trancejeremy

I am a big fan of the first two Hellraiser movies, but pretend the rest don't exist. This reboot isn't nearly as dire as the sequels after II, but it's just more boring than anything else.

Firstly, for such a long movie, there is a lack of characterization. The main character just seems confused most of the time, while the 3 men are so interchangeable I couldn't tell who was the boyfriend, the brother, or the brother's boyfriend. And the roommate was basically a non-entity.

Secondly, I think it misses the point. In the original (and II), the really evil people were regular humans. We go to see their villainy on the screen. Here there is a human villain, but he's mostly off screen, and when he's not, he's just more pathetic than evil.

The cenobite's design were pretty good, but the cinematography seemed out of place for a horror movie, not seamy or claustrophobic enough.

I watched this mostly because I am a HP Lovecraft fan and this is loosely based on his story, The Lurking Fear. His name isn't in the credits, but it's clearly inspired by him, by the use of the name Martense and there unique eye coloring.

Essentially in the story, mysterious deaths happen around an old decayed mansion, and the narrator slowly discovers the horrible cause.

Here, there's no subtlety, a crew goes into an abandoned asylum. Only you don't really see that much. It jumps around and it basically turns into a sadistic torture porn story with the two lead characters, one being Robert Davi looking ridiculous with emo hair and a silly hat.

And while it's somewhat sadistic, it's not particularly gory. There are no scares, either, like i said, sadism seems the goal. But it's lame, as there is no character development except maybe for the bald sheriff.

This is so unoriginal taking cliches from virtually every recent movie of its ilk, from Paranormal Activity, Insidious, Conjuring, etc. Everything is so obvious and blatant, like gags from Scary Movie or such, but they aren't gags, it's dead serious.

There's also no suspense or character development or a build up , just boom, hey I think our daughter is possessed so I'm going to watch her with video cameras. Which is probably creepier than anything in this movie.