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?

Previous Movie: Hellraiser - Hellworld
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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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5. Hellraiser: Inferno.

Detective Joseph Thorne (Craig Sheffer) steals a puzzle box
from a crime scene. He soon will wish he hadn't.

Release Date: Oct. 3, 2000. Running Time: 99 minutes. Screenplay by: Paul Harris Boardman, Scott Derrickson. Directed by: Scott Derrickson. Produced by: W. K. Border, Joel Soisson.


THE PLOT:

Detective Joseph Thorne (Craig Sheffer) has always loved games and puzzles. "No matter how confusing the mystery, no matter how difficult the puzzle, the answers always seem in the end as natural as rain.".

Thorne may be a good detective, but he is not a good cop. He is addicted to cocaine and regularly shakes down a local dealer. He steals cash from a crime scene as routinely as if he's prepping his grocery list. And when he discovers a mysterious puzzle box at the scene of his most recent murder case, he swipes that too. After all, he loves puzzles.

Opening that box soon turns his world upside down. As he investigates the murder, he keeps seeing visions of demons. The prostitute he slept with ends up as the next victim. He learns that the box is the property of a shadowy figure known as "The Engineer," who is leaving a child's finger at the scene of each killing.

The coroner informs Thorne that the child was alive when the fingers were removed. This makes Thorne determined to rescue the child, to do one good thing for a change. But his informant tries to warn him off, telling him:

"Hunt the Engineer, they say, and the Engineer will hunt you."

Thorne receives advice from Dr. Gregory (James Remar).

CHARACTERS:

Det. Joseph Thorne: Begins the movie slick and smug, totally in control of himself and his environment. That sense of control is demolished as the story progresses. By the final Act, he is disheveled, and he doesn't so much walk as stagger through his surroundings, looking for all the world like a wild-eyed lunatic. Given that it hadn't been all that long since actor Craig Sheffer was spotlighted in major releases like A River Runs Through It and The Program, I'm guessing that a direct-to-video Hellraiser sequel was not his preferred career direction - but to his credit, Sheffer gives a fully committed performance throughout.

Det. Tony Nenonen: Nicholas Turturro is also good as Thorne's junior partner, who is as honest as Thorne is corrupt. In some ways, he is the inverse of Thorne, the man that Thorne might have been had he chosen a different path. Where Thorne neglects his wife and daughter in favor of drugs and prostitutes, Tony begs off a department game specifically so that he can spend time with his family. His decency puts him at odds with his partner, but he continues to react to Thorne's increasingly unhinged-seeming antics with compassion.

Dr. Gregory: The department psychiatrist. He's an Episcopal priest, but he makes sure to clarify to Thorne that he considers himself a psychiatrist first. He has past experience with the Engineer, having attempted to treat a past detective who ended up in the Engineer's crosshairs and was driven to suicide. James Remar is pretty clearly just picking up a paycheck, but he still invests the role with intelligence and screen presence, even when most of his scenes anoint him as the Bringer of Exposition.

Pinhead judges Thorne's life and finds it wanting.

PINHEAD:

Has a total screentime of less than three minutes, making this almost certainly his briefest appearance in the series. He gets a two second cameo early in the movie, and he is not seen again until the final Act. I can't argue that he feels a bit "tacked on" - There probably needed to be either at least one good scene more of him or none at all.

That said, I think his big scene near the end is quite memorable. He's presented as, essentially, Hell's Judge. Doug Bradley makes the most of what is essentially a single monologue, connecting this version of Pinhead to the monster of the previous films by putting maximum disgust into the observation: "The eternal refrain of humanity, pleading ignorance, begging for mercy: 'Please, help me, I don't understand.'" This may be a more moralistic take on the character, but the disgust with humanity he showed in Bloodline remains intact, which helps to connect these very different versions of the character.


THOUGHTS:

After the disappointing reception to Bloodline, Dimension stopped making Hellraiser for the big screen. Starting with Inferno, the series moved to low budget, small-scale stories, which were released direct to home video.

As such, I was pleasantly surprised to find that Inferno isn't half bad. For the first time since Hellbound, there's a moral dimension to the Lament Configuration. As in Hellbound, the worst tortures are not physical, but psychological, as the box's victims (the guilty) are visited with punishments that fit their own sins.

This was the first motion picture from director Scott Derrickson, and he delivers some strong visual moments. Thorne sees a tattoo of two female Cenobites on a witness's back - only to watch in horror as the tattoo comes to life. Thorne is sent a video of one victim being severely whipped. We see very little actual gore, but the context, the sounds, and Thorne's reactions make it feel much more gruesome. Two more victims are found, left to freeze on a rotating pillar, an image that is simultaneously disturbing and beautiful. The movie is consistently well made overall, and it looks as good as its modest budget allows.

That's not to say that there aren't problems. The story is rather predictable. If you've read or seen even a handful of similar tales, you'll know where this is going pretty early on. Also, this barely feels like a Hellraiser movie. Derrickson has insisted that it was always intended as one, but it's still very easy to imagine a version that features no puzzle box, no Cenobites, and no Pinhead.

These are relatively minor failings, though. The movie's biggest issue is one that reduces it to being merely interesting when it might have been emotionally compelling...

Thorne at his most smug - and most despicable.

A BADLY BALANCED PROTAGONIST:

Centering a movie around an unlikable lead requires a delicate balance. It can, and has, been done. Great movies have been made about cowards, murderers, backstabbers, and liars. But to work, there still has to be something about the character to make us want to connect to him.

Inferno tries to do this. Once Thorne learns that the Engineer is holding a child, he becomes obsessed with saving the captive. One scene shows him looking through photos and files of missing children, growing angry at the thought that most of them will never be seen again. This is good; it shows that this corrupt cop still has a hint of a soul.

But it comes about forty minutes into the film. By this point, we've already seen his single worst moment, as he plants evidence and uses it to blackmail his partner. Since almost nothing prior to this scene has shown him to be anything other than a louse, the blackmail pushes him across the line from "potentially interesting anti-hero" to "human garbage."

Had the two scenes been reversed, so that we saw him looking at the missing children before betraying his partner, then his determination to save the child might carry us through. As it stands, I couldn't make myself feel empathy for Thorne, which reduced the potential effectiveness of the story. By a lot.

Two more of the Engineer's victims.

OVERALL:

Despite its misjudged lead, Hellraiser: Inferno is a better movie than it needed to be and a much better movie than I expected it to be. Performances range from solid to very good, it's directed with visual style, and it has some startlingly effective moments.

The Hellraiser elements may feel a little tacked on, possibly to the detriment of the main story. But I still think it's the best sequel since Hellbound. It's more interesting than Hell on Earth, and it's more of a unified piece than Bloodline.


Overall Rating: 6/10. Plenty of faults... but surprisingly worth the watch.

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4. Hellraiser: Bloodline

18th century toymaker Philip LeMarchand (Bruce Ramsay)
completes his masterpiece. He'll soon wish he hadn't.

Release Date: Mar. 8, 1996. Running Time: 85 minutes. Screenplay by: Peter Atkins. Directed by: Alan Smithee (Kevin Yagher; Joe Chappelle - reshoots; Rand Ravich - reshoots). Produced by: Nancy Rae Stone.


THE PLOT:

In 1796, toymaker Philip LeMarchand (Bruce Ramsay) designs the Lament Configuration. It's a special commission for Duc de L'Isle (Mickey Cottrell), an aristocrat deeply into the Occult. LeMarchand delivers the box, only to watch as his creation is used to summon the demon Angelique (Valentina Vargas). Horrified, Philip tries to steal the box back - only to become a victim of Angelique's nonexistent mercies.

In present day New York, his descendant, John Merchant, is a celebrated architect. His newest creation is a building that uses designs from his dreams - the same designs utilized in the puzzle box. Angelique is drawn to both him and his building. She retrieves the puzzle box that had been encased in cement, and she uses it to summon Pinhead. Both demons recognize in Merchant's work the potential for a permanent gateway between their dimension and reality.

Finally, in 2127, it falls to Dr. Paul Merchant, last of the LeMarchand bloodline, to a put an end to all this. Merchant has designed the space station Minos. The station is actually a trap. Its purpose? To lure Pinhead and Angelique out, in order to destroy them once and for all!

Angelique (Valentina Vargas) attempts to seduce John Merchant.

CHARACTERS:

The LeMarchands: The lead role in Bloodline is fairly demanding as low-budget horror roles go. We see three generations of LeMarchands/Merchants, requiring the actor to create three distinct people while at the same time giving a sense of a single, unified presence. Bruce Ramsay is not a bad actor, as a glance at his filmography should show, but he is not up to this challenge. There's little in the performance that distinguishes the three generations, and Ramsay's performance often verges on the robotic. The result is a void where the center of the picture should be.

Angelique: Valentina Vargas's voice was dubbed, but that doesn't diminish her physical performance. The ill-fated peasant girl of her first scene is completely different in posture, expression, and demeanor from the demon princess of the rest of the film. Angelique summons Pinhead to further hell's interests, only to find her position weakened by his presence. Deleted scenes make clear that she even keeps secrets from him, hoping to regain dominance by using John Merchant - though this thread is so pared back in the theatrical release that the few remaining John/Angelique moments don't really seem to come from anywhere or lead to anything.

Bobbi Merchant: Horror movie veteran Kim Myers plays John's wife. Bobbi is concerned about her husband's nightmares, urging him to see someone. The middle portion of the present-day strand relegates her mainly to just "worried wife and mother." Still, the last bit of her story allows her to do some demon fighting, banishing monsters with the puzzle box as she tries to protect her family.

Duc De L'Isle: The depraved aristocrat who commissions the Lament Configuration and imbues it with its demonic purpose. In just three scenes, actor Mickey Cottrell makes him the movie's most memorable figure. He's creepier than any demon as he grins and congratulates LeMarchand on his punctuality in making his delivery. "As precise as your pieces, as timely as your toys." Every aspect of him screams of depravity, from his heavily caked-on makeup to his exaggerated facial expressions to the almost sing-song intonations of his voice.

Naturally, this film relegates him to little more than a cameo... a consequence of production interference, which turned out to be this movie's biggest problem.

Pinhead has a bad day. And, despite Doug
Bradley's best efforts, a bad film as well.

PINHEAD: OVERUSED, AND USED BADLY:

Doug Bradley is as good as ever, but at this point the pincushioned one is getting a bit... dare I say, boring? A large part of the problem is the last two movies' shift in the character's portrayal.

In the first two films, he was a powerful presence who was little seen. He was in only eight minutes of the original Hellraiser, and he wasn't in much more of Hellbound. He also had his own set of ethics, as warped as they were: He abided by a strict set of rules, refusing to punish the innocent. "It is not hands that call us. It is desire!" He might have been the figure of horror... but it was the humans who were the true monsters.

Well, forget about that. As in the third film, Pinhead is reduced to a bloodthirsty slasher. The closest this film comes to acknowledging his prior characterization is when he tells Angelique that hell is more ordered under him. Despite that claim, there's no indication that he's following any rules here. Most of his victims haven't opened the puzzle box, nor are they guilty of any dark deeds or desires that demand demonic attention. Bloodline's Pinhead is simply a sadist who enjoys torturing people.

He still gets a few good lines. I particularly enjoyed his speech near the end, as he looks out at the Earth and ruminates: "There are more humans alive at this moment than in all (Earth)'s pitiful history." But such moments are like dying echoes of the early titles' remote-but-fascinating figure. This Pinhead is a completely different character: Freddy Krueger, with less sense of humor but a lot more eloquence.

Duc D'Lisle (Mickey Cottrell) and his assistant, Jacques (Adam
Scott). The Duc's role was meant to be much larger.

THE BOWDLERIZATION OF HELLRAISER BLOODLINE:

Peter Atkins' original script has since been published, revealing the movie the filmmakers actually wanted to bring to life. The present-day segment is largely recognizable, but the historical segment was gutted. The 18th century segment was much longer in general than in the finished film, with a full subplot in which Angelique seduced LeMarchand into working with her. De L'Isle, the grotesque aristocrat who commissioned the box, was written to have a substantial role.

There was one big problem, and it has a name: Bob Weinstein. He wanted to get to Pinhead sooner, and he probably decided that middle-aged French people in wigs were boring. Thus, the historical segment was chopped down to around fifteen minutes, with many key scenes never even filmed.

This was a terrible decision. Even as filmed, the 18th century storyline is easily the movie's most interesting one. It's the only part with original characters who make a strong impression, and it even has some pretty decent atmosphere.

More significantly, the removal of scenes between LeMarchand and Angelique has a knock-on effect on the rest of the movie. In the present day, Angelique tries to draw on her past connection with LeMarchand as she tempts John Merchant. The problem is... what past connection? The scenes creating a bond were cut - probably never even filmed - leaving us to wonder exactly why she believes she should have any hold on him! 

Per Atkins, the budget kept being reduced and cuts kept being demanded in a cycle that sounds remarkably similar to the 1980s saga of Cannon Films and Superman IV. Atkins finally quit the production, something he discussed in an interview with the website Bloody Disgusting: "The scenes we were losing were what made the movie good, or potentially good... I can't stop the movie going up in flames, but I can certainly refuse to strike the first match."

Pinhead and Angelique vie for power. Another thread cut to
almost nothing, but at least this scene remains a good one.

A VERY RUSHED PAST AND PRESENT:

Despite everything, the first two Acts of Hellraiser: Bloodline almost work. Angelique is an effective villain from the start. Once Pinhead enters the story, she finds herself in a position of weakness for what may be the first time in her very long existence. Her maneuvers against Pinhead have been mostly cut, leaving the strand weakened. Even so, her attempts at self-preservation, combined with the very good performance of Valentina Vargas, lend an interesting extra level to this part of the story.

Even during the first two Acts, though, it all feels so rushed! Angelique plays the temptress to John... but since this is reduced to a mere two scenes, there's little sense of tension or desire. Also, because so many scenes were cut, you'd have to hunt down the workprint cut or read the script to get more than the vaguest sense of her goals. Never mind John's goals, by the way; he doesn't really have any, which has the effect of making the villainous Angelique feel like the real main character!

Finally, because this subplot is so reduced, it renders laughable Pinhead's complaint that he's losing patience with her. In the released film, this statement comes all of four minutes after his awakening. For someone who boasts, "I am forever," he sure seems to have a short attention span.

Dr. Paul Merchant's space station. Given the age and
the budget, the effects are actually pretty decent.

A JUMBLED MESS OF A FUTURE:

Though the problems, particularly the rushed pace, are apparent in the first two Acts, the story remains more or less on track... Until the future segment, when it all falls apart.

The space station is the setting for the last twenty minutes, and this final Act is a jumbled mess. The characters have no individual personalities, making their status as Demon Fodder painfully clear, and it all descends into a mind-numbing morass of "activity," in which even the gore is boring.

The workprint version (now available on the Arrow Video release) offers a better, if still flawed, version. In this cut, Paul is introduced shaving his head, ritual-like, then praying with the holographic image of a priest before putting his plan into action. I don't know why this was removed. Even with the reshuffling that made the space station "bookends," the head shaving would have made for a visually arresting opening. The workprint also includes a payoff scene between Paul, the last LeMarchand, and Angelique. Without this scene, the theatrical cut reduces the previously prominent Angelique to little more than an extra in the final Act.

That said, even in the workprint - heck, even in Atkins' script! - the problems of weak characters and no dramatic build plague the "future" segment. If you want an effective "Hellraiser in space," then Paul W. S. Anderson's Event Horizon is probably the closest you're going to get.

A desperate Angelique holds John's son hostage.

OVERALL:

Hellraiser: Bloodline was theatrically released with a running time of 84 minutes, shorter than even the direct-to-video entries that followed and certainly far too short for such an ambitious story with a such a large scope. By this point, director Kevin Yagher had also quit, with new footage shot by Joe Chappelle (yes, the same Joe Chappelle who all but removed Donald Pleasance from the theatrical cut of Halloween 6). The final directing credit went to the infamous DGA pseudonym, Alan Smithee.

For all the problems, I actually don't hate this movie. Even in its mangled form, I find Bloodline more interesting than Hell on Eath. It's less successful at delivering what it attempts... but at the same time, it attempts a whole lot more. It's generally quite well shot, and it delivers several strong images. Its tone is more appropriate to a Hellraiser film, and - at least until the last twenty minutes - there's the persistent blurry outline of a really good movie trying to escape from this mess.

Is it a failure? Yes. But at least it's an interesting failure. It's just a shame it was never allowed to realize its potential.


Overall Rating: 5/10.

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