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Post by StevePulaski on Oct 11, 2016 16:32:07 GMT -5
Hellraiser (1987) Directed by: Clive Barker Rating: ★★★ It's in the ostensibly endless and inconceivable ways writer/director Clive Barker is willing to take the boundaries of a horror film and test its ability to house mystery, supernatural mystique, and visual ugliness all in one film that barely cracks ninety minutes. Hellraiser is as gruesome as it is disturbing, and quite frequently, a troubling watch with its variety of "Cenobites" - ugly creatures with distinctive deformities accessed through a strange, cube-shaped puzzle - and gory acts carried out in explicit detail. It's the kind of film some unsuspecting viewers might need to remind themselves is indeed just a movie.
The film opens with a man purchasing the aforementioned puzzle box from a shady dealer in Morocco. Upon solving the puzzle, hooks emerge from the box and proceed to tear apart his flesh, and a mysterious figure is seen retrieving the box to take back to his own land.
Soon enough, the man's brother Larry (Andrew Robinson) moves into his late sibling's home, along with his wife Julia (Clare Higgins) and their daughter, Kirsty (Ashley Laurence). When an accident causes some of Larry's blood to spill on the floor, it effectively resurrects his deceased brother, who, in turn, needs blood to complete his total transformation back into a man. He now lives amongst a gang of Cenobites, who engage in strange, sadomasochistic acts of violence and depravity.
Kirsty finally becomes the lucky one who gets thrust into the world of the Cenobites, governed and led by Pinhead (Doug Bradley), a tall figure with pins impaling his skull. Pinhead explains to Kirsty that rather than black-or-white "angels" or "demons," Cenobites are simply seekers of carnal experiences through alternate universes, almost serving as a commentary for bondage and S&M relationships in a sense. With that, she finds her prime objective becomes trying to stay alive in such a hazardous world with grave dangers everywhere.
Clive Barker and a tireless special effects' team have crafted a film erected on the very principles of providing scares via visuals and unique costumes. Such few horror films do this, even going back as far as the Universal monster films and the Hammer Films, and this one does a nice job not only taking the more challenging route, but also echoing what made films like Tod Browning's masterful Freaks so effective in tone and look. The human imagination is so vast and limitless that when you create a horror film based on what can be summoned from the bowels of one's deepest, most sinister thoughts, you could very well have one scary film on your hands.
And Barker's Hellraiser is one scary film, disguising its relative cheapness and admittedly sterile moments of acting with strange bodies and uncomfortable moments of peril. It's a concept that lends itself to a lot of fluidity, but even in its most basic sense, as seen here, there's a great deal of discomfort summoned just from the sheer depravity of the film's content.
Starring: Andrew Robinson, Ashley Laurence, Doug Bradley, and Clare Higgins. Directed by: Clive Barker.
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Post by StevePulaski on Oct 18, 2016 18:25:30 GMT -5
Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1988) Directed by: Tony Randel Kirsty (Ashley Laurence) in Hellbound: Hellraiser II. Rating: ★★NOTE: In October 2018, I revisited this sequel and found it considerably better than I had remembered. Without time to rewrite and republish another review, I wrote some notes on my Letterboxd entry for the film. View them here, but don't disregard everything in this subsequent review: letterboxd.com/stevepulaski/film/hellbound-hellraiser-ii/1/ When compared to most horror films of the era, the plot of Clive Barker's Hellraiser is more nonlinear and lacks a kind of basic plot-thread that finds a way to make itself understandable early on so audiences can enjoy the carnage. The abundance of Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street sequels gave up on trying to tie all the narratives and characters together early on for obvious reasons, but Hellraiser kept developing its world. Almost every film requires some sort of plot the audience must stay in-tune with in order not only to appreciate but understand the viciousness as it's unfolding.
While Hellraiser was a stable horror film on all cylinders, and promising so long as Barker was running the ship, Hellbound: Hellraiser II is nothing shy of a disappointment - a cluttered, discombobulated project that even its emphasis on the ugly Cenobites can't save it from being a mostly miserable experience.
Part of the problem is how much time we waste watching Kirsty Cotton (Ashley Laurence), the previous film's main character, lumber her disoriented and confused self around a psychiatric hospital, at the hands of the odd Dr. Channard (Kenneth Cranham). Channard is supposed to be searching for a doorway that leads to where the Cenobites reside. He finally manages to access it, having a patient slice herself open, which resulting in the Cenobite dimension emerging in a similar way to what happened when Kirsty's uncle died.
When Kirsty receives a vision from her father that he is currently in Hell, surrounded by Cenobites, she and her closest alliance, Kyle MacRae (William Hope), leap into the Cenobite dimension to try and retrieve them. Of course, she's met with the demons' ruler, Pinhead (Doug Bradley), among many other ghastly looking individuals who continually to blur the line between torturous pain and satisfying pleasure.
It's a sickly twisted combination Hellbound: Hellraiser II doesn't even begin to explore. The grotesque grace of the original installment, in the way it plunged us into this unfamiliar dimension in the similar way our lines of spatial perception were blurred in the first couple Nightmare on Elm Street films is traded for haphazardly constructed and misconstrued ideas about how exactly we arrive in these dimensions and what lies ahead. The technicalities and rampant intricacies are ridiculous if you try and follow them in any meaningful way, and the end result is frustrating and largely incoherent.
The special effects and character costumes are, once again, petty enticing and well-done. There is a great deal of variety amongst the simple appearance of many different demons, so it's unsurprising to see what a uniformly solid job director Tony Randel and the accompanying crew did to continue Barker's vision in a visual sense. The twisted lairs and dungeons that we navigate, all in a fairly short period of time, are frequently mesmerizing in their layeredness and overall design. It helps make up, at least in a small sense, for what a lackluster affair Hellbound: Hellraiser II is all around, even though it can only do so much as it butts against a wholly unimpressive film.
Starring: Ashley Laurence, Kenneth Cranham, William Hope, and Doug Bradley. Directed by: Tony Randel.
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Post by StevePulaski on Oct 14, 2018 15:13:36 GMT -5
Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth (1992) Directed by: Anthony Hickox Pinhead (Doug Bradley) is now encased in a statue in the third installment of the Hellraiser franchise. Rating: ★★½ There's something admirably sleazy and uncouth about Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth and it's that aesthetic which propels it to being another competent, acceptable entry into one of the horror genre's most creative franchises. Waxwork director Anthony Hickox picks up and runs with the crafty, sinister edge of the previous two installments but finds his own footing when he allows the amalgamation of Hell and Earth to take form. He develops Pinhead by making him equally as terrifying whether his presence is on our very planet or deep in the catacombs of Hell, and through it all he and writer Peter Atkins guide a strong protagonist through the story.
More on that in a bit. The film works off Hellbound: Hellraiser II by revealing to us that Pinhead was a manifestation of two entities: a World War I Army veteran named Elliot Spencer and Spencer's own id, which has largely driven the current incarnation of Spencer as the sadomasochistic Cenobite. Now however, Pinhead is trapped with the famous puzzle box, which has rendered him a statue. Soon enough, J. P. Monroe (Kevin Bernhardt), the incorrigible owner of a local nightclub known as The Boiler Room, buys the pillar that houses Pinhead from an old antique shop. It's another piece of tacky furniture in an already seedy place until TV reporter Joey Summerskill (Terry Farrell) spots a potential connection. She links up with a young homeless woman (Paula Marshall) and the two sift through old video-tapes and bygone historical accounts of the puzzle box, soon catching up with the fact that Pinhead and his evil crew are looking to rein on Earth as opposed to confining all Cenobites to Hell.
Joey is a likable lead and Farrell makes her easy to embrace, frills and all. She's lively but not simple, and Atkins gives Pinhead a credible human to battle with over the course of 89 minutes. At times, dare I say, she appears to be the only one ostensibly trying to act, as the performers don't find their groove like she does. All of them seem hyper-aware they're part of a B-movie, or at least the third installment in a series. Farrell tries to assure there is still some credibility left in the tank. In addition, Doug Bradley appears poised as Pinhead once again, tense, frightening, and with enough scenes that could reasonably be added to his own highlight reel (especially the flashback to his origins as a brutal Army captain).
Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth isn't as discombobulated nor as messy as the previous sequel. Again, it has a sleazy, nineties quality that makes it enticing, both fun in a disturbing sense and effective as a late-night chiller. The effects do show just how budgeted this series eventually became, but they contribute to the feel of an average midnight-movie. Even better, Atkins' doesn't miss the opportunity to swirl in themes of war, trauma, and the darkest depths of one's subconscious into a film that could've simply been content with being a painfully empty, head-case of a horror film. Throughout the movie, Joey comes to grips with her father's past in Vietnam as does Pinhead with his war days, leaving the two individuals to bear their demons in another way that pedals this franchise into deceptively deep territory. When the haunted, unstable psyches of these characters come into the spotlight, they have another chance of staying that way if Pinhead's desire to break free and remain on Earth comes true. There's an added layer of stakes present too, something Hellbound tried to pull off but muddled in the process.
My big question after watching Hellraiser III: is this the beginning of the end for this franchise? I could definitely see how it could be. This film wraps up effectively, and despite the open-endedness of the conclusion, is nonetheless a fitting, spooky send-off for a character that we can group together with Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees as one that will always find a way to haunt; someone whose saga will never formally conclude at least in a spiritual sense. I dunno. To see more than seven sequels come after this perfectly reasonable trilogy-maker just instills the kind of unease in me I usually only see turn up when humans appear sans their skin.
Starring: Terry Farrell, Doug Bradley, Paula Marshall, Kevin Bernhardt, Peter Boynton, Ken Carpenter, and Peter Atkins. Directed by: Anthony Hickox.
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Post by StevePulaski on Oct 18, 2018 11:00:59 GMT -5
Hellraiser: Bloodline (1996) Directed by: Alan Smithee Valentina Vargas and Doug Bradley. Rating: ★★ Oh, what Hellraiser: Bloodline could've been. In another classic case of studios initially buying into an edgy, potentially genre-bending premise only to run scared when faced with the final product and revert back to a conservative mentality, Hellraiser: Bloodline was so maligned in post-production that it's a bit of a marvel the film went on to see the light of day. Any ardent cinephile or in-the-know horror fan knew the most obvious warning sign and that sign comes during the opening credits: "directed by Alan Smithee."
Initially conceived as an anthology/triptych of sorts, on top of a prequel that showed the past, present, and future impact of the famous Lament Configuration (or "the box," as it's plainly known), Hellraiser: Bloodline initially revolves around an engineer in 2127, who is in the process of controlling a robot as it attempts to solve the famous puzzle-box until it explodes as him and his work are apprehended by police. We then flashback at 1796 Paris, where the engineer's ancestor, a French toymaker, finishes work on this meticulously crafted box, filling an order for a wealthy aristocrat. Inadvertently, however, the box winds up being an entry-gate to Hell and the infamous Cenobites that inhabit it. It's this process that (I think) summons Angelique (Valentina Vargas), a demon who agrees to be the toymaker's slave on the condition he doesn't do anything to disturb or alter Hell. Then, of course, there's Pinhead (Doug Bradley), and he fits in somewhere between 1796 and 2127, got it?
Hellraiser: Bloodline is crushed by the weight of itself and the confines of an 85 minute runtime. Originally written and shot as a 110 minute film, evidence of a workprint being the definitive cut runs amok as the narrative feels choppy, scenes abruptly end and more-than-notably disrupt the rhythm of the picture, and closeups on random objects while disembodied voices converse show a lack of appropriate footage was on-hand during editing. This is a mess of cruelly disappointing proportions. You can almost feel the life sucked out of screenwriter Peter Akins and (real) director Kevin Yagher, who left production before it was completed, leaving Joe Chappelle to come in and damage control, with every uneven cut and head-scratching artistic decision — made in the confines of a Miramax boardroom as opposed to by those handling the actual film.
It's been reported that Hellraiser: Bloodline was conceived as a film very closely in line with Clive Barker's vision (which leads to my question: why did he just helm the project, not to mention the previous two installments?). Rather than letting the franchise take on a new direction — one that could've optimistically resulted in better sequels as opposed to those like Bloodline, which look like direct-to-DVD offerings despite actually getting a theatrical run — Miramax bet the under. They dialed back on many of Atkins' creative subplots and Yagher and company's respective camerawork and visual effects in efforts to create something more broadly appealing. Another confounding detail about that is at this juncture, those turning up to see the fourth installment in the Hellraiser franchise are fans of the series. No one is jumping on board with this film and no one is going to make it to this film having not seen and appreciated the previous films (enough) to seek out the subsequent installments. Why not be a little daring? This wasn't a $25 million studio gamble. It begs an explanation.
Hellraiser: Bloodline is simply a misfire, not disastrous thanks to flashes of what could've been, but a film that's barely coherent and lacks the cohesiveness of an anthology and the "bite" in Cenobite.
Starring: Doug Bradley, Bruce Ramsay, Valentina Vargas, and Kim Myers. Directed by: Alan Smithee.
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Post by StevePulaski on Oct 25, 2018 11:30:40 GMT -5
Hellraiser: Inferno (2000) Directed by: Scott Derrickson Doug Bradley returns as Pinhead in Hellraiser: Inferno. Rating: ★★ Hellraiser: Inferno marks the Hellraiser franchise's entrance into two very distinct realms. The first is the obvious: the entry of Pinhead into the new millennium, evidence by how the series, even at this juncture, continues to be very much a product of its time (more on that in a bit). The second is the series from this point forward being direct-to-video. Eighteen years later, Hellraiser is still going "strong" despite not having a theatrical installment in over 20 years. Inferno's predecessor, Hellraiser: Bloodline, was released to middling critical reception back in 1996 and mediocre box office earnings. I can't imagine what kind of reputation Inferno would have had people actually had to go to a theater and pay to see it.
As stated, with every subsequent installment in the ongoing Hellrasier franchise, each seems to be a product of its time. The original took on a subversive fantasy approach not fully explored in American horror yet wasn't too divorced from the copious amounts of fantasy/science-fiction amalgamations that were being released during that time. The second and third films, respectively, took on a sleazier, grungier style that made them fit right in with the 1990s aesthetic. With Hellraiser: Inferno, the film has that distinctive early aughts look of assuming the role of a police procedural just as much as a Hellraiser horror film. Its look and feel sends reminders of the era's most memorable works of the genre, such as Se7en, The Bone Collector, and Jacob's Ladder, although try telling any passionate fan of any of those films they have something in common with the fifth film to feature Pinhead and you might get a real hook chucked at you from a distance.
Inferno follows Joe Thorne (Craig Sheffer), a contemptible, corrupt Denver detective who regularly disrespects both his badge and his family by doing drugs and having sex with prostitutes. He sees nothing wrong with his actions and goes about them with the kind of cold distance we could believe he adopts when buying the day's newspaper. One day while investigating a murder site, he finds the Lament Configuration and tinkers with enough to get it to do its thing. Subsequently, he begins seeing vivid and frightening hallucinations of hell and mutilation, specifically two alien-like creatures with no eyes that devour him and literally get underneath his skin. Joe soon becomes obsessed with finding an elusive figure known as "the Engineer," a suspect wanted for kidnapping children. His partner (Nicholas Turturro) is only so much help, rendering Joe on his own while his friends are slaughtered and his family is put in jeopardy (when I say "family," I mean his wife and daughter, who spout some of the most empty, vapid lines to the point where calling them archetypes might be a bit too generous).
Where's Pinhead in all this? He actually comes out during therapy sessions with an accomplished, local psychiatrist (James Remar), who listens to Joe's problems. However, neither are prepared for the wrath of the demon Cenobites (is that redundant?) when they begin to have a stronger hold on Joe, whose cocksure attitude becomes a lot more vulnerable as he goes on to realize how desperately little control he has over his life.
Sheffer is hardly compelling as Joe as a person. As a thin character, he's made the least bit interesting because he's such an amoral sinner, unfazed even when he knows he can and should do better. As a person, Joe only goes as far as Sheffer, and his performance ranges from stoic and deadpan to overdramatic to the point of being comedic. He's an unreliable anti-hero, but screenwriter Paul Harris Boardman and director/co-writer Scott Derrickson never embrace the possibilities such a character offers. Regardless of whether or not they did, I'm not sure Sheffer could've handled them with the least bit convincingly.
Inferno feels like a spec script that was lying around on the desk of an executive at Miramax until someone picked it up and had the bright idea of spinning it as a Hellraiser sequel. It would make sense. Doug Bradley's Pinhead character feels like an afterthought. He's gone from a one-liner spewing caricature in Bloodline to someone who holds the weight and characteristics of a mannequin to the point of being a non-factor in his own film. The Cenobites Joe sees on a regular basis are spooky, yet they feel out of place when introduced, and given how much of the film's final 20 minutes are dominated by hallucinations, demons, and visions of Hell, you get the idea of how a very practical, maybe captivating, ending was greatly rewritten as an incoherent one that fits right in line with the Hellraiser timeline.
Now, there are some good ideas here. Joe's investigation is made somewhat absorbing solely based on the number of weirdos he must interview and interrogate, including a paranoid, pugnacious owner tattoo/piercing shop and a local pervert man who shacks up in an ice-cream truck with cutouts of lingerie models and Good Humor advertisements lining the interior of his van. All of this is in the name of tracking down "the Engineer," and while the reveal comes as somewhat of a surprise, the hackneyed, bland way Boardman and Derrickson execute it turns an already below-average offering into one that is notable for poorly handling what should be its most climactic moments.
The good news is Derrickson did indeed go on to make better movies; The Exorcism of Emily Rose and Sinister just to name a few. Hellraiser: Inferno is de facto not the worst installment of the series thus far largely thanks to the post-production assault Hellraiser: Bloodline experienced, but that is not a ringing endorsement for a series that, by this point, had creator Clive Barker shaking his head like a man who opened the Lament Configuration muttering, "what have I done?" to himself on a frequent basis.
Starring: Craig Sheffer, Nicholas Turturro, James Remar, Doug Bradley, Noelle Evans, and Lindsay Taylor. Directed by: Scott Derrickson.
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Post by StevePulaski on Oct 26, 2018 9:42:38 GMT -5
Hellraiser: Hellseeker (2000) Directed by: Rick Bota Dean Winters comes in contact with Pinhead while visiting an acupuncturist in Hellraiser: Hellseeker. Rating: ★★ Hellraiser: Hellseeker is the first of three direct-to-video Hellraiser sequels to be helmed by Rick Bota, a director who was hired long-term in order to carry out a new, dynamic vision to a series that was left in a bit of an awkward limbo after the maligned production of Bloodline and the stiff procedural that was Inferno. His initial move is a logical one; working with writers Carl V. Dupré and Tim Day, he brings back Kirsty from the original trilogy, but only as a bait-and-switch. What starts with poise and promise of a true-to-form Hellraiser sequel — whatever that may be given no installment has come close to touching the spirit and quality of the first film — Hellseeker ultimately fumbles an intriguing idea by adopting a similar structure to Inferno and giving into slack pacing along the way.
The film instead revolves around Trevor Gooden (Dean Winters, who you might know as "Mayhem" in the new recurring Allstate commercials), the husband of Kirsty (Ashley Laurence), who survives a car accident caused by him swerving off a bridge into the river below. Kirsty is presumed dead as she never resurfaced though her body isn't discovered, leading police to suspect some foul play on Trevor's behalf. Nagging headaches and unpredictable, realistic visions of Hell and brutality become normal parts of Trevor's day, and just like Craig Sheffer's Joe Thomas from Inferno, he's a contemptible yuppie with a track-record of womanizing and cheating, making him a prime candidate to feel Pinhead's (Doug Bradley) wrath in due time. Not even his friend Bret (Trevor White) is of any assistance in the face of detectives (William S. Taylor and Michael Rogers), who feel they're closing in on Trevor as he grows more lucid in his own body and mind.
Inferno and Hellseeker have a lot in common as if two things wound up carrying over from this film's predecessor. It's as if Bota didn't want to reinvent the wheel too quickly and have the sixth film in the series follow in line with the events of Inferno, for both Trevor and Joe exist in the same realm of unreliable anti-heroes who find themselves crippled by visions of Hell and Cenobites. Furthermore, the way the aforementioned demons are shoehorned into the screenplay again suggests Miramax picked up another run-of-the-mill spec script that was again too much Jacob's Ladder yet not enough and inserted Pinhead into the premise. This would explain the jarring flashbacks that can't help but feel out of place not to mention the stockpile of twists and revelations that come at the tail-end of the third-act. It's also then Dupré and Day appear to realize they have the most memorable character from the Hellraiser franchise second only to Pinhead in their film. Did they feel fans wouldn't want to see more of Kirsty and her struggles to move forward and would rather watch some sinful schmuck stumblebum his way through Office Space America?
I can't tell if it's the generally sub-par acting or the journeyman direction, but something about Hellraiser: Hellseeker at least feels impressively subtle. It's far from anything I'd laud as being transcendent, let alone a model for how horror films should sometimes ditch overly emotional climaxes or slam-bang sequences of peril, but it's also understated in a way that mutes all style and tumult as if to keep the narrative grounded and not reveal too much. In simple terms: it's ostensible move to suck most of the emotion out of everything winds up being a weird, gray-area plus, especially if the alternative is strange sequences of misplaced passion as seen in Inferno.
Hellraiser: Hellseeker gets the Rick Bota era off to a rocky start as the series continues to take old, junk-drawer procedurals and B-list dramas and turn them into gritty, thoroughly disgusting installments in the ongoing quest for Cenobites to retain control of Hell and gain control of our world. Notice how little I've said about Pinhead in my review of Hellseeker and Inferno? That's how much of a non-factor he feels in his own film, as if screenwriters and Miramax/Dimension producers are trying to outright restrain him. Certain shots and scenes in Hellseeker made me squirm, such as when Trevor is scalped and his brain subsequently poked by a long needle, or as more faces are pulled in multiple directions thanks to the grip of strong, steel hooks. These future Hellraiser installments need more of what makes these films genuinely great: terror, costumes, tension, elaborate setups, and Pinhead. Not the look and tone of a forgettable episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.
Starring: Dean Winters, Ashley Laurence, Trevor White, Doug Bradley, William S. Taylor, and Michael Rogers. Directed by: Rick Bota.
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Post by StevePulaski on Oct 30, 2018 10:58:52 GMT -5
Hellraiser: Deader (2005) Directed by: Rick Bota The faces of those just greeted by Pinhead in Hellraiser: Deader. Rating: ★★½ Hellraiser: Deader is a marginal improvement on the largely indistinct retreads that came before it, yet it's still not enough to warrant the high praise it should. Another doddering sequel that feels every bit like a spec script retailored to serve as another begrudging installment in the Hellraiser franchise, Deader at least makes clear its plan to give audiences more of what they want and less of what they don't. After two films that followed essentially the same cookie-cutter, narcissistic archetype, Bota's follow-up follows a cocksure reporter, who is more interesting and gutsy than both of them. Yet if formula and tradition has taught us anything, it's Pinhead doesn't see much to admire about her either and in time he'll make that clear.
The reporter is Amy Klein, played effectively by Kari Wuhrer, and she tells you all you need to know about her in the extended opening sequence that begins in a crackhouse. Amy goes undercover as a user, snaps some photos of the dilapidated conditions and lost souls, and then soon enough, her piece "How to be a Crack Whore" is published in the paper for whom she works. She lives off of nicotine and caffeine, routinely skips out on the reporter meetings, and refers to her firing at the "New York Post" as a "reassignment" to this lesser but less constrained publication. After her crack-piece is in black and white, her boss, Charles (Simon Kunz), sends her to Bucharest to investigate a mysterious videotape that was sent to his office. The video shows what looks to be a ritualistic murder and a subsequent reincarnation by a cult of zombied individuals whom refer to themselves as "Deaders." Amy heads to the return address once she's overseas and finds the woman who sent it dead in the bathroom, holding the famous Lament Configuration. And we begin.
Amy heads back to her hotel after being horrified and opens the configuration, in turn summoning Pinhead (Doug Bradley) and making her experience the same nightmarish visions of Kirsty, Joe, Trevor, and all those before her. Greatly hindered by elaborate visions of her at the mercy of hooks and disfigurement, Amy plunges deeper into the unsavory underbelly of Bucharest, eventually meeting Winter LeMarchand (Paul Rhys), the leader of the Deaders (do a double-take at that name if you're a Hellraiser fan). Winter explains he started the Deader cult as a way to prey on lost, vulnerable souls for reincarnation. Amy tries to keep her composure the best she can despite routinely succumbing to vivid hallucinations of people jumping in front of trains, and even in one uncomfortable sequence, seeing her childhood trauma played out in grim detail.
Hellraiser: Deader is the first of the direct-to-video sequels — which began with Inferno — that feels genuinely more compelled by the effects of the Lament Configuration and Pinhead's stranglehold on his victims than it does exterior details that ultimately don't hold much water after the fact. If you come for unsettling scenes that will keep you up at night, intense violence, and gore, Deader has that en masse, but beyond that, Wuhrer's Amy is believably executed largely thanks to screenwriters Neal Marshall Stevens (who I assume wrote the script for whatever film this was originally conceived to be) and Tim Day (who re-worked the script into a Hellraiser sequel) who make her cocky yet vulnerable — and Wuhrer finishes it off with a memorable performance, something that eluded Craig Sheffer and Dean Winters from the previous installments.
Doug Bradley's Pinhead is also back to being a major player as opposed to a non-factor or a third-rate, yukking Freddy Krueger. His fingerprints and command are felt all over Amy's experiences in Deader, and Bradley, for the first time in a long time, feels comfortable inhabiting a role that wouldn't be as lauded if he hadn't shown how it was done from the jump. I think it also comes down to the Pinhead character having more room to breathe, so to speak, in longer instances such as rituals and the climax that demystify him at this juncture so we can actually see why the characters spend so much time fussing over a small box and are so often paralyzed by these elaborate visions. A little context and attention to detail goes a long way, and it seems Day and Bota finally got that after fumbling around with Hellraiser: Hellseeker. Hellraiser: Deader isn't anything to recommend highly, nor should it be equated too closely with the original trilogy of films, but it's a solid, superior sequel to a franchise that was skidding in a disappointing direction.
Starring: Kari Wuhrer, Paul Rhys, Simon Kunz, and Doug Bradley. Directed by: Rick Bota.
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Post by StevePulaski on Oct 31, 2018 14:41:46 GMT -5
Hellraiser: Hellworld (2005) Directed by: Rick Bota The group of numbskulls in Hellraiser: Hellworld. Rating: ★½ Since becoming a straight-to-video franchise, the Hellraiser series has danced rather precariously close to the edge, never being more than mediocre but coming ever-so-close to falling off into downright awful territory. If you would've suggested that the eighth film in the series was where things would get real bad, I would've taken the under. If you would've said that even when Hellraiser went into space, that wouldn't be where the quality plummeted, I probably would've laughed and cited Leprechaun 4: In Space and Jason X as examples where a series boldly went and crashed where no franchise should ever go. But really, all you had to say was Hellraiser: Hellworld's tagline for me to believe you: "evil goes online."
Not only is the aforementioned statement just plain false in the larger context of the film, but it succinctly tells you where this franchise was at during the mid-aughts: caught at a crossroads. Hellworld comes at a time when horror films were trying to embrace technology in their conceits, yet prolifically finding difficulty in their executions (see FeardotCom). Beyond that, Hellworld was also made when "torture porn" was on the rise, amidst the Bush/Guantanamo Bay era in American politics, and Saw had just been released into theaters several months prior. On that note, it doesn't seem to be a coincidence that the great Lance Henriksen's performance in this film echoes that of the menacing Tobin Bell in the Saw movies. But Hellworld doesn't have a firm hold on its identity as a fiercely modern horror film nor as a Hellraiser film, and that coupled with how it abandons its concept so early are germane for a picture that is so confused, and as a result, very bad.
The film takes place in a universe where Hellraiser is a series of films that have inspired a pretty remarkable fanbase; one loyal enough to put up with dial-up internet and play the new "Hellworld" video game on their computers. We open on a group of friends at their one mutual pal's funeral, who was one of the first to become obsessed with the game before committing suicide. Two years later, they apparently haven't taken that warning seriously enough because they still play the game, and better yet, agree to attend a private Hellworld Party at a nearby mansion after receiving invites through the game itself. While some of the teens, such as Mike (played by Henry Cavill), are excited to partake in the festivities, others like Chelsea (Katheryn Winnick) are worried, especially when the mysterious headmaster (Henriksen) greets them and shows off his vast collection of Pinhead and Cenobite memorabilia. The mansion is apparently a work of Lemarchand, and its house-guests tonight don generic masks and contact each other with special codes on breakaway phones.
As the night marches on, the group finds that the mansion is a dizzying labyrinth, as if it takes on a life of its own. For example, when Chelsea tries to get the attention of the police through the attic window, the cop below doesn't see anyone in the same window. Another guy discovers he's essentially invisible upon walking into a lounge and seeing no one respond to his hellos nor his request for a drink at the bar. Nothing is at is seems in the Hellworld mansion, and that makes it a prime destination for Pinhead (Doug Bradley in what is, to date, his final performance as the character) to make an appearance along with his gang of odious Cenobites.
Hellraiser: Hellworld is the first of the series to adopt a style in-line with a generic slasher as opposed to a psychological thriller, a procedural, a supernatural fantasy, or any one of the litany of genres you could subscribe to any of the previous seven installments. The kills in the film actually echo Final Destination, as they have a small element of fate and Rube Goldbergian trickery to their process, while the aforementioned costumes and lavish mansion softly, softly echo that of Eyes Wide Shut the way a softcore porn parody touches on aspects of the very property it's spoofing. But despite the paratext suggesting viewers' immersion in the digital world and binary code alluding that technology will be a main component in the madness, Hellworld adopts the same derivative, spec-script approach of the Rick Bota-directed predecessors in that it takes a dusty, pre-existing screenplay and hamfists it to check all the boxes of a Pinhead movie. Despite falsely conveying the idea of Pinhead entering an entirely new dimension, it's more about transitioning the series' warped sensibilities into a more basic slasher structure, similar to a Nightmare on Elm Street movie. A bad one.
Hellraiser: Hellworld is a sorry excuse for a film even belonging to a franchise that lost its way early on, and a poor followup to Deader, which showed promise, especially given its conception. With uniformly bad acting and a C-rate script, its existence serves as little else besides a stain on an original franchise and that of Henry Cavill's early career, as the future-Superman is involved in a fellatio scene more awkward than anything I've seen in a horror film in all my years. It's as if they thought they didn't have a project that was bad enough and kept adding elements like Pinhead adds needles into his skull.
Starring: Stelian Urian, Henry Cavill, Katheryn Winnick, Lance Henriksen, and Doug Bradley. Directed by: Rick Bota.
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Post by StevePulaski on Nov 5, 2018 15:35:09 GMT -5
Hellraiser: Revelations (2011) Directed by: Víctor García Stephan Smith Collins replaces Doug Bradley as Pinhead in Hellraiser: Revelations. Rating: ★ There are bad films and then there's Hellraiser: Revelations, an utterly atrocious miscalculation. Fast-tracked into production because Dimension Films was at risk of using the license to the film series, Revelations was written, shot, and edited in only a matter of months before being thrown onto shelves under the studio's "Dimension Extreme" umbrella — their division for horror/independent films where that brand-name is often the scariest thing about the whole project. So low-budget it's practically the reason the term "no budget" exists and so inept on various levels, it makes the Rick Bota-directed films appear as if they were on the same level as the original trilogy. Through it all, it's another sharp needle in the eye of what was once, if you could believe, a truly ambitious and downright scary franchise.
The fact that information came out proclaiming Hellraiser: Revelations' purpose for existence was solely because Dimension was this close to losing the rights to the series shows what kind of quality control was put into the final product, let alone damage control and word-of-mouth. With this installment effectively being branded an "ashcan copy" before the DVD hit store shelves, all hope from Pinhead fans was sucked out like a Cenobite trying to regain life on Earth. The film was so dismal in the writing stages that veteran Doug Bradley publicly flipped it the bird and turned it down since the studio couldn't even grant him the privilege of letting him see the script before shooting. Any sane person who valued their time would've cut and run just from hearing all this background information and taking one look at the shamefully poor DVD cover/poster, but being the completionist I am, I couldn't leave this stone unturned. And it was all pain, no pleasure.
The film initially follows two numbskulls, Steve (Nick Eversman) and Nico (Jay Gillespie), who run away from their humdrum homelives in search of sex and bottomless tequila shots in Tijuana. They film their drunken escapades with a video-camera, and things reach a tipping point when a hooker the two gallivant with turns up dead in a bar bathroom. Following their rendezvous, Steven and Nico were never seen again, and a year later, all their families have is the recorded scrapbook of their adventures. In the present, we pick up on both families of the boys as they meet for dinner, which just so happens to be when Emma (Tracey Fairaway), Steven's sister and Nico's girlfriend, vocalizes her anger over the lack of closure, and winds up convincing her mother to show her the videotape. She sees the contents of their hard-partying weekend and gets the feeling in her stomach that something is dreadfully wrong.
It's then Steven miraculously turns up at the house, only he's not himself. He's anger and violent as he takes his and Nico's family hostage at gunpoint, and stresses the importance of obtaining the Lament Configuration, which Nico opened in Tijuana. On top of acting strange, the presence of Pinhead (now played by Stephan Smith Collins) and his legion of Cenobites start to haunt Emma while evidently overtaking Steven's spirit as well. Meanwhile, all the family can do is try to comply with the demands of their son, all while still in shock over his sudden reappearance.
The amateur camera footage of these two derelicts in Tijuana is only amusing for how ineptly conceived it is. We enjoy the first-person perspective of the individual holding the camera because we feel immersed in their world in that moment, but for whatever reason, director Víctor García pulls us out of those shots on a regular basis with staged camera-angles. It's a move that proves how ill-conceived and rushed Hellraiser: Revelations was; it was kicked into such a high gear in post-production that it was permitted to contradict its own logic.
Other issues are your usual coffin-sealing nails for low-budget horror sequels, from bad acting to dopey plotting. Saying Hellraiser: Revelations was stuck in neutral would actually be incompetent; it never shifts gears. Most of the film is set in the family's living room or on their back-porch, not even attempting to conceal the shoestring budget nor lack of imagination. Most of the money evidently went into the makeup effects and bloodshed, which admittedly has an earthy grittiness to its look that definitely triumphs over the cheap-looking effects seen in Hellraiser: Hellworld. Shockingly enough, veteran effects master Gary J. Tunnicliffe didn't handle the gore and costumes with this, but instead the screenplay. I could blast Tunnicliffe's idiotic script and badly mishandled story, but I will offer the benefit of the doubt that Dimension fast-tracking this into existence couldn't have put the cast and crew in the most level-headed and careful state of mind.
But that doesn't excuse the final product, which is an utter disgrace to the series to the point where even so-bad-it's-good enjoyment is out of the question. The most compelling and memorable footnote about Hellraiser: Revelations is series creator Clive Barker's response to the film's paratext selling it with the statement, "from the mind of Clive Barker." "I have NOTHING to do with the f*****' thing," Barker said on Twitter. "If they claim its from the mind of Clive Barker, it's a lie. It's not even from my butt-hole."
Starring: Nick Eversman, Tracey Fairaway, Jay Gillespie, Stephan Smith Collins, Sebastien Roberts, and Steven Brand. Directed by: Víctor García.
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