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| 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...
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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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