Hellraiser - Deader

Rick Bota returns as director, and again delivers a film in the form of a mystery thriller. This time about a reporter on an assignment to find a missing woman. In her search for answers, she ends up much deeper than she ever thought possible, and I thought Kari Wuhrer was rather good as reporter Amy Klein. The story was not originally written for the Hellraiser franchise; instead an existing script was converted for the series, and that's evident, as there's very little resemblance to the previous films. Just as with Hellraiser 6, there are way too many dreams and hallucinations. It is almost as if they had different ideas and opinions for the film but didn't know how to incorporate all of them, so they did so via means of the dreams and hallucinations. It wasn't scary, and it wasn't NOT scary. It wasn't bad, and not all that good either, but certainly more enjoyable than 3, 4 & 5 in the series. The stabbing scene in the hotel room was incredibly well done!! Pinhead again only appears very late in the film, and only stays around long enough to convince us this is indeed a Hellraiser film .

Hellraiser VII: Deader (2005) is a movie that I recently rewatched for the first time in a long time on MAX. The storyline follows a reporter who finds a tape that shows a cult bringing the dead back to life. She thinks this could be her big break and the story of a lifetime...she might be right.

This movie is directed by Rick Bota (Hellraiser: Hellworld) and stars Kari Wuhrer (Eight Legged Freaks), Linda Marlowe (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy), Simon Kunz (The Parent Trap), Paul Rhys (Chaplin), Doug Bradley (Nightbreed) and Georgina Rylance (War Machine).

This did have a more realistic storyline than some of the Hellraiser sequels and the main character was easy to root for (she reminded me of Ashley Judd). The subway scenes in here were pretty cool and it was a good subplot to add to the storyline. Those scene's definitely added intensity to the circumstances. However, this is another Hellraiser movie without enough Pinhead. It's too bad because the beginning and ending of this movie are great. The opening corpse in the bathroom was awesome and the last 12 minutes of the film were the best part of the movie. We needed more scenes like the end.

Overall, this sequel had the most potential since Hellraiser III, but still doesn't live up to expectations due to an underuse of Pinhead. I would score this a 5/10 and recommend seeing it once.

Few franchises have nose dived to the extent of the Hellraiser series. What started out as an ingenious memorable horrific set of movies turned into bafflingly bad boring titles with little relevance to what we had learned to love.

Hellraiser Deader is just one of many recent dire attempts at cashing in on Pinhead and though this one does feature Doug Bradley he is on screen for mere moments.

Starring Kari Wuhrer who to her credit is better than usual here we have another confused tale revolving around a cult and the infamous puzzle box. Sadly once again it makes little sense and is immensely boring.

Fans of the series will not be happy with this one.

Hopefully one day Hellraiser will find its way home, for now it's well and truly lost in the desert.

The Good:

One tense scene

Wuhrer is on form

The Bad:

Confusing plot

Practically no cenobites at all

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

When entering a property and finding a corpse that you have no intention of reporting it makes perfect sense to leave your fingerprints everywhere

Alike the real world the term "God help me" has never worked in movies

A rather forgettable additional to the Hellraiser universe that quite frankly could have been left out and no one would have missed it.

To make an effective Hellraiser movie you cannot simply inject Pinhead and the Coenobites into any old script and expect it to carry any essence of the universe to which they belong.

Deader is a rather apt name for the movie as it also describes the writing.

Its not the worst entry in the franchise but it is another example of sucking at the teat of what was once an iconic movie series.

I'm glad this hasn't been the end of the series and have rejoiced at the 2022 Hellraiser which finally does something for the fans :)

HELLRAISER: DEADER is pretty good, especially in the first half which has two of the more intense and creepy scenes I have seen in a DTV flick in a while. I'm talking, of course, about the first videotape and when Amy explores the abandoned house.

Where DEADER fails is when it tries to tie into the HELLRAISER mythology. As has been well publicized, DEADER started out as an original screenplay by Neal Marshall Stevens that Dimension Films bought for no less than 1 million dollars. Then they lost faith in it and let it collect dust before hiring Tim Day to do a rewrite and turn it into a HELLRAISER sequel. I don't blame the guy, because he probably did the best he could, given such a ridiculous task. But it's a shame that DEADER did end up like this. Without the 30 seconds worth of Pinhead at the end this could have been a minor genre masterpiece. As it stands, it's just a bizarre, schizophrenic film with some outstanding moments, some scenes that really work and some that really don't. Once again, shame on Dimension Films for wasting this opportunity.

In addition to original screenwriter Stevens, director Rick Bota also deserves some praise. He's made a good looking and often tense film that is never less than competent. Hopefully he'll be able to break free from his current job at Dimension eventually. The guy has talent.