The Completist Guide to the Hellraiser series (1987-2011) part 2

Hellraiser IV: Bloodline (1996)

In a lot of ways Bloodline feels like the conclusion of the Hellraiser series. Whereas the first three films all leave endings that hint the plot of the next sequel, every film after Bloodline is basically a stand alone entry that requires no knowledge of any of the previous films. I guess that's to be expected as Bloodline is probably as "epic" as any Hellraiser film can hope to be. It's a massive sprawling storyline that's set over three time periods, from 18th century France to present day New York to a futuristic space station. And though it's far from a good movie, you've got to at least give the makers credit for thinking big... REALLY BIG!

The film begins in 2127 where Dr Merchant (Bruce Ramsey) is working on a space station using remote control robots to open the puzzle box in order to trap and destroy Pinhead once and for all. Before he can complete his work he's stopped a group of marines who take over the station. They question him about what he's doing and in order to try and get them on his side Merchant explains about what the box is and how his whole bloodline is connected to it. First, we flash back to Philip Lemarchard (also Ramsey), an 18th century toymaker who was commissioned, unknowingly, to make the original box for a twisted aristocrat. Then later we get the tale of John Merchant (again, Ramsey), a 20th century architect who tried to create a building which would trap Pinhead. All of them failed and now it's up to Dr Merchant, the last of his bloodline, to kill Pinhead for good.

Like I say I enjoyed the "scope" of this film. It kind of reminded me a little of Darren Aronofsky's vastly underrated The Fountain which similarly spanned past, present and future with a Hugh Jackman playing the protagonist in each segment. A more accurate comparison though, given that this is quite a cheesy movie, would probably be one of the time-hopping Highlander films. Given that the second and third Hellraiser films had drifted more and more away from the horror of the original, I was okay with seeing the franchise move into cheesy sci-fi/fantasy territory. Make no mistake though none of this is very scary. The space station scenes aren't anywhere near the creepy terrors of Alien, it's more like Critters 4.

The film is credited as being Alan Smithee (a notorious pseudonym that directors have used for years when they don't want to be associated with a film) but it was nominally directed by effects guru Kevin Yagher but Dimension insisted on reshoots and Joe Chapelle (Halloween 6) oversaw these bits. The film does show heavy signs of being tampered with. There's a very disjointed atmosphere to the whole thing - you can tell that some lines have obviously been redubbed, some scenes end abruptly, and the story doesn't quite flow as it should. Without seeing the original script or workprint it's tough to tell how much of a hatchet job it was. Still there's some pleasing bits and pieces along the way.

The idea of using robots as a "safe" way to opening the box was a cool little idea and (though it didn't need explaining) the creation of the puzzle box was quite interesting. There's a very cool scene in the 18th century bit where the evil French Aristocrat skins a prostitute and "fills" the body with a demon he's summoned. It was one of the few times that the film approached anything remotely creepy. The problem was that given its an 80 minute run time, there's not enough time devoted to any of the segments. I think the weakest bit was the John Merchant/present day section because it didn't really add anything to the story apart from explain what the Puzzle Box building (glimpsed at the end of Hellraiser III) was. Really the film should have been given a better budget and runtime to realise the director's full vision. As it stands it feels very compromised.

The acting wasn't great but I kind of enjoyed Ramsey's performance. You couldn't call it good but he had just enough charisma to carry the film. Valentina Vargas is pretty horrendous as Angelique, a rival Cenobite and Doug Bradley was just about okay. I found it quite humourous to see Adam Scott (Step Brothers, Party Down) in one of his first roles as a wealthy Frenchman - I guess everyone starts somewhere! Overall, Bloodline is such a bold crazy idea for a film I couldn't help but like it. I just wish it wasn't so dull and plodding.

GRADE: B-

Hellraiser V: Inferno (2000)

So Inferno was the first Hellraiser film that went direct to video and it came out without much fanfare six years after the box office failure of Bloodline. The film was directed by Scott Derrickson who would go on to do (shock, horror, actual films at the cinema!) The Exorcism of Emily Rose and the big budget Keanu Reeves-starring remake of The Day the Earth Stopped. This film and the next few had no involvement from Clive Barker on a storyline or producing level. Inferno also marked the beginning of Dimension's practice of using existing scripts and having a writer tack on Hellraiser elements. As a result, many of them feel very disconnected from the first four films.

Inferno sees Craig Sheffer (who starred in Barker's 1990 film Nightbreed) as Joseph Thorne, a corrupt police detective with a coke habit and penchant for picking up prostitutes (despite the fact he's married with a kid). The film begins with Thorne investigating some bizarre ritualistic murders. At one of the crime scene he finds the puzzle box lying near one of the victims and takes it home. He quickly solves the puzzle and opens the box but unlike the previous films Pinhead and the Cenobites don't appear. Thorne continues to investigate the murders, trying to uncover who the killer, nicknamed "The Engineer", is. His colleagues, informants and family all start to get killed off by the unseen killer and he begins to have vivid waking nightmares. What has happened to him and who is the killer?

Okay, I'm going to drop a ton of spoilers here because it's tough to talk about the Inferno's flaws without talking it's ending. So the twist is that "The Engineer" is really Pinhead and basically everything after Thorne opens the puzzle box was him living through his own inescapable personal version of hell, ostensibly for living such a cruel and sinful life. The thing with twist endings is you really need to keep the audience as "in the dark" as possible to pull them off successfully. Inferno flags up very early on that what's happening to Thorne might not be "reality". He thinks he sees Cenobites everywhere, his investigation leads him to weird locations and bizarre conclusions. I don't know about other viewers but for me, it was very obvious he was in some distorted nightmare. And as such it was frustrating waiting a whole 90 minutes for the lead character to cotton on.

I think if the film wasn't marketed as a Hellraiser film it might not have been so obvious but because it is you're primed - waiting for Pinhead to show up and knowing bad guys get their comeuppance in these films - so it quickly becomes very apparent what fate has befallen Thorne.* Also, I kind of felt like the fact that nothing is "real" in the film gave Scott Derrickson too much licence to just play around with some sub-David Lynch weirdness that goes nowhere rather than tell us a narrative. Some of the weird scenes were quite good like when Thorne keeps trying to see his elderly mother in the hospital but other times it was just lame like the kung fu cowboy cenobites he encounters at one point!

Craig Sheffer does a decent job with the lead role and he pretty much has to carry the whole film on his own. I've never rated him much as an actor but he does good work here conveying Thorne's spiralling mania. He does both shouty and angry really well. I don't know whether it was really necessary for him to narrate the film though but I guess they were looking to give it a hard boiled detective feel. The rest of the cast is pretty forgettable with the noted exception of James Remar who does a great cameo as Thorne's psychologist.

Script aside Derrickson does an... interesting job with the direction. It's a dramatic change in colour palette for the series which has always been rich and gothic. Here it's very high contrast and washed-out at times resembling a 90s music video. I guess I kind of liked that they tried something new with this film but overall it just didn't work for me. Like I said earlier twist endings usually make or break a film and in this case it broke it.

* Another thing that spoils the Engineer's identity for anyone who has read Barker's original book 'The Hellbound Heart' - is that the lead Cenobite was called The Engineer in that too!

GRADE: C+

Hellraiser VI: Hellseeker (2002)

Two years later Dimension released another DTV sequel which was the first of three Hellraiser sequels directed Rick Bota. On the one hand I was quite interested in watching this because it marked the return of Ashley's Lawrence's Kirsty Cotton to the franchise and I thought getting her and Doug Bradley back together might recapture some of greatness of the first film. Unfortunately, it didn't and Lawrence's role is actually very, very brief. I can't find the interview but somewhere Lawrence wrote that she managed to buy a new refrigerator with the money she got for her 5 minutes of screen time in this film!

Hellseeker sees Kirsty and Trevor (Dean Winters), her new fiancee, driving through the countryside when they swerve to avoid another car and crash into a river. Though Trevor manages to escape, Kirsty gets stuck in the car and presumably drowns. Trevor immediately calls the police and they dredge the river but they find no sign of Kirsty's body anywhere. At the same time Trevor begins getting huge holes in his memory and struggles to remember anything of his relationship with Kirsty. The police, of course, suspect Trevor of murdering Kirsty but without a body they are forced to let him go. Meanwhile, Trevor starts to have creepy hallucinations and weird things happen to him like throwing up a eel. Before long Trevor remembers that at some point he purchased the puzzle box but what exactly did he plan to do with it? And where has Kirsty gone?

Spoiling time again, I'm afraid. Okay, so it was pretty frustrating that the makers did a 'bait and switch' with Ashley Lawrence in this film but I can live with that. She's not that integral to the series. I'm even willing to go along with the ludicrous character change they give her. What's really frustrating with Hellseeker is that it's got another lame twist ending and worst of all it's almost exactly the same as Inferno's. Once again, everything that happened in the film wasn't "real", it was all Trevor's dying thoughts! What actually happened was Kirsty deliberately crashed the car and she was the one who survived not Trevor. She did it on purpose because he was trying to bump her off to claim her inheritance. He wanted to use the puzzle box to kill her but Kirsty made a deal with Pinhead to spare her soul in return for Trevor's soul and four other people who he was connected with (such as a colleague he was cheating on her with).

Despite the fact I should hate this more than Inferno I... didn't. I can't really explain it but I guess I was swayed by Lawrence's brief reappearance (still looking hot) and the fact that Dean Winters did a marginally better job than Sheffer in the lead. Once again, the whole film really rests on the lead character's shoulders but unlike Thorne, Trevor isn't a conflicted character - because he'd lost his memory he couldn't remember doing evil things - which made him a more interesting character to follow. Also there wasn't some empty 'red herring' detective plot to get frustrated about. I guess I also preferred this to the previous film because my expectations were at an all time low.

Rick Bota's direction was okay. Certainly nothing spectacular. It was far more subdued and less stylised than the previous film, which I actually liked. That said Hellseeker's look was pretty interchangeable from all the other horror films they make on the cheap in Eastern Europe. The only thing that annoyed me was some horribly cheap CGI in a couple of scenes. Doug Bradley gets some better dialogue than the previous film and at least he didn't assume the form of any human characters - which kind of annoyed me in the last film. Once again though he's used for literally 5 minutes in total which feels kind of stingy.

Overall, Hellseeker is very, very marginally better than Inferno but lets face it both are pretty dire movies that will have you looking at your watch every five seconds to see how much more "hell" you have to experience. I think Dimension really missed the boat with this one. They could have made a cool reunion movie by bringing back Kirsty but they blew it by rolling out another 'hatchet job'. Surely this is the lowest that the series can go?

GRADE: C+

NEXT TIME: Pinhead goes Meta and we reach the end of the line for this franchise.

The Completist Guide to the Hellraiser series (1987-2011) part 1

Hellraiser (1987)

I've got to confess I was never a huge fan of the Hellraiser films. I had a friend as a teenager who loved them and made me a copy of the first four (on one VHS tape!) in the hopes of making me a fan too. At the time, I was massively freaked out by horror films and I remember watching them in 10 minute installments to make sure I didn't get too scared (Note: I've since manned up significantly). Anyway, I remember thinking they were okay but alternated between being ridiculously over-the-top and ploddingly dull. Fast forward several years and it turns out they've made nine of these films! So I thought the time was ripe to give them another go and watch them all from the beginning. Surely, if they made nine entries there must have been something I missed? No?

So the first film sees Andrew Robinson and Clare Higgins play Larry and Julia, a middle aged couple who move into an old house with their daughter Kirsty. The house used to belong to Larry's brother Frank and everyone assumes that he has either died or gone missing. But the truth is far darker. You see Frank was a thrill seeker and picked up an ancient puzzle box while he was on his travels. He brought it back to his house and managed to solve the puzzle, however by solving the box it opened a portal to another dimension and a bunch of sado-masochistic beings called Cenobites tore his body (and soul) apart! After Larry accidentally cuts his hand and bleeds on the floor where this all happened Frank starts to be reanimated and he forces Julia, who he had an affair with long ago, to get him more blood so he can become whole again.

Hellraiser is actually adapted from Barker's own novella 'The Hellbound Heart' that he wrote in 1986. The storyline of the film is actually quite strong (far greater than any other entry in the series) and you can tell it's been adapted from a book. This isn't just a silly gore movie, there's some thought-provoking themes in the background. Barker's clearly trying to draw parallels between the sado-masochistic Cenobites and Julia's destructive (and submissive) affair with Frank. The part where a partially reanimated Frank forces Julia to lure several lonely businessmen back to her house and kill them is creepy not for the gory deaths but for how easily Julia agrees to do it. It's the lengths that she'll go for Frank (and the controlling influence that Frank has over her) that are most disturbing elements of the film.

Considering Hellraiser was Barker's first time directing a film he did a pretty solid job. I only really had two issues with the whole film. The first was that the violence and gore is quite frequent and brightly lit and I cant help but feel that if he implied instead of showing, the film might have achieved a truly terrifying atmosphere. The second was the finale where the Cenobites, having claimed Frank's soul, start inexplicably going after Kirsty (something which doesn't happen in the book), not only felt a contrived way to give the film an action-packed ending but it also contained some shoddy effects that really take you out of the film. The thing is Barker's writing is known for his long graphic descriptions but I don't think it works to always just translate them direct to screen. The mediums are very different and need handling in different ways.

The best part of the film is definitely Doug Bradley's portrayal of the lead Cenobite, Pinhead. He's a truly iconic cinematic monster. So weird, so bizarre, so creepy. Surprisingly, given that he's the only character on the film's poster, Pinhead is actually used very sparingly in the film and has only handful of lines. However each appearance and each line of dialogue is expertly delivered by Bradley. There's very few actors who could pull off a line like "We'll tear your soul apart." In fact all of the Cenobites are really well-realised. The lack of explanation of who they are and why they are linked to the box only add to the film's intrigue.

The acting by the human characters varies a bit. Clare Higgins does a great job of Julia. She's really the lynch pin of the film and succeeds in slowing shifting the character from innocent housewife to cold hearted murderer. Ashley Lawrence is okay as Kirsty. Her character, even in the book, seems to purely be there to solve the mystery so there's not a whole lot for Lawrence to do with the role but scream and act shocked. Andrew Robinson turns in a bit of a hammy performance as Larry. I think that's because Robinson is far better at playing villains (see: Dirty Harry) and he's hampered for the most part having to play Larry as such a nice guy. However when the final twist comes and Frank dons his skin to trick Kirsty we get a great 10 minutes.

All in all Hellraiser is still a very good film that deserves it's iconic status. It's a not a perfect film by any means but it's an important entry in the horror genre. The dated special effects have somewhat diminished it's power but some of the practical gore will never be topped. The shot of Frank reanimated was stunning and once you see that final shot of Larry/Frank getting pulled apart by hooks you'll never forget it!

GRADE: A-

Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1988)

Hellraiser was a smash hit at the box office and it was inevitable that sequel would happen but I'm surprised they turned one around so quickly. Barker stepped down from the directing chair and made way for Tony Randel, who would go on to do the live action anime Fist of the North Star in 1995. In a lot of ways the directing doesn't feel that different from the Barker's style, the only difference is the film seems even more stylised (and divorced from reality) than the previous entry - with an abundance of cheap set work that at times threatens to derail any sense of terror.

The story of Hellbound picks up directly from the previous film with Kirsty being questioned by police a few days later. She has been assigned to a mental asylum and though she tries to explain about the Cenobites and the puzzle box, no one believes her because the only evidence left behind was a bloody mattress. Unbeknownst to her, the head of the asylum, Dr Channard (a devilish Kenneth Cranham) actually does know about the box and he has been secretly been researching it for years. He ends up using a autistic patient, Tiffany, to open the box and, in doing so, resurrects Julia. Together they use the box to slip into the Cenobites realm (aka Hell) and Kirsty follows hoping to find her father.

As mentioned the film is much larger in scope than the previous film; we're no longer confined to a small house. The characters travel to Hell itself - which resembles... a large maze of corridors! It's kind of a let down and worked much better in the first film where the Cenobites just appeared out of nowhere. One of the problems with Hellbound (and the series as a whole) is that the makers consistently went out of there way to explain things too much. I don't think we really needed to know that Pinhead used to be a WWI soldier. I don't think we needed to see what Hell looked like. I don't think we needed to know that Hell was ruled over by a floating rhombus called Leviathan. The more we see and the more explanations we get the less scary something becomes.

The major character addition to the film is Dr Channard who is one of the best elements of the film. British actor Kenneth Cranham excels in the role and is very creepy both before and after he gets turned into a Cenobite. Like the first film, it's his obsession with the box (which admittedly is rather poorly introduced) that makes him a truly terrifying villain. I defy you not to get chills when he exclaims, just before being transformed, "I want to see. I want to know." Unfortunately, towards the end he has to try and pull off silly one liners like "The doctor is IN" which don't work out so well. And the less said about his final 'battle' with Pinhead the better. Having made Pinhead such a powerful character in the first film it was a shame to see him turn back to being human and help Kirsty!

It's always been a popular thing with horror sequels to pick up directly from the last installment (see: Friday the 13th, Halloween) but I can't help but feel that it wasn't necessary for Hellbound to bring Kirsty and everyone else back. It feels too much like a reunion for the sake of having a reunion. The Hellraiser series as a whole definitely hangs on the idea that death is far from permanent but bringing back characters again and again diminishes their impact. I think Clare Higgins had already done everything she could with the character of Julia in the first film, we didn't need to see her come back to torment Kirsty a second time (though interestingly, Barker actually thought Higgins should be the figure head for the series and tried to get her to come back for the third film).

Really, if you think about it, Hellbound is much more of a gothic fantasy adventure (with gore) rather than a straight-forward horror film and I think that's the way you've got to approach it to really enjoy it. Yes, it looks silly and will rarely scare you but everything moves at a fast pace and doesn't leave you much time to think about it. I guess I've got to offer the makers faint praise for not just rehashing the original film and trying to make a continuation but they really shouldn't have gone all the way to Hell. Overall, Hellbound is an okay-ish follow-up if viewed under these conditions.

GRADE: B-

Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth (1992)

The third film is usually always a difficult and tricky one for any franchise and Hellraiser III is no exception. In the intervening years between the second and third film, the original producers, New World Pictures, had closed and the rights were sold to Bob Weinstein's Dimension Films. At the time Dimension weren't the huge label they are today but still they decided to use their "influence" as producers over the film in order to try and make alterations to make the film more commercially successful than the previous one. This meant not only shooting it very cheap again (this time in the US instead of Britain) but also twisting the film's formula to better fit a horror film mould.

Hellraiser III again picks up from the previous film, only this time it ditches Kirsty in favour of a new protagonist, Joey (Terry Farrell), a TV reporter who is investigating the mysterious death of man in a hospital who seemed to be ripped apart by invisible chains. Meanwhile, the mysterious pillar that was seen rising out of the mattress in the last film has been mistaken for a piece of art and gets sold to Monroe, a sleazy club owner who puts it in his apartment. Before long the pillar comes to life and after devouring Monroe's latest girlfriend Pinhead gets reborn from it, only this time something's different. He's no longer reserved and stony-faced. He's now spouting one liners and causing all kind of mayhem. Turns out when he died in the last film his personality got split into the good and noble Captain Spencer and the evil, sadistic Pinhead. Now it's up to Joey to send him back to hell.

Clearly, the change in Pinhead was designed to give audiences a villain more in keeping with other franchises like Freddy Kruger and the Leprechaun. A wise-cracking bad guy who kills people in novel ways while spouting some witty one liners. Unfortunately, however much the film's storyline tries to justify the change (split personality, really?), it just doesn't work. It's too much of a shift. What made Pinhead truly terrifying in the original film was how emotionless he was. Having him say corny lines and smile significantly diminishes his presence. The big change is that Hellraiser III is really the film that bumps Pinhead up to being the major antagonist. When you think about it, he wasn't really the villain in either of the first two films.

Once again (in what will become a running theme in these Hellraiser reviews), you've got to sit back and accept that the franchise has evolved into something far sillier than the original film was in order to enjoy it. And there are a few fun bits here and there such as the new Cenobites that Pinhead creates are kind of enjoyable in a trashy way. The best being a guy who fires CDs out of his body. And Pinhead walking into a church and freaking out a priest was kind of cool. Unfortunately there's quite a lot of dullness to wade through to get to these little bits. Much of it is spent on Joey investigating Monroe's club and the puzzle box. At the very least Hellbound had a sense of pace, this film has none and when the action finally does kick in it's very lifeless. It's a sad state of affairs that the major action set piece of the film is the Cenobites chasing Joey down an empty city street blowing up cars around her to scare her. Exploding cars aren't scary!

The acting is pretty bad across the board. Terry Farrell is thoroughly wooden as Joey as is Paula Marshall who plays her sidekick Terri. Bradley does his best with the lines he's given but his Captain Spencer personality is very boring and Pinhead's spoiled (not least by the fact that they don't alter his voice to make it sound deeper). You know you're watching a bad film when plot exposition comes in the form of the lead character... having a dream. And the final battle in which Spencer and Pinhead re-merge is just a horrible cheap looking CGI effect and serves one of the lamest final battles I've seen in any film.

Overall, Hellraiser III is a pretty poor entry in the series (but we've got much lower to go). Even as a trashy horror it consistently fails. It's doubly disappointing because director Anthony Hickox's early film Waxwork, a fun little b-movie, showed a lot of promise. I think if the film had had a better director, who could give it a faster pace, the film could have been a good guilty pleasure.

GRADE: C+

NEXT TIME: Pinhead goes to Space and Beyond!