Hellraiser: Hellworld

The previous Hellraiser flick, Hellraiser: Deader, was a surprisingly good horror movie. It had good characters that you gave a shit about, had a compelling and thrilling plot and was tied up in a kick ass little Hellraiser bow. I liked it so much that I was really excited about the following film in the series, Hellraiser: Hellworld.

Wooooh. I'll never get my hopes up about a Hellraiser flick ever again.

In the world of this movie the Hellraiser films are just that, a series of popular flicks and Pinhead is just a character. An online video game based on Clive Barker's creations, Hellworld, is enjoyed by countless people all over the globe. A small group of friends, who all met online have moved away from each other over the years due to one of their group committing suicide because of the game. It's been three years since the death, and a few of the group still play Hellworld. One beats the game and as a reward gets an invite to a Hellworld party at an abandoned house out in the country. The others quickly get their invites too and check out the festivities. Once there they meet The Host (Lance Henriksen) and soon after they are slaughtered one by one in ritualistic fashion by someone that looks like the fictional Pinhead. Only Chelsea (Katheryn Winnick) and her friend Jake (Christopher Jacot) are left to put the pieces together and survive the night.

All I gotta say is when did the Hellraiser series become a middle-of-the-road slasher franchise? I hated the fifth and sixth films in the series because they felt like the Hellraiser bits were just tossed in to give the film some kind of name recognition. This film is even worse than that since it makes fun of the series and the fact that all the characters know about the films and their trappings makes this quite laughable once the murders start and none of them can see the similarities between fiction and reality. It tries to be Scream without any of the wit or intelligence.

The acting is atrocious, the direction is poor, the cinematography is overly lit artsy crap and the finale... I've seen some far-fetched endings in my day, but this one takes the cake. It's nonsensical in the extreme and voids out all the stuff that took place prior to it. The script was garbage and not even a good filmmaker could have made sense of this shit. It thinks it's being smart and unpredictable but in the end it's borderline unwatchable. 

What makes me mad though is that it's a slasher film! Sure the Hellraiser flicks are chock full of gore and violence, but its plot never revolved around characters getting killed (in the first three anyway), it was always about how the events affected them. Here it's just the same-old same-old person separates from group, gets scared in the dark, gets killed, rinse and repeat. Pinhead just pops up once in a while to say gibberish that makes no sense so Doug Bradley can cash a paycheck.

In the end we have a generic horror film that tries to be something different (i.e. typical slahser fare), but ends up being worse for it. It sucks in every way possible. Lance Henriksen couldn't save this flick from being total shit. I hope they end this series permanently.

0 out of 5


*written 9/6/05