Twilightfa
Watch something else. There are very few redeeming qualities to this film.
Guillelmina
The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.
Allissa
.Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.
Stephen Abell
Here's part three of the Hellraiser Saga... Once again this continues from where the last film ended, though it's a looser connection. The battle between Pinhead (Bradley) and his original human self, Captain Elliott Spencer, allowed him to break free of hells shackles. Entrapped in a monolith, he is awoken by Sandy (Leigh), when an accidental cut splashes blood on his stone features. Revealing himself to JP Monroe (Bernhardt), an unscrupulous womanising club owner, Pinhead makes a deal to free himself from his confines and to help JP to achieve his dreams...This leads to lots of twists and turns in the storyline as you know you can't trust a daemon. The only thing which stands in his way is an aspiring investigative reporter, Joanne "Joey" Summerskill (Farrell), who's investigating the gory and violent murders which are appearing in the city.The first thing that becomes evident is the amount of budget available for this film. Instead of being kept within the confines of a house or a hospital, now we're out in New York City. Penthouses, apartments, clubs, restaurants, ally's and streets. The locations are so much bigger. This is good, as it gives scope for a larger story with more hellish violence and gore... and it nearly delivers. Nearly, because the scene where the Cenobites finally take to the streets is actually underwhelming. What was required were a few more Cenobites and quite a few more victims, both pedestrians and police. It's nice to have explosions... I just wanted more.The acting is okay, Bradley still stands out and is excellent as Pinhead. Farrell does a good job as the reporter. However, it's Bernhardt and Marshall, who plays Terri, who have their bouts of woodenness. The direction too is quite different from the first two, gone are the artistic and atmospheric lighting for a more natural feel. This is okay, but the film does lose a little of its mood and spirit, which added strength to the first two movies. I can understand the need for doing this. If you expand the daemons universe to include a lot more of reality then it stands to reason to get that feeling across would be to lose the more imaginative aspects of the filmmaking. That said there are still quite a few iconic shots, such as the entrance of Pinhead at the club and later in the church, and nicely thought out camera shots and angles.Though I didn't find it as good as the first films it's still as enjoyable, though for different reasons... and as Pinhead would attain, variety is the spice of life.Another good thing is that this film actually works as a stand-alone, you only need a vague idea about the previous stories; whereas, Hellbound actually made you feel as though you should have watched the first film before viewing. So for that reason, I would recommend this to all horror fans and newbies alike. This is a well written, structured, and acted film... which has its fair share of tension, fear, and suspense.
grantss
Quite disappointing, especially after the first movie.Hellraiser II picks up where the first movie left off. Kirsty (played bu Ashley Laurence) is in an institution after her experiences of the first movie. She is then visited by the gang of ghouls we previously met...The first movie was quite original for a horror movie. (Not that this says much, as most horror movies are incredibly formulaic and predictable). The plot was fairly solid too, with good direction and special effects.This, the second movie, is not anywhere near as good. Plot feels random, unoriginal and unengaging. The story just lurches from one contrived, inexplicable horror scene to another.Not worth watching - save your time.
lonchaney20
Of all the horror franchises to devolve into mindless slasher nonsense, I find the Hellraiser series to be the most depressing. Whereas there's only so much you can do with the simple set-ups of films like Halloween and Friday the 13th, there was something edgy and elegant about the first two Hellraiser films. While they were certainly as gory and titillating as their slasher counterparts, they had a little more going on under the surface, and were just as interested in their characters as they were in their violent set-pieces. This is mostly due to Clive Barker, the writer and director of the first Hellraiser, whose poetic and shocking horror novels remain benchmarks in the genre. Even starting from Hellraiser II, however, certain slasher tropes were starting to creep in, such as corny one-liners and gratuitous death scenes. Even so, they both never forgot their primary aim, which was to present a seriously disturbing horror film geared towards adults; even Hellraiser II doesn't showcase its few one-liners with winking irony. Starting with Hellraiser III, though, several things went horribly wrong: the studio began to meddle, Clive Barker found himself increasingly unwelcome as a creative consultant, the budgets grew smaller, and Pinhead became the primary antagonist of a series which increasingly lost its footing. It's difficult to say exactly where it all went wrong, but somehow the stars aligned to make a Hellraiser III so ludicrous that it seems to come from an entirely different planet than the first two.This entry, scripted by Barker's long-time friend Pete Atkins (also the screenwriter of Part II), finds Pinhead (again played by the brilliant Doug Bradley), still trapped in the Pillar of Souls after his battle with Dr. Channard. The Pillar is purchased by the gloriously reprehensible douche bag/club owner J.P. Monroe (Kevin Bernhardt), who soon discovers that he can free Pinhead by feeding him souls. Meanwhile reporter Joey Summerskill (Terry Farrell) stumbles onto the story of a lifetime when she witnesses a man torn apart in the E.R. by the power of the Lament Configuration (i.e. the box used to summon the Cenobites). Her investigation leads her to J.P.'s ex-girlfriend Terri (Paula Marshall), and the two try to figure out exactly what the hell is going on.It sounds okay on paper, but Hickox unintentionally turns it into a hilariously overwrought parody. Given Hickox's previous horror comedies such as Waxwork and Sundown: The Vampire in Retreat, I assumed this might be the intention, but Hickox insisted in interviews that he was attempting to make a serious psychological horror film in the vein of Jacob's Ladder or Angel Heart. Instead he directs his cast to deliver corny, unmistakably nineties dialogue in an alternately stilted or over-the-top fashion. Only Doug Bradley really escapes with his dignity intact (the man can make even the lousiest dialogue sound like Shakespeare), but I must admit I enjoyed Bernhardt's absurdly sleazy turn as J.P. He looks like the sleazy American cousin of Rupert Everett, and I love how transparent his attempts to sweet talk women into his bed/into Pinhead's stomach(?) are. Only those two really help to sell the ridiculous goings on. Our two female leads are likable enough, but they're not nearly as convincing as Ashley Laurence is in the previous films, though it doesn't help that they're confronted by the most ridiculous Cenobites in the whole series. After the film's most ambitious set-piece (a massacre in a crowded nightclub), Pinhead mounts his attack on humanity with the following soldiers of Hell: there's Camera-Head, whose head has been fused with his news camera, and who spouts one-liners like "That's a wrap!" and "Are you ready for your close-up?"; CD-Head, a DJ whose head is pierced with CDs and who…throws CDs at people; and the Barbie Cenobite, a bartender whose head is wrapped in barbed wire, and who uses a cocktail mixer filled with gasoline to wreak havoc on some cops. It's jaw-droppingly stupid, and completely undermines the pain/pleasure dynamic of the first two entries. If Hickox was aiming to emulate Alan Parker or Adrian Lyne, he's way off the mark - instead think Sam Raimi, if Sam Raimi was a moron.To be fair, though, the movie looks very good, apart from the corny, early-nineties CGI, and some decent dialogue actually trickles through now and then. I particularly enjoyed several of Pinhead's lines, such as "Down the dark decades of your pain, this will seem like a memory of Heaven," and "I will enjoy making you bleed, and I will enjoy making you enjoy it," which briefly touches on Clive Barker's original intentions for the character. Unfortunately this film, by turning Pinhead into a Freddy Krueger-esque slasher front-man, set the series on the wrong path for good. Atkins and director Kevin Yagher attempted to put things right with the ambitious Hellraiser IV: Bloodline, but studio meddling would turn a potential masterpiece into a complete disaster.
Realrockerhalloween
Hellraiser takes an alternate turn in the series focusing on a reporter caught in an epidemic of people around town being subjected to death by chain's and must solve the mystery with the help of a club girl.It was actually quite decent from effects, music and atmosphere of doom all across the land.A few continuation errors could've been patched up like Pinhead now being the king of hell, the stone statue from part 2 appearing in The store instead of hell and his minions coming back to life without rhyme or reason.The opening scene was a nice throw back to the first showing Pinhead before he turned and how he became the soulless monster he was at present.Yet he seems more humorless like he can't contain a bad joke and loses a lot of the menace that made him scary. Instead of offering justice he punishes anyone near him or in his vicinity betraying the rules set up for him.It tried to be a true Hellraiser film that revels the first two keeping the sex appeal, but the gore is tame and doesn't ring true to the epic blood bath of the first two. Even though Tina's skinning and the club massacre come very close.I like Joey and Tina as a fuel but it feels like an unused script staring Kristy and Tiffany yet they couldn't get them back.Its watchable to any die hard Hellraiser fan, but it doesn't have the ingredients that made the first two a horror master piece.Try it out and see for yourself.
