Just marathoned the entire Hellraiser series!

Hey everyone...

I'm back, and just finished marathoning the entire Hellraiser franchise! Yes, that includes every painful straight to video entry as well. Here are my thoughts!

Hellraiser

This movie does an incredible job of putting you on edge. The effects would enough to carry the movie on its own, kicking it off with small cool effects like the blood seeping into the wood, and then immediately one-upping themselves with Frank's body reconstructing itself and more.

Costuming was also awesome... The Chatterer is definitely my favorite cenobite, although they were all in it a lot less than I anticipated. I also thought the corpse of Frank kinda looked like Ed Harris. and liked the little touches like being able to see blood on the back of "Larry's" neck when he's talking to Kirsty at the end.

The camera work itself is impressive as well, and they're constantly creating really awesome shots like the silhouette of franks face in the darkness. There are some Really intense close ups, like when she hits him with the hammer and you see his jacked up face.

I didn’t really love either the actress or the character for Julia, but I have to show some respect for her commitment because the literal pile of flesh says “I want to touch you" AND SHE DOES IT, SHE PUTS HIS GROSS FLESH FINGER IN HER MOUTH. Can't have been fun.

Finally, Frank's end was horrifying, and I liked that the cenobites turned on Kirsty. My one question... who the hell is that homeless cricket eating bone dragon?

Hellbound: Hellraiser 2

This one continues right along with the fucked up imagery... the scene with Browning and the razor was really hard to watch and Dr. Channard literally makes out with a flayed corpse. Also, Uncle Frank sure is intent on sleeping with his niece.

Julia is much better in this one than the first, and I really enjoyed her acting in this compared to the first movie. I alos liked the callback with “come to mother” instead of “come to daddy”. Conversely, Kirsty is very passive in this movie... I would have liked her to have done more, instead of just having things happen at/to her.

All in all, this was a pretty solid sequel and my one real complaint is that I wish the Cenobites had put up more of a fight.

Hellraiser 3: Hell on Earth

These characters are not nearly as good. Very one note, as opposed to more well-rounded characters in the previous two. Of the new crew, Terri is the most interesting, and she gets completely wasted in my opinion. Plus, I miss the old cenobites.

These dumb new ones are way too “of their time” instead of the classic look of the others… especially the CD throwing one. Although “missile from camera lens in eye” guy isn’t much better. Interestingly, it seems that the effects are also now worse than the older movies.

As far as actual characterization, I understand that the human side of Pinhead and the "evil-ness" portion of him split in the previous entry, but I wish it was still about the line between pleasure and pain instead of “we’re evil and just want to kill people”.

I thought this one was a bit of a misfire, even with an honestly solid soundtrack. And a word of advice, 100% of the time don’t listen if a statue starts talking to you.

Hellraiser 4: Bloodline

We're in space! Also in 1796 France, with Adam Scott no less! As far as the set-up in concerned though, I have to mention how much I hate when movies go "we have no time, so let me tell you this story for an hour and a half". That said, I do like the "Angelique vs Pinhead" angle.

Hellraiser 3 and Hellraiser 4 aren't nearly as disturbing as 1 and 2, and both kind of fly in the face of core plot points. The cenobites weren't just crazy blood crazed demons; they were summoned to explore the line between pleasure and pain, and per Pinhead himself “It is not hands that call us, but desire”. This one works better for me than 3 though.

It feels like the design gets less and less inspired as this franchise goes, and for Hellraiser in space, it’s barely in space. Disappointing. Also, the hellhound may be chattering his teeth but he's #NotMyChatterer… fuck you, copycat.

Hellraiser: Inferno

This movie gets going with some actual creepy designs, but there's a new chatterer with no legs. STILL #NOTMYCHATTERER.

There's honestly some very good acting in this, with recognizable talent, which surprised me. It's obvious that it didn't start off as a Hellraiser movie, but it's trippy, there's cool designs, and the story, while a little obvious, still really works. I'd say while it's not an amazing Hellraiser entry, it is a great Silent Hill movie, and would recommend it as such.

It's far from perfect, with some lame voice over and some very predictable plot points... still, pretty dang good for a 5th entry.

Hellraiser: Hellseeker

It’s really hard to pull off an “amnesiac” story and this did not succeed. They don’t dole out any info along the way, and if the main character is confused the whole time, so are we. I like that they tried to go back to the Kirsty storyline, but I don't think they did justice to it.

There's also no scares at all... honestly not really even any gore, which is what these movies are all about. I’m legitimately surprised this got an R, especially with such crappy effects.

Frankly, it's just boring for an hour and a half. Also, spoiler, he was dead the whole time, so nothing actually happened and this whole movie was pointless (this is going to be a trend thanks to our friend Rick Bota, who directed several of these).

“you’re creeping me out… and I’m a coroner.” Is the only good line.

Hellraiser: Deader

The best word to describe this entry is OBVIOUS. Everything is so predictable that it almost seems like a joke. There's a scene that couldn't have telegraphed a corpse coming back to yell at the main character any more if they hand delivered me a letter than said “George, stop. That corpse is going to come back to life, stop.”

The main character doesn’t need pinhead to kill her the way she’s sucking down those cigarettes, and there's nothing particuarly interesting about her. I guess we're supposed to be impressed by her dedication to getting a story because she wrote an article literally entitled "How to Be A Crack Whore"?

Theres more crappy special effects, the pacing is abysmal, and it's so clear that these movies didn’t start out as Hellraiser films. Rick Bota, you are destroying this franchise.

Hellraiser: Hellworld

People thought space was where they jumped the shark? This one is about a damn video game. They make a lot of bizarre choices, like using Zach Snyder style slow down/speed up, but… just for walking into a room? There's also some timeless comedy like a "can you hear me now" cellphone joke.

This is also going to seem like a nitpick, but twice people walk up to the bar and order a drink without specifying what they want. The guy walks up to the bar and says “three shots”. Doesn’t say of what. Later, a different guy walks up and says “hello sir, I’ll take a drink”. I know this is small, but it's demonstrative of a lack of effort to me.

As far as plot, it's mostly just these people having sex and being trapped in rooms until the writer realizes the movie is dragging and decides it's time for them to randomly die. But then, because Rick Bota thinks that “none of that actually happened” is a great ending, you find out they just sat there in coffins. Thanks again, Rick Bota.

The one thing that kind of saves this movie is there's some actual acting in it, particularly from Henry Cavill and Lance Henrickson, who weirdly catfishes someone in this movie. Also, Chatterer is back!

Hellraiser: Revalations

I kind of had hope for this movie because I like the idea of the family getting the video and dealing with it, but that hope makes the result even more painful. The video starts not even making sense in the context of the movie, because the kid filming will stop filming, we'll continue watching them, and then it'll cut back to the sister slamming shut the video camera. What was she watching the whole time while the parts that weren't filmed are happening?

The new Pinhead is a pale shadow of his formal self (which was already a pale shadow!), but he's not the only terrible actor. The whole thing is so over-the-top and dramatic that it truly feels like a soap opera. It's awful. And you have to deal with it for soooo long. The pacing is awful in this, and for an movie that's just 1:15, it feels like an eternity. Truly, Pinhead has perfected his torture, and it's being practiced on us.

BONUS: Hellbound Heart Novella

Pretty similar to the first movie, which makes sense as Clive Barker wrote it basically as an outline. An interesting change is that instead of Kirsty being Larry's daughter, she's a 3rd party who's attracted to him. This really changes the motivation. I also liked getting more in-depth description of how the cenobites primed Frank by making his memories and senses super intense.

One thing from the book and to an extent, the first movie, that I wish had stayed was the difficulty of opening the Lament Configuration. In the book, we see that

Only after several hours of trial and error did a chance juxtaposition of thumbs, middle and last fingers bear fruit…

and after that, we get another

several hours had gone by

It gets easier and easier to open as this franchise goes on. In "Deader", the main character literally picks it up and spends about 5 seconds before she gets it open... then later literally opens the Lament Configuration just by throwing it. The effort and time spent opening the box was part of what made the cenobites and the people who opened it interesting.

final order: 1, 2, 5, 4, 3, 6, 8, 7, 9

Also, just for fun, the ranking for enjoyment of the franchises I've marathoned so far:

Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street, Hellraiser, Halloween

Next up: Child's Play!

Submitted October 02, 2017 at 07:19AM by Georgehef http://ift.tt/2yRATWP