It’s a basic truism that the longer you wait for something, the more your expectations build and the more likely you’ll be disappoint. Not a good way to start a review, but there it is. Ultimately, anticipation can be a media’s worst enemy, where a future product becomes a thing of legend to fans, a source of speculation that only compounds until the product becomes an almost supernatural artifact. It’s not until release that the devout find out if their faith will be rewarded. Sometimes, fans get what they wanted, and sometimes even receive a product that redefines their expectations for what is possible within a particular medium or genre. But more often than not, dedicated consumers of media find these promises products fall squarely into in the lap of mediocrity. Such is life: sometimes you win, sometimes you crap out. As Boethius says, if fortune did not change, how could it be fortune?
That brings us to Hellraiser, a franchise that, for lack of a better phrase, DESPERATELY needs redemption.
I absolutely love Clive Barker’s work, which continues to fascinate me both as a writer and as a fan of dark fantasy. He blends religion, Freudian psychology, and mysticism to create truly bizarre stories full of weird characters, horrifying monsters, and glorious, oh-so-glorious gore. So it should be no surprise that I absolutely love the original Hellraiser, along with the novella it was based on, The Hellbound Heart. Both have shown me a new side of cosmic horror, taking the themes of forbidden knowledge and beings beyond human comprehension that are prominent in the works of writers like Lovecraft and Machen, then placing them squarely in the human psyche. You need not read the Necronomicon to encounter depths of forbidden knowledge: just look too deep into your own repressions and you may find madness enough for a lifetime. Barker is an absolute genius when it comes to blending the erotic and the deadly in stories about social subversion, and the film Hellraiser is really the culmination of his talents.
The first film is magnificent in its simplicity, focusing on a dysfunctional family into which the supernatural intrudes. We have our main character, Kirsty, who is grieving her dead mother only to have her father (played by Andrew Robinson, perhaps best known for portraying Scorpio in Dirty Harry) marry a cold-hearted nymphomaniac, Julia. Step mommy is one of my favorite villains in all of horror history, and is portrayed STUNNINGLY by Claire Higgins. It seems Julia is unhappy in her marriage (hinted to be for financial stability) to dullard Larry, and longs for his brother Frank. Poor Frank: seems he got into a bad deal with extradimensional BDSM demons, and now he wants Julia to help him escape getting torn a new bunghole for all eternity by the Cenos. Julia, hoping for future trysts and an escape from her dull marriage, accepts the offer and starts feeding Franky boy human blood. And of course, everything starts to go wrong, leading to a blood-soaked and grisly climax. What more could you ask for, eh?
The original Hellraiser is, quite simply, a masterpiece, a mixture of great acting, a strong script, a riveting concept, and well-done special effects that to this day make me wince whenever I see them. The centerpiece is psychological tension between a daughter, her father, and her evil stepmother, with Frank and the Cenobites acting as fantastical foils from the id to what is otherwise a repressive household. The movie works because it is undergirded with oedipal themes, subtext, and Barker’s brand of Freudian subversion. And of course, there are meat hooks: lots of them. It’s not perfect, and rewatching it, one can tell it’s very much a product of its time. But the movie still holds up pretty spectacularly, and I think it’s a great introduction for new readers and horror fanatics to Barker’s work.
So, with the success of the first film, a sequel was necessary. And it does work pretty well, continuing many of the themes of unknowable experiences, sadomasochism, and psychosexual repression. Hellbound: Hellraiser 2 is a very formidable continuation of the first film and manages to not only follow up on the initial plot, but do it bigger (though, I would argue, not quite better). The main villain is an immoral and debaucherously obsessed neurosurgeon, a kind of evil Dr. Jung, depicted masterfully by veteran Scottish actor Kenneth Cranham. Here, instead of an oedipal complex, the film focuses on the fear of psychoanalysis and unlocking something within ourselves that don’t wish to see. Kirsty is now a mental patient, still coping with her father’s death, and befriends a girl named Tiffany who (surprise surprise) is quite good with puzzles. And who happens to be an object of obsession for the evil head of the hospital. Pretty soon, a resurrected Julia is leading everybody deeper into the darkest depths of Hell, where Kirsty and Tiffany will confront the god of the Cenobite world, Leviathan.
Yes, the second film is a little over the top, but it works as a logical follow-up to the first one. After all, abuse doesn’t die easily, as we see in this film: sometimes, when we look inward, we only find our own hell. This movie is a LOT less subtle than the original, throwing a lot more explicit gore our way, but all in the service of a really interesting and terrifying film. We also get a glimpse of the Cenobite’s home dimension, a hellish maze where we see enough to understand the nature of their “pleasures. We also see how the Cenobites are “made” and get a satisfying death scene with the original Gash of Cenobites from the first movie. For me, the second film is really a conclusion to the series and wraps everything up in a nice, tidy bow. The main character, Kirsty, learns to deal with her father’s death, Pinhead is destroyed, and we see the secrets of the Cenobite realm for what they really are: a promise of pleasure that only leads to madness and misery.
But naturally, even though Barker withdrew from the series, it kept going. When Hollywood has a cash cow, it beats it until its dead and then proceeds to host a cookout on the burning remains. Hellraiser 3 is watchable, but the whole movie feels like a giant excuse to make a bunch of silly-looking Cenobites (anyone else but me suspect merchandizing was behind this film more than a strong script?). There are too many characters and too many goofy deaths for it to be scary or, in my opinion, a worthy successor of the series. The only scene I really remember is where this blonde bimbo gets skinned by Pinhead. It’s pretty gruesome, but even this scene (the best in the movie, I think) looks a bit dated with its graphics. All in all, the whole movie is retread territory, and fails to impress beyond having one or two cool costumes and a neat scene where Pinhead desecrates a church.
And after that, as far as I’m concerned, the series stops. If you find something to enjoy in Hellraisers 4-8 (or whatever the hell number we’re on now) that’s fine: people like what they like. But to me, Bloodlines is silly, unnecessary, and full of hammy, cornball acting (though poor Doug tries his best to keep Pinhead interesting). The rest of series is just banal, if not outright bad, and I can’t recommend a single one, even for ironic viewing. In recent years, there have been several attempts to resurrect the series to respectability, but these films also don’t work for me. I appreciate the effort behind Hellraiser: Judgement, but folks, it simply doesn’t work. Paul Taylor does his best to pull of a passable Pinhead in this film, but he’s far and away no Doug Bradley, with his performance only managing to emphasize just how much of the magic is now gone from this series.
And yes, in addition to the movies, there are TONS of Hellraiser comics that have been released over the years which detail the exploits of other Cenobites and the history of Leviathan and Hell. I’ve read a few here and there, and I have to say, most of them aren’t bad. I won’t go down that rabbit hole, but it’s there for anyone who’s interested and wants to explore that mythos more.
There’s also a sequel book called The Scarlet Gospel, written by Barker as a follow up to The Hellbound Heart. Frankly, I have no intention of ever reading it. Sorry horror fans, but I’d rather remember the first book fondly, and hold on to my positive experiences with it than ruin those memories by engaging with something Barker wrote past his prime. It also seems I’ve made the right decision, since none of the Barker fans I’ve talked to who’ve given the book a glance particularly enjoyed it. Like at all. But again, if you want to go down that rabbit hole, feel free to tell me how the trip was. It’s just not a journey I’m interested in embarking on.
So that brings us to the current Hellraiser film, now streaming in America on Hulu. You want to talk about something anticipated? The only thing that even comes close is Terrifier 2, another longed-for sequel that seems to have horror fans foaming at the mouth for clown-induced mayhem. This film has been teased, conceptually, since about 2019 (with Barker threatening his involvement in a sequel/remake as early as 2006), and we’ve been getting pics and promises of a brand new, shiny remake since 2021. And folks: nothing got people talking like a female Pinhead, every DeviantArt Hellraiser fanboys dream come true. Many fans found the trailers promising, and of course, speculation about the film has been rampant for months.
Well, I’ve seen it.
And with no spoilers and a minimum of discussion about the plot, I can tell you: it’s pretty meh.
So let’s start out on a positive note: what do I like? Because me trashing this film isn’t going to be much of a crowd pleaser, especially considering how desperate horror fanatics are for a Hellraiser sequel that doesn’t completely flub the concept. I can say two things:
But other than that, and no pun intended, this movie can go straight to hell.
So what’s the plot? Well, that’s kind of the problem, but let me see if I can explain. A recovering drug addict, Riley, steals a gold-plated puzzle box (yeah, guess where this is going) with her dolt of a gaslighting boyfriend, Trevor. She solves it, people start getting grabbed by meat hooks left and right, and Riley tries to figure out What is Going On, one of the oldest horror tropes in the book that totally never gets old. Honestly, I don’t even know if it’s worth discussing the story more, because just from what I’ve told you already, you can probably guess every beat of this movie, minus a SLIGHT twist at the end. Characters die in a regular, periodic fashion, and things plod along at a dull pace. The climax in the last twenty minutes, I will confess, is pretty good, and is the only part of the film that actually FEELS like a Hellraiser movie. But up until that point, things are at best on the slow side, and at worst downright confusing.
For what was promised to be a remake of the original, this movie feels WAY more like Hellraiser 3, full of unnecessary characters, nonsensical rules for the puzzle box, and a plot that only seems to exist for the sake of splashing the screen with blood. Character motivations are not just implausible, but in some cases almost non-existent, and most of the people on screen have nothing better to contribute to the plot than getting meat hooked to smithereens. And even that happens way too infrequently to really keep the movie flowing. Instead of tension, the film coasts on jump scares, typical horror tropes, and scenes that consist mostly of people shouting stiff dialogue at each other. Honestly, the film isn’t so much corny or silly (like 3 and 4 in the original continuity) as it is just incredibly boring.
And that’s a DAMN shame, because there are some good ideas floating about in this soup of poor decisions, bad acting, and incredibly disjointed writing. Without giving too much away: there’s a character who has a clock-like device that literally stretches his nerves every time it ticks, causing him immense pain. I consider myself seasoned when it comes to gore horror, but man, that made me grimace! Or another scene, in which Pinhead makes a character scream, and inserts pins into her throat to alter her pitch to play a doleful choir song of pain with her victim’s vocal cords. Some of this stuff is exceedingly creative, but it gets buried beneath long scenes where characters wander about, trying to solve a mystery that should be pretty damn obvious, even to the characters (I don’t know WHY Riley needs a grimoire to tell her how the box works when its literally THE SAME PATTERN for every character that gets nabbed by the Cenos).
Ultimately, the film is just a mess, and it can’t seem to decide what it wants to do or what direction it wants to go in. It’s torn between characters that aren’t interesting, a plot that scootches along at a snails pace, and a franchise that can only reference itself and hope long-time fans will make the necessary connections to make it all “scary”. The last twenty minutes are nothing short of spectacular, and the climax is enjoyable….if you can stay awake through the first three-quarters of the film.
The original movies worked because, for all the horror surrealism and gore, they were compact. The first film has a crucial quartet of main characters (Kirsty, Larry, Frank, and Julia) that it explores and pits against each other in tense scenes that culminate in supernatural bloodshed. The second did something similar, but instead, the quartet consists of Kirsty, Tiffany, Dr. Channard, and Julia. All the characters had some defined connection to each other, and all had something crucial to contribute to the plot. The dialogue in both films is full of hidden implications and double entendres, while the each movie explores a different side of the id and the allure of forbidden experiences in a different way. The new 2022 incarnation has NONE of that subtlety, none of that mystique that Barker puts in so much of his work. The fulcrum of psychosexual tension doesn’t exist, and the film has no axal to turn on, but simply sputters along while paying occasional homage to better films. For all its references to previous Hellraiser lore, it just doesn’t feel like Hellraiser, but rather like a generic post-2000s monster flick. It manages to be better than most things that I’ve seen recently, but it falls far short of revitalizing what already feels like a dead franchise.
In short: Hellraiser 2022 completely fails to raise much hell, or really anything beyond a yawn. At almost two hours, it’s more like a bland purgatory through which only faint glimpses of a darker, much more visceral afterlife shine through.
That brings us to Hellraiser, a franchise that, for lack of a better phrase, DESPERATELY needs redemption.
I absolutely love Clive Barker’s work, which continues to fascinate me both as a writer and as a fan of dark fantasy. He blends religion, Freudian psychology, and mysticism to create truly bizarre stories full of weird characters, horrifying monsters, and glorious, oh-so-glorious gore. So it should be no surprise that I absolutely love the original Hellraiser, along with the novella it was based on, The Hellbound Heart. Both have shown me a new side of cosmic horror, taking the themes of forbidden knowledge and beings beyond human comprehension that are prominent in the works of writers like Lovecraft and Machen, then placing them squarely in the human psyche. You need not read the Necronomicon to encounter depths of forbidden knowledge: just look too deep into your own repressions and you may find madness enough for a lifetime. Barker is an absolute genius when it comes to blending the erotic and the deadly in stories about social subversion, and the film Hellraiser is really the culmination of his talents.
The first film is magnificent in its simplicity, focusing on a dysfunctional family into which the supernatural intrudes. We have our main character, Kirsty, who is grieving her dead mother only to have her father (played by Andrew Robinson, perhaps best known for portraying Scorpio in Dirty Harry) marry a cold-hearted nymphomaniac, Julia. Step mommy is one of my favorite villains in all of horror history, and is portrayed STUNNINGLY by Claire Higgins. It seems Julia is unhappy in her marriage (hinted to be for financial stability) to dullard Larry, and longs for his brother Frank. Poor Frank: seems he got into a bad deal with extradimensional BDSM demons, and now he wants Julia to help him escape getting torn a new bunghole for all eternity by the Cenos. Julia, hoping for future trysts and an escape from her dull marriage, accepts the offer and starts feeding Franky boy human blood. And of course, everything starts to go wrong, leading to a blood-soaked and grisly climax. What more could you ask for, eh?
The original Hellraiser is, quite simply, a masterpiece, a mixture of great acting, a strong script, a riveting concept, and well-done special effects that to this day make me wince whenever I see them. The centerpiece is psychological tension between a daughter, her father, and her evil stepmother, with Frank and the Cenobites acting as fantastical foils from the id to what is otherwise a repressive household. The movie works because it is undergirded with oedipal themes, subtext, and Barker’s brand of Freudian subversion. And of course, there are meat hooks: lots of them. It’s not perfect, and rewatching it, one can tell it’s very much a product of its time. But the movie still holds up pretty spectacularly, and I think it’s a great introduction for new readers and horror fanatics to Barker’s work.
So, with the success of the first film, a sequel was necessary. And it does work pretty well, continuing many of the themes of unknowable experiences, sadomasochism, and psychosexual repression. Hellbound: Hellraiser 2 is a very formidable continuation of the first film and manages to not only follow up on the initial plot, but do it bigger (though, I would argue, not quite better). The main villain is an immoral and debaucherously obsessed neurosurgeon, a kind of evil Dr. Jung, depicted masterfully by veteran Scottish actor Kenneth Cranham. Here, instead of an oedipal complex, the film focuses on the fear of psychoanalysis and unlocking something within ourselves that don’t wish to see. Kirsty is now a mental patient, still coping with her father’s death, and befriends a girl named Tiffany who (surprise surprise) is quite good with puzzles. And who happens to be an object of obsession for the evil head of the hospital. Pretty soon, a resurrected Julia is leading everybody deeper into the darkest depths of Hell, where Kirsty and Tiffany will confront the god of the Cenobite world, Leviathan.
Yes, the second film is a little over the top, but it works as a logical follow-up to the first one. After all, abuse doesn’t die easily, as we see in this film: sometimes, when we look inward, we only find our own hell. This movie is a LOT less subtle than the original, throwing a lot more explicit gore our way, but all in the service of a really interesting and terrifying film. We also get a glimpse of the Cenobite’s home dimension, a hellish maze where we see enough to understand the nature of their “pleasures. We also see how the Cenobites are “made” and get a satisfying death scene with the original Gash of Cenobites from the first movie. For me, the second film is really a conclusion to the series and wraps everything up in a nice, tidy bow. The main character, Kirsty, learns to deal with her father’s death, Pinhead is destroyed, and we see the secrets of the Cenobite realm for what they really are: a promise of pleasure that only leads to madness and misery.
But naturally, even though Barker withdrew from the series, it kept going. When Hollywood has a cash cow, it beats it until its dead and then proceeds to host a cookout on the burning remains. Hellraiser 3 is watchable, but the whole movie feels like a giant excuse to make a bunch of silly-looking Cenobites (anyone else but me suspect merchandizing was behind this film more than a strong script?). There are too many characters and too many goofy deaths for it to be scary or, in my opinion, a worthy successor of the series. The only scene I really remember is where this blonde bimbo gets skinned by Pinhead. It’s pretty gruesome, but even this scene (the best in the movie, I think) looks a bit dated with its graphics. All in all, the whole movie is retread territory, and fails to impress beyond having one or two cool costumes and a neat scene where Pinhead desecrates a church.
And after that, as far as I’m concerned, the series stops. If you find something to enjoy in Hellraisers 4-8 (or whatever the hell number we’re on now) that’s fine: people like what they like. But to me, Bloodlines is silly, unnecessary, and full of hammy, cornball acting (though poor Doug tries his best to keep Pinhead interesting). The rest of series is just banal, if not outright bad, and I can’t recommend a single one, even for ironic viewing. In recent years, there have been several attempts to resurrect the series to respectability, but these films also don’t work for me. I appreciate the effort behind Hellraiser: Judgement, but folks, it simply doesn’t work. Paul Taylor does his best to pull of a passable Pinhead in this film, but he’s far and away no Doug Bradley, with his performance only managing to emphasize just how much of the magic is now gone from this series.
And yes, in addition to the movies, there are TONS of Hellraiser comics that have been released over the years which detail the exploits of other Cenobites and the history of Leviathan and Hell. I’ve read a few here and there, and I have to say, most of them aren’t bad. I won’t go down that rabbit hole, but it’s there for anyone who’s interested and wants to explore that mythos more.
There’s also a sequel book called The Scarlet Gospel, written by Barker as a follow up to The Hellbound Heart. Frankly, I have no intention of ever reading it. Sorry horror fans, but I’d rather remember the first book fondly, and hold on to my positive experiences with it than ruin those memories by engaging with something Barker wrote past his prime. It also seems I’ve made the right decision, since none of the Barker fans I’ve talked to who’ve given the book a glance particularly enjoyed it. Like at all. But again, if you want to go down that rabbit hole, feel free to tell me how the trip was. It’s just not a journey I’m interested in embarking on.
So that brings us to the current Hellraiser film, now streaming in America on Hulu. You want to talk about something anticipated? The only thing that even comes close is Terrifier 2, another longed-for sequel that seems to have horror fans foaming at the mouth for clown-induced mayhem. This film has been teased, conceptually, since about 2019 (with Barker threatening his involvement in a sequel/remake as early as 2006), and we’ve been getting pics and promises of a brand new, shiny remake since 2021. And folks: nothing got people talking like a female Pinhead, every DeviantArt Hellraiser fanboys dream come true. Many fans found the trailers promising, and of course, speculation about the film has been rampant for months.
Well, I’ve seen it.
And with no spoilers and a minimum of discussion about the plot, I can tell you: it’s pretty meh.
So let’s start out on a positive note: what do I like? Because me trashing this film isn’t going to be much of a crowd pleaser, especially considering how desperate horror fanatics are for a Hellraiser sequel that doesn’t completely flub the concept. I can say two things:
- The cenobite designs are ABSOLUTELY incredible. The screenshots of the new Gash really got people talking, and I’m pleased to say that watching them on screen is a treat. Having read The Hellbound Heart, I can honestly say that these Cenobites probably look the closest to what Barker originally imagined. They look AWESOME and are portrayed with a wonderfully sinister miasma tinged with sexual implication. The prosthetics are fantastic, and they chill my blood whenever they’re skulking about menacing the main characters.
- Jamie Clayton is FANTASTIC as a female incarnation of the lead Cenobite, Pinhead. She steals the show, hands down, and I loved almost every minute she was on screen. Sensuous, vaguely threatening, and at times maliciously philosophical, Clayton does an incredible job of re-inventing Bradley’s iconic performance. Honestly: I would recommend this film just so fans can get a taste for themselves and see what they think.
But other than that, and no pun intended, this movie can go straight to hell.
So what’s the plot? Well, that’s kind of the problem, but let me see if I can explain. A recovering drug addict, Riley, steals a gold-plated puzzle box (yeah, guess where this is going) with her dolt of a gaslighting boyfriend, Trevor. She solves it, people start getting grabbed by meat hooks left and right, and Riley tries to figure out What is Going On, one of the oldest horror tropes in the book that totally never gets old. Honestly, I don’t even know if it’s worth discussing the story more, because just from what I’ve told you already, you can probably guess every beat of this movie, minus a SLIGHT twist at the end. Characters die in a regular, periodic fashion, and things plod along at a dull pace. The climax in the last twenty minutes, I will confess, is pretty good, and is the only part of the film that actually FEELS like a Hellraiser movie. But up until that point, things are at best on the slow side, and at worst downright confusing.
For what was promised to be a remake of the original, this movie feels WAY more like Hellraiser 3, full of unnecessary characters, nonsensical rules for the puzzle box, and a plot that only seems to exist for the sake of splashing the screen with blood. Character motivations are not just implausible, but in some cases almost non-existent, and most of the people on screen have nothing better to contribute to the plot than getting meat hooked to smithereens. And even that happens way too infrequently to really keep the movie flowing. Instead of tension, the film coasts on jump scares, typical horror tropes, and scenes that consist mostly of people shouting stiff dialogue at each other. Honestly, the film isn’t so much corny or silly (like 3 and 4 in the original continuity) as it is just incredibly boring.
And that’s a DAMN shame, because there are some good ideas floating about in this soup of poor decisions, bad acting, and incredibly disjointed writing. Without giving too much away: there’s a character who has a clock-like device that literally stretches his nerves every time it ticks, causing him immense pain. I consider myself seasoned when it comes to gore horror, but man, that made me grimace! Or another scene, in which Pinhead makes a character scream, and inserts pins into her throat to alter her pitch to play a doleful choir song of pain with her victim’s vocal cords. Some of this stuff is exceedingly creative, but it gets buried beneath long scenes where characters wander about, trying to solve a mystery that should be pretty damn obvious, even to the characters (I don’t know WHY Riley needs a grimoire to tell her how the box works when its literally THE SAME PATTERN for every character that gets nabbed by the Cenos).
Ultimately, the film is just a mess, and it can’t seem to decide what it wants to do or what direction it wants to go in. It’s torn between characters that aren’t interesting, a plot that scootches along at a snails pace, and a franchise that can only reference itself and hope long-time fans will make the necessary connections to make it all “scary”. The last twenty minutes are nothing short of spectacular, and the climax is enjoyable….if you can stay awake through the first three-quarters of the film.
The original movies worked because, for all the horror surrealism and gore, they were compact. The first film has a crucial quartet of main characters (Kirsty, Larry, Frank, and Julia) that it explores and pits against each other in tense scenes that culminate in supernatural bloodshed. The second did something similar, but instead, the quartet consists of Kirsty, Tiffany, Dr. Channard, and Julia. All the characters had some defined connection to each other, and all had something crucial to contribute to the plot. The dialogue in both films is full of hidden implications and double entendres, while the each movie explores a different side of the id and the allure of forbidden experiences in a different way. The new 2022 incarnation has NONE of that subtlety, none of that mystique that Barker puts in so much of his work. The fulcrum of psychosexual tension doesn’t exist, and the film has no axal to turn on, but simply sputters along while paying occasional homage to better films. For all its references to previous Hellraiser lore, it just doesn’t feel like Hellraiser, but rather like a generic post-2000s monster flick. It manages to be better than most things that I’ve seen recently, but it falls far short of revitalizing what already feels like a dead franchise.
In short: Hellraiser 2022 completely fails to raise much hell, or really anything beyond a yawn. At almost two hours, it’s more like a bland purgatory through which only faint glimpses of a darker, much more visceral afterlife shine through.