HELLWORLD - THE GAME:

Like too many film and television works that invoke the specter of video game addiction, it gets nothing right about gaming and very little right about the Internet. The tiny glimpse we get of the game Hellworld suggests something from the early 1990s at most.

Yes, this movie sat on the shelf for a while before release. But it was still shot in 2002. That was the same year that online role-playing game Final Fantasy XI was released and only a year before World of Warcraft came out (which was still two years before Hellworld actually released). Those are games that people still play!

Given that these college kids could be playing those, what reason would they have for even glancing at the primitive flash graphics and sound effects we see on Mike's and Derrick's computer screens? No one would get hopelessly addicted to what we see. They might ironically log in to laugh at it.

It does make me wish that a good developer would make an actual Hellraiser game, though. With the mythology surrounding the franchise, there's more than enough to make for a good RPG or survival horror (or better still, mix the elements). Though given the history of licensed games, the lack of one may be just as well...

Chelsea and her friends arrive at the party.

THOUGHTS:

Hellraiser goes meta, with the emphasis on the "meh."

Like director Rick Bota's other Hellraiser flicks, this isn't very good. The low budget shows in the limited sets and locations. It moves in fits and starts, with the bulk of the narrative just a holding pattern until the heavily telegraphed twist ending. Whenever anything halfway interesting happens, it is sure to be followed by several minutes of nothing before anything happens again.

Oh, and a lot of that nothing is punctuated by sleaze. Jake has a sex scene with a pretty nun. Which occurs after a girl in a mask gets down on her knees to give Henry Cavill a happy. It also occurs after an anonymous couple has sex on a public sofa (and occurs shortly before that couple is seen again). Now, it's been a while since I've been young - but I suspect most of today's kids - let alone those of twenty years ago - still prefer to find a room with a locking door!

I will say that Hellworld at least seems to realize that it's a "B" movie and tries to have some fun. The young cast enters the party simultaneously enjoying the atmosphere and making fun of it. When a topless woman walks down the stairs, Derrick makes a meta quip about the "gratuitous tit shot," with Mike correcting him that it's a "necessary tit shot." That's amusing (and also takes care of the "R" rating, so I'm not sure why we needed the subsequent sleazy bits).

Props to the casting director for finding up-and-coming young actors who actually did go on to careers. I won't pretend that their performances are in any way remarkable. Given two-dimensional characters, they deliver the expected two-dimensional performances, though Cavill and Payton should be credited for a couple decent moments. Winnick, who went on to a pretty good career, comes across the weakest of the bunch... but then, she also gets the blandest role.

An early tipoff about Pinhead's lackluster role in this film.

OVERALL:

I don't really have much to say about Hellworld. It's watchable. Outside of the overly obvious twist ending, it's your basic slasher movie, but it has some fun moments and gets a boost from Lance Henriksen and a decent young cast.

But even judging it just a slasher flick, it's still quite middling. The most imaginative kill is the first one, with the rest being tepid stuff (oh, someone got hung on a hook - I've never seen that before). The pace is slack and, once the premise is established, the bulk of the running time is spent waiting for the big reveal.

It's better than Hellseeker and less disappointing than the final half hour of Deader. But I'd still rate this - and really, all three of Rick Bota's entries - as strictly for franchise completists.

And with Doug Bradley exiting the series, I have a nasty suspicion that the worst is yet to come...


Overall Rating: 4/10.

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7. Hellraiser: Deader.

Journalist Amy Klein (Kari Wuhrer) investigates a mysterious cult.

Release Date: June 7, 2005. Running Time: 89 minutes. Screenplay by: Neal Marshall Stevens, Tim Day. Directed by: Rick Bota. Produced by: Rob Schmidt, Stan Winston.


THE PLOT:

Fresh from an undercover story that saw her living in a London crack house, reporter Amy Klein (Kari Wuhrer) is given a new and even riskier assignment: a cult calling itself the "Deaders" that operates out of Bucharest, Romania. Amy's editor (Simon Kunz) was sent a tape by Marla (Georgina Rylance), a member of the cult looking for an escape. The tape depicts the cult leader, Winter (Paul Rhys), presiding over the ritual suicide of a Deader - then bringing the young woman back to life.

Amy arrives in Bucharest only to find that Marla is already dead, a puzzle box held by her corpse in a literal death grip. Amy wrests the box away and flees. She is able to track the cult to its lair, where she is greeted by Winter himself. The cult leader warns her: "Don't think for one second that you're not in danger."

Winter is a descendant of Philip LeMarchand, the French Toymaker who first invented the box, and he considers it his birthright. He knows that Amy has it, and he wants it back - and he wants her as a willing member of his cult!

Winter LeMarchand (Paul Rhys) and his cult have
a particularly dangerous supernatural encounter.

CHARACTERS:

Amy Klein: Our heroine, a reporter who was exiled from her job at The New York Post because of her lack of respect for authority. We're told that she has a self-destructive streak, though the only real evidence for that is a penchant for sarcasm and constant chain smoking. She also has a dark past, detailed through grainy, black and white flashbacks. It's all pretty generic stuff, though star Kari Wuhrer commits fully and does about as much to bring Amy life as I think any actor could have.

Winter LeMarchand: Most of the Hellraiser trappings add nothing, or even outright detract, from this story. However, I kind of like the decision to make Winter a descendant of The Toymaker. It's entirely reasonable that a few branches would grow in the LeMarchand bloodline over the course of centuries, and that not every descendant would turn out to be a good guy. Paul Rhys is decent, if a bit wooden, though I never feel particularly clear as to what Winter's actual plans for Amy and the box might be.

Charles: As Amy's editor, Simon Kunz injects a certain low-key, energetic sleaziness into his few scenes. He observes that when Amy's self-destructive traits are exactly what makes her useful to him, comparing her relentless search for information to gluttony: "For the average person... we want to know just enough to take the edge off our appetite... That's why I still need you. Because all that stuff I don't eat, I still want. So I send you in to do the eating for me, so I get to experience it without actually suffering any mental indigestion." When Amy compares him to a demon, he just smirks and parrots back trivia about the word "demon" coming from the Greek word for "knowledge."

Joey: Marc Warren, who was in the midst of a run of fairly high-profile roles at this time, inexplicably pops up for a cameo in this direct-to-video "B" horror flick. Cast as a man who appears to live on a train car holding a never-ending sex party, Warren chews the scenery with abandon. He goes a bit too over-the-top for my tastes, but at least he seems to be having fun with his few minutes of screen time as he alternates between leering at Amy and dropping self-consciously portentous dialogue. I fully expected that would be his only scene, but he turns up again near the end.

Marla: Georgina Rylance, another recognizable face from British television, is another actress you wouldn't expect to pop up in a small role in a direct-to-video horror flick. Unlike Warren, she plays her role straight. Marla is the cult member who had doubts, and it's those doubts that Winter blames for her death - basically invoking the old faith healer spiel that your own doubts are the reason the mumbo-jumbo didn't work.

Pinhead and the discount Cenobites arrive to try to convince
us that this really is a Hellraiser movie, honest! 

PINHEAD:

He will tear your soul apart... by boring you past endurance with dull cameos in direct-to-video cheapies.

Deader sees the least interesting use of Pinhead in the series to date.

To be clear: The problem is not his lack of screen time. He was in even less of Inferno, but his big monologue in that film was fantastic, ranking among the character's best scenes. No, the problem is that, in Deader, he's boring, existing merely to exchange some borderline incoherent exposition with Winter and to haul out some CGI chains to persuade us that this really is a Hellraiser movie, honest!

Doug Bradley, who is usually excellent even when the material isn't, seems to be going through the motions here. I can't blame him. His only significant scene is mostly tedious and very obviously tacked on. In this case, the movie would have been better without him.

Amy with her editor, Charles (Simon Kunz).

THOUGHTS:

Hellraiser: Deader is frustrating. The first two thirds come very close to being a decent "B" horror flick, only for all the story's potential to be bungled in the final Act.

The script is not in any way a slasher. Instead, it's an atmospheric slow burn that's deliberately patterned after the wave of Japanese horror films that were gaining attention at the time - titles like Ringu and Pulse. The focus isn't on gore, but on maintaining a sense of the eerie and the unsettling.

Even in the first hour, there are plenty of faults. Amy's opening story, about going undercover in a crack house, seems about ten years out-of-date in 2005 to actually get much attention. The videotape Charles received is too edited to be taken by one camcorder; Amy and Charles might think the cult is worth investigating, but neither should consider for even a second that it's real.

Also, some of director Rick Bota's directorial flourishes backfire. There's a bizarre transition that sees Amy accepting the Deader story, at which point we cut to her traveling to Bucharest... only to immediately cut back to her talking to Charles... and back to her traveling... and back to her exiting Charles's office... before finally cutting to her arrival at Bucharest and staying there. I'm sure Bota thought he was doing something with that bizarre transition, but I honestly couldn't say what.

Overall, though, Bota's direction is much improved from Hellseeker. The Romanian location filming pays dividends in production value, and there are some sustained shots that generate a reasonable amount of atmosphere, notably when Amy sneaks into the Deaders' lair around the midpoint.

Most of the first hour flows pretty well from one plot point to the next. Amy is a proactive heroine, and her investigation builds up to the point when she finally meets Winter, who shifts between trying to charm and threaten her. Kari Wuhrer invests more in the character than is really on the page, using moments of emotion and shock to puncture the external cynicism that seems to be at least half a front. At the 50 minute mark, I was pleasantly surprised to find myself interested in what would happen next.

Alas, what happens next is the Hellraiser rewrite takes over, and the whole thing goes to... Well, where it goes is kind of in the title, isn't it?

Amy gets attacked by unconvincing CGI chains!

"HELLRAISER"-ed

Like Hellseeker, this started life as a spec horror script. After it was selected to be the basis for the seventh Hellraiser, writer Tim Day was tasked with grafting the Hellraiser elements onto it.

There are a few small bits added to the first half: the Lament Configuration, mainly, with multiple characters mentioning the box and Winter insisting that it belongs to him because of his lineage. This much fits into the script well enough... though a flash appearance by Pinhead after Amy gets attacked in her hotel room by comically unconvincing CGI chains does not.

The most substantial change, however, is the complete replacement of the original script's third Act. Too bad: You can about pinpoint to the second where the jump from the original script to the rewrite happens... and after that, what had been passably interesting quickly becomes awful. Were you enjoying a generally well-structured story? Too bad: We're back to the hallucinations and fake-outs that plagued Hellseeker. Forward momentum ceases, with budget-friendly surreal scenes seeming to exist just to mark time until Pinhead's arrival.

I'd love to know how the original final Act would have played out. Regrettably, all I've been able to turn up is that it was thrown out to make way for a Hellraiser-ish climax. Given how badly both story and atmosphere are jettisoned by the final half hour, I have to think the original ending was better than what we actually got!

Amy keeps following the story, even when she
becomes frightened of where it's leading...

OVERALL:

Even with the lousy final half hour, I would still rank this above Hellseeker. Unlike that film, it actually has a story, as well as a lead character who does things to move the story forward. It benefits from the location filming, and it's generally pretty well-acted.

It ends up being the Hellraiser elements that ruin the film in the last half hour. By rewriting the final Act to shove in jump scares and Pinhead, the filmmakers destroy the slow burn that was so effective across the first two thirds. In its place are CGI chains, an increasingly ragged-looking puzzle box prop, and... not much else except the wreckage of a potentially good story.

Which sadly seems to be an apt metaphor for the direction of the entire franchise at this point.


Overall Rating: 4/10. Though the last thirty minutes would barely merit a "2."


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6. Hellraiser: Hellseeker.

Trevor (Dean Winters) is increasingly unable to tell what's real.

Release Date: Oct. 15, 2002. Running Time: 89 minutes. Screenplay by: Carl V. Dupré, Tim Day. Directed by: Rick Bota. Produced by: Michael Leahy, Rob Schmidt.


THE PLOT:

Trevor (Dean Winters) survives when his car spins out of control and drives off a bridge and into a river. He remembers trying to save his wife, Kirsty (Ashley Laurence). He remembers her being trapped in the car. But when the police recover the vehicle, there is no body. Kirsty has vanished.

Detective Lange (William S. Taylor) reveals that Kirsty had a sizable inheritance, which now legally belongs to Trevor. It's a compelling motive, and Lange's partner (Michael Rogers) doesn't even pretend to think that Trevor is anything but guilty.

The accident left Trevor with a head injury, and he's having trouble remembering any details. He's suffering from severe headaches and increasingly bizarre hallucinations. He seems demonic figures across the street, in the hall, and even in the police station. Then people he knows begin dying around him, with him not even certain whether the corpses are real or just more illusions...

Kirsty can't seem to escape from a certain puzzle box...

CHARACTERS:

Trevor: Like Inferno, this movie presents a deeply flawed protagonist in Dean Winters' Trevor. Unlike the earlier movie, it tries to allow the viewer to sympathize with him by hiding his misdeeds with the time-honored plot device of amnesia. Alas, even when all is revealed, Trevor just isn't terribly interesting. There's not much about him that's in any way distinct. When Pinhead judges both him and his sins to be "mundane," I found myself nodding in agreement.

Kirsty: Hellseeker's main draw is the return of Ashley Laurence as Kirsty. There actually is some potentially interesting material for her. Had she been the focus, it might even have made for a good movie. Too bad, then, that her role amounts to little more than a cameo, with her character turns mostly revealed as backstory. At least Rick Bota was smart enough to insert a scene between her and Pinhead, with her left to once again make a bargain with her would-be torturer. This bit, likely written in a hurry, ends up being one of the film's few memorable moments.

Det. Lange: William S. Taylor channels his inner Columbo as the police detective assigned to Trevor's case. He is nothing but friendly to his suspect, even insisting that he believes Trevor that the car crash was an accident. But, like Columbo, he always has just one more question, just one more thing that needs to be cleared up. Taylor does well with what he's given, and his final exchange with Trevor is rather good.

Seems like old times: Pinhead bargains with Kirsty.

PINHEAD:

"I will not rest until I get what I want. And what I want is you!"
-Pinhead reunites with Kirsty.

The most interesting element of Pinhead's role is how little interest he shows in Trevor. He freely discloses that the film's main character is mere "bait" to attract his real prey: Kirsty. He regards Trevor with clinical detachment, discussing him like a scientist evaluating an experiment (in Trevor's case, probably more of a control subject). With Kirsty, he's emphatic, even emotional. When he says he wants her, he almost sounds like a suitor - and when she bargains, he responds with amusement, seemingly indulging the bargain more to keep their game going than out of any real desire for what she's offering.

All of which makes it a shame that this would be Kirsty's last appearance, as it's clear that there's some potential fun to be had mining this bizarre relationship.

Trevor's car sinks into the water. Remember: If you don't
have All State, you could be paying for this yourself.

THOUGHTS:

Actors' future roles can affect a viewing of their past works. The opening of Hellseeker is a strong case of this. The first scene shows Dean Winters - who went on to become All State's "Mayhem" - getting distracted while driving, then going off a bridge and into the water. In 2002, this was just a would-be "grabber." Now it plays so much like one of Winters' "Mayhem" commercials that, as the car sank, I couldn't help but intone: "And if you don't have All State, you could be paying for this yourself."

Director Rick Bota has acknowledged that Hellseeker began life as a spec script, with the Hellraiser elements grafted onto it. Which raises the question: Given how little story exists with the Hellraiser trappings, exactly how little was there before? There might be enough story to fill out a 30-minute Twilight Zone, but there's certainly not enough for a feature film.

I suspect that, if anything, this script was improved by the Hellraiser elements. The handful of good moments are ones that embrace the Hellraiser mythos: Trevor being given the box by a mystery man who vaguely resembles the homeless man from the first film; his conversation with Pinhead, the demon not actually present but instead reflected in a pool of water; a walk down a hallway that recalls the lowest level of The Channard Institute, ending in a confrontation with a being not unlike the demonic twins of Bloodline; and, of course, Pinhead's bargain with Kirsty. These bits work. Most of the rest... doesn't.

A big problem is the lack of any real structure. For most of its running time, Hellseeker doesn't build. It meanders. I don't know that I've ever seen a film with a more passive protagonist than Trevor. Informed that his wife is missing, he... goes home, then to work (where he does Work. At Office.) Even at the end, when the revelations come, it's neither because of nor in spite of him. All Is Revealed because it's the last twenty minutes, rather than because of anything inherent he does. It's not even that Trevor tries to avoid the truth. He just sort of passively waits for it be delivered to him. 

There are a handful of positives. Acting ranges from passable to quite good. Director Rick Bota may not have the visual eye of Inferno's Scott Derrickson, let alone Clive Barker, but he picks a handful of moments to stage with care. Particularly noteworthy is Pinhead's grand entrance at the end, which is clearly patterned after the Cenobites' arrival in the attic in the original movie.

Bota was also wise enough to seek out Clive Barker's feedback. This secured him Barker's blessing; and, based on the DVD audio commentary, Barker's advice led to a few scenes being punched up. It's not enough to save the film, but at least it helps it to have a few good moments - even if most of them are reserved for the last twenty minutes.

Pinhead's grand entrance, visually patterned after the first film.

OVERALL:

Hellseeker is mostly boring, with seemingly endless scenes of Dean Winters wandering around doing little, with the occasional jump scare thrown in to wake up the audience. It also covers a lot of the same ground as Inferno, which mainly served to remind me how much better Inferno was.

It improves near the end, with a few good visual beats and a strong finale. This keeps it from being a total loss. Even so, this is easily the worst Hellraiser movie so far - a title that, sadly, I suspect it won't retain...

Overall Rating: 3/10.

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