The movie was also really working for me for a long time, except for the CGI and the very made-for-TV quality to the tone of the "dark" scenes (the leather guy in particular: "you gonna frisk me or fuck me"). Hell, scratch the latter there: I'm so keen on seeing more suggestive homoeroticism that even the sad straight guys pretending is charming in a Troll 2 kind of way. The movie just plain got dull in the middle, then got Really Bad at the end. Earth-shatteringly bad. Which coincides with the shoehorned (you called it) arrival of Pinhead. And his awful dialogue. (Has it... been any good since the first film? At least Bloodline was entertainingly bad.) The final 30 minutes are entirely unsalvageable. A good example of why can be found in the phony-cerebral image of the 2 or 3 Craig Sheffers representing a split of conscience/spirituality/whatever (didn't he at one point also make a Father-Son-Holy Ghost analogy or something like that?)... I can't believe the people in charge of this project decided to lift a trick from Freddy's Dead, let alone the film's worst scene: "Free me, you idiot- I'm your fucking memory!!" I'll take Bloodline reducing Pinhead and the new Cenobite characters to Power Rangers villains over this any day ("After 10,000 years I'm free- it's time to conquer Earth!"). I put Hellseeker ahead because it looked better, the ending was actually good, and despite how awful the 70-80% majority was of the film from the hospital scene to the moment Kirsty comes back- I thought the movie's sexual kinks actually felt legitimate (unlike Inferno's bubble-gum pop approximation of a leatherman) and... perhaps even researched, by comparison. The film was actually an interesting experience in being quite good when it didn't suck. The only real problem is (well, other than CGI) that it's desperate to be a mindfuck and has the worst ideas for "playing" with your mind. Hellworld was a lot better than I expected, by the by. I know I ranked it 2nd to last but it was still better than every Saw movie I've seen. It was a love-letter to the 90's, is what it was; anyone else notice that? If it had only cast less annoying actors and worked a little on the dialogue... it would have been decent. Of course, I'm saying that because... holy shit: it actually tried to do something different than what was trendy at that time (Wolf Creek and the Saw sequels). It didn't pretend to be smart and didn't try to put on the "ooh, we're SO confrontational" front that every survival horror pos was at that time.
I have a soft spot for Inferno, Hellseeker and Deader. I like them and enjoy them, though not necessarily as Hellraiser flicks. I think they are solid DTV horror entertainment, especially Deader which I like a lot. I voted Revelations as the worst of the sequels.
I think the first six are all quite good in different ways. After Hellseeker, however, they drop off badly. Hellworld is the worst.
I honestly can't vote in this as every movie after the space one is a big blur. I couldn't tell you which one is which. I remember one had a cute reporter girl who smelled of cigarettes and patchouli, one had Kirsty return, one had kids either at a rave or house party, one was a Carnival of Souls rip off, but yeah, none of them really stand out and I would never be able to match my little synopses with the titles!
Here...I'll help! one had a cute reporter girl who smelled of cigarettes and patchouli Hellraiser III. one had Kirsty return Hellseeker. one had kids either at a rave or house party Hellworld. one was a Carnival of Souls rip off Also Hellseeker.
Thanks to this thread, I decided to watch Hellraiser VII: Deader. Don't get mad people, but... I didn't hate it. It was saved by its commentary. I'm giving it a 5. At least we had a somewhat likable lead. Best to worst imo: Hellraiser Hellbound: Hellraiser II Hellraiser V: Inferno Hellraiser III: Hell On Earth Hellraiser IV: Bloodline Hellraiser VII: Deader Hellraiser VI: Hellseeker
I haven't seen any of the movies past Inferno but I'd say Inferno was the worst out of the first 5 movies. It was a good movie plot wise but it sucked as a Hellraiser movie. Pinhead was in it all for what...5 minutes?
LOL why do I continue to watch this series? Well, Part VIII was my second of this franchise to watch tonight, and it was... well, it was good for the first 30 minutes, and I have mixed likings/dislikings of the twist ending. But it just kinda fell apart. Making Pinhead into a typical slasher was... well, it turned out how'd you expect. Not awfully, but... I'm just not sure if this was a breath of fresh air from the psychological thriller aspect or a step down. My rankings are now as follows: Hellraiser Hellbound: Hellraiser II Hellraiser V: Inferno Hellraiser III: Hell On Earth Hellraiser IV: Bloodline Hellraiser VII: Deader Hellraiser VIII: Hellworld Hellraiser VI: Hellseeker
Honestly, remove the bad press about Revelations being filmed over a couple of weeks and the fact that Doug Bradley wasn't involved because of the rushed sched and the film actually holds up okay. In terms of structure it is probably the closest film in the entire series to the original, and the focus is thankfully much more geared towards the cenobites. The effects were quite good too, all things considered. I liked it more than anything post Bloodline, barring that nice twist in Hellseeker. It's a shame Bradley wasn't involved because that's the main thing holding the movie back.
This. People can huff and puff about the film all they want but at least the damn thing feels like a Hellraiser film. The cinematography by David Armstrong is excellent and the practical gore is nice. Sadly the wannabe Pinhead and poor acting from most of the cast holds it back but I'd still watch it over any of the sequels past Bloodline.
Thanks, Rhett! Ha ha! I do remember III though, and there's another post-space one with a reporter girl. This one had dark hair though and I remember her boss saying she smelled of cigarettes and patchouli. And was Craig Sheffer in one or am I thinking of something else? Oops. Just noticed the new reviews posted for some of these. Will have to check them out to refresh my memory.
To me, Bloodline was the worst until Hellworld came along, and Hellworld was the worst until Revelations came along. I don't care how long it took to film, and I care even less about who plays Pinhead for five minutes. Revelations is a piss-poor travesty in a series that has way too many awful entries.
The first two direct to video films were surprisingly pretty good. The third one, Deadworld, I gave up on about 8 minutes in when it featured a college kid dressed as Cenobite and a chick said "Cenobites aren't real, you know." I suppose I should have given it more of a chance but sometimes you can just tell when something is going to be shit. Never watched any of the ones more recent than that. I've always thought that Bloodline got a bad rap that it didn't deserve. I liked it more than part III.
Lol, after watched IX: Revelations, I have to say that the worst is still Part VI: Hellseeker. Actually, though low in budget and weird Pinhead, Revelations clocking in at 70 minutes without credits is much easier to swallow than the other DTV sequels aside from Inferno. My rankings are as follows: Hellraiser (1987) Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1988) Hellraiser V: Inferno (2000) Hellraiser III: Hell On Earth (1992) Hellraiser IV: Bloodline (1996) Hellraiser IX: Revelations (2011) Hellraiser VII: Deader (2005) Hellraiser VIII: Hellworld (2005) Hellraiser VI: Hellseeker (2002)
Hellraiser: Deader is probably the one you're thinking of with the reporter. I don't care for it all, so I don't remember how the character is described. Craig Sheffer is in Hellraiser: Inferno, which I think is awesome.
The only one I haven't seen is Revelations, and I honestly don't really care to. As for the first 8, I'm going with Deader as the worst. I've always liked Kari Wuhrer, but that movie just bored the shit out of me. Also, count me in on the Inferno love. I quite like Hellseeker too, which sort of feels like a sequel more to Inferno than to the rest of the series in a lot of ways, both of them being stories primarily about one man's journey into madness and damnation. Then again, I really like Bloodline, so what do I know? Here's my series ranking: 1. Hellbound 2. Hellraiser 3. Hell On Earth 4. Inferno 5. Bloodline 6. Helllseeker 7. Hellworld 8. Deader
If only I'd been bored. I was too busy bashing my head against the wall because it was so painfully awful. Every second. Making my brain actually react to everything bad about it, instead of Hellworld, where I was allowed to just watch light stupidity. And at least that movie looked good. After the opening scene at a funeral, it was all uphill. Though... extremely slowly. Well, I'm tempted to say you know a lot. But I won't, because you think Hellbound is the best film and that thing was so terrible, I started hating the 80's. Thankfully, I just saw Bud the Chud last week so now I have a reason to like the 80's again. (I'm deadly serious; when I think about everything that was genuinely artificial, overproduced, and soul-crushing about that sickeningly conservative decade, this film will stand to me as one of the leading symbols of that. Yet- not as a sobering reaction to it, but as a product of it.) However, Bloodline is just harmless. And so whacked, that it's legitimately entertaining to watch how wrong that film goes. I said it before: it's as though they were taking inspiration from the Power Rangers. The Cenobites wanted to conquer Earth. It was cute.
