Hellraiser - Das Schloss zur Hölle

At its core, the original Hellraiser (1987) was a story about the darkest, sordid recess of human nature. It was about desire and lust, possession and betrayal and how these powerful, very human feelings can push people on the brink of inhumane horror.

It was - at the same time - also a story of lovecraftian cosmic horror, where the characters face a terror so powerful and behond human comprehension that defeat was inevitable. All things considered, it was a truly nihilistic and dark statement on human nature.

The somewhat-superior-somewhat-inferior sequel - Hellboud: Hellraiser II (1988) - dealt with the consequences of such horror, with the obsession derived from it, with madness and will, with power and seduction.

Both movies had thematic layers and depth and the horror, the cenobites, the lore were just tools and background to tell these deeply nihilistic stories about the horrors that lies in the depths of human nature.

From there on out, the franchise went off the rails, piling up inferior movie after inferior movie. The reason of this debacle is that the producers made the horrible mistake of thinking that the lore (the cenobites, the box/the Lament configuration and so on) were actually the point.

Which brings us to THIS movie. After a brief, shallow and bland characters introduction, the entire focus of the story starts revolving around the box, cenobites and all that stuff, in the same shallow, bland way the characters were presented.

It isn't even interesting from a lore perspective: at least, the otherwise abysmal Hellraiser: Judgement (2018) gave some juicy bits of new, fascinating lore. Here it's just the same ol' same old except it's more incoherent than in previous installments to the point where almost nothing makes sense.

Eventually, the whole movie became a run of the mill slasher, with cenobites chasing empty characters in the woods. There are no themes in sight, nothing is said about human nature , no layers, no depth. Sure, its gory but its lifeless and, what's worse for an Hellraiser installment, its meatless. Flesh-less.

Clayton's performance as the new Hell Priest/Pinhead is interesting and works perfectly fine. It does not compare with Doug Bradley's, but it doesn't have to.

Everything else is just bland and lifeless - which is too bad, considering the other movies in this director's filmography were pretty great, subtle and smart - and there is clearly an attempt at going in the right direction, with lots of practical effects, gorgeus set design and some attention to details: it really smells as if the failing are on the studio/the producers.

My latest watch, I actually watched twice because I wanted to give it a fair shake. In a nutshell, the 2022 'Hellraiser' reboot just does not have enough spark to reignite the fire in the franchise. While I won't say Jamie Clayton did a bad job, her pinhead was more quiet and reserved which really made miss Bradley's deep voice and imposing figure. There was a genuine lack of sex and grit and the majority of the time the cenobites were on screen it was dark to the point of annoyance. This is NOT a movie inspired by grungy BDSM clubs in NYC. The story was okay with a bit of a cliche ending, and it could have used more editing to cut down on the runtime. All and all 'Hellraiser' was basically like digging up a beloved friend, reanimating their corpse, and then sending them back to their job at Wawa. Personally I would never bring someone back from the dead merely for the promise of mediocrity.

They turned Hellraiser into a vanilla Freddy Krueger inspired slasher, which makes for a very watchable if unmemorable experience.

Some of the ideas, even if borrowed, were convincing : the mansion, the dumb rules, the drug allegory. And some true Hellraiser concepts and visuals like the Leviathan moment were particularly well done but no spoilers here.

The most disappointing was probably the Cenobites design way too elegant and Alien like, not gruesome or surreal enough. Plus the characters deaths felt like generic gory horror à la SAW or Escape Room. It was missing a sense of spectacle and boldness despite having clearly a decent budget.

Still an enjoyable movie.

I thought I'd give this movie a try. The trailer looked more promising than a Hellraiser movie has in decades, and Clive Barker is involved, though only as a producer. I love the original Hellraiser. I enjoy its theatrical sequels to varying degrees. I've sat through two of the direct-to-DVD sequels and swore never to watch another. This movie makes me feel like I've gone back on that.

The opening prologue is promising enough. Then the movie takes us to our lead characters. Unfortunately, this is where the movie's weaknesses start presenting themselves. When you start a movie like this with characters already in turmoil, there isn't really anywhere to go in terms of putting them through more. They say never to show your top in a performance, because then you've got nowhere to go but down. Maybe these filmmakers didn't realize that starting characters near rock bottom and already at each other's throats is a bad idea too. Remember Kirsty's transformation over the course of the first film? She went from being a happy young adult to a woman fighting for her life in the worst circumstances possible. Well, there'll be none of that here. Riley is a recovering addict and, even if she's sober, her brother second-guesses everything she says. We won't get the destruction of a family dynamic this time because it's already a shambles.

Then the puzzle box comes in. Without getting into specifics, I'll say that the way it works on the Cenobites' victims is totally different now. As to the Cenobites, the code by which they operate is far less respectable. Granted, they weren't the noblest characters before, but they also didn't go around killing innocents just because they could. Here, their role is little more than standard slasher villainy. It's a great reduction in quality to the terrifying, yet elegant manner in which they were presented before. There used to be a grotesque beauty and a logic to how they operated. "Hands do not call us. Desire does." You can forget all about that. Here, they don't care who they take because they've got to take someone. Yay. They're no longer interesting.

As often happens, there's also human villainy afoot. Unfortunately, our human antagonist is given so little time in the movie that his storyline seems largely unrelated to what we've been watching with Riley. His ending is unearned and feels obligatory. We can't get any kind of enjoyment from a story that feels like it's only an outline shoehorned into another plot to give it more material. There's also an aspect of this character's interactions with the Cenobites that is meant to be disturbing, but it's so overexposed that it just gets ridiculous. Part of horror movies is knowing how much to show. This element was given way too much screen time and almost looks like parody after a certain point. When it's first introduced, it works. When you're given time to look at and study it, it falls flat on its face.

At the end of the day, it's not the worst Hellraiser movie I've seen, but it's only marginally better than the direct-to-DVD sequels. The characters aren't interesting and the plot is a betrayal of the basic tenets established in the original films' lore. You're free to do whatever you want in a reboot, but whoever changed the box and the Cenobites seems to have misunderstood what made these movies unique in the horror realm. For that matter, the human characters betray that fact too.

The main thing I got from this movie was a desire to rewatch the originals. I think I will.

Riley McKednry (Odessa A'zion) is a young woman struggling with addiction enabled by her supposedly rehabilitating boyfriend Trevor (Drew Starkey) while she lives with her brother Matt (Brandon Flynn) and his boyfriend Colin (Adam Faison) with Matt's patience with Riely's addictive personality growing increasingly thin. Trevor convinces Riley to accompany him to an abandoned warehouse that supposedly holds an abandoned and forgotten shipment belonging to some billionaire, but once they get there the shipment turns out to be a puzzle box whose value Trevor is dubious of. After Riley comes home drunk once again Matt angrily tells her to leave and she does so taking the puzzle box with her and inadvertently opening the box and summoning demonic creatures known as cenobites. As Riley did not cut herself on the box as she was intended to, the Cenobites demand "another" and when a now called Matt attempts to come to Riley's aid he cuts himself on the box and is taken by the cenobites. Riley attempts to track down the origins of the box and a way to bring back Matt which leads her to the box's previous now deceased owner Roland Voight (Goran Visnijic), a ruthless businessman with legendarily sadistic appetites as the box continues to claim more victims.

Following the release of Hellraiser: Bloodline, Clive Barker remained uninvolved with the series as it continued in a streak of direct-to-video installments legendarily known for taking unrelated scripts and reverse engineering them by inserting Pinhead. Barker announced in 2006 following the release of Hellworld his intent on remaking the series with rightsholder Dimension films. The remake went through a revolving door of directors and writers to the point that two obligation sequels, 2011's Hellraiser: Revelations and 2018's Hellraiser: Judgment were rushed into production just so Dimension wouldn't relinquish the rights. Following the collapse of the Dimesnion's parent company The Weinstein Company, Spyglass Media acquired the remake rights with Barker producing alongside David S. Goyer who would write the initial treatment. David Brucker, director of well regarded horror films The Ritual and The Night House became attached to direct with Bruckner's writers on Night House Ben Collins and Luke Piotrowski coming aboard as well. Now dropping on Hulu just in time for Halloween, Hellraiser breathes new life into this long neglected franchise and makes it the best incarnation we've seen since at least Hellbound: Hellraiser II.

Odessa A'Zion is really solid in the lead role of Riley and while the character is a little abrasive upon first introduction, I feel the movie really understands that cycle of addiction that becomes hard to break out of and Riley's addiction is a massive part of what makes this movie work as it's well integrated with the Hellraiser Iconography as Riley's obsession and repeated usage of the Lament Configuration much like her addiction leads to pain and suffering of those around her be they casual contacts, friends, or loved ones and while Riley doesn't want to hurt anyone, her drive to find her brother follows the same mindset in finding her next "fix" where she finds herself indifferent or uncaring of the consequences and only able to focus on that immediate gratification of her obsessive drive. Jamie Clayton takes on the mantle of Doug Bradley in the role of Pinhead (aka The Priest) and Clayton is phenomenal in the role as she captures the cold look and feel we associate with the character but is still allowed to make it her own.

The art direction in this movie is fantastic. While the original Hellraiser's cenobites have ingrained themselves in popular consciousness for good reason with distinct looks, this new Hellraiser keeps the same general idea of the Cenobites but goes some unique directions. For one thing unlike the original Cenobites who sported dark black leather attire, the only thing on the Cenobites this time around is skin, but the skin has been mangled, mutilated, and twisted so it's now arranged similar to the outfits of the original film but it's a nice way of giving visual distinction, so it doesn't just copy the aesthetics of the original film. The movie also features a wonderfully designed manor house belonging to Roland Voight and it's a sight to behold as it is based heavily around the designs of the Lament Configuration and is wonderfully used in the climax. The one thing that keeps this movie from being as good as the first Hellraiser in my opinion is in its usage of the character of Roland Voight. While Voight is given a great introduction in the opening sequence, he's unfortunately absent for a good chunk of the movie and this does a disservice to the film in my opinion because it forces Pinhead to take more of a role in the antagonist part of the story than should be necessary. Now it doesn't go to the level of Hellraiser III where it jumped off a cliff and made Pinhead a borderline Freddy Kruger clone, but the best Hellraiser films keep Pinhead in a supporting capacity and they mostly do that here but not as much as they should. Personally I feel the movie would've benefitted from seeing Voight as much as we saw Frank Cotton in the original film, but it's not a deal breaker and Pinhead isn't made the made antagonist so the movie does understand where Pinhead's role in this story should be.

Hellraiser is a welcome reboot of this legacied horror series and is easily my second favorite of this series behind the original. Anchored with strong performances by A'zion and Clayton, the movie gives you everything you want from a Hellraiser story with some disgustingly good Cenobite designs and kill sequences along with truly epic sequences that feel like expansions on the Hellbound environments. While Goran Visnjic is good as Voight, I feel he is underutilized, and the movie could've been improved from having him be a more prominent part of the story. Overall if this is the launch point for a new series of Hellraiser movies, then let them flow forth like the blood and viscera in the kill scenes.