Hellraiser VIII

What is this, what has this to do with Hellraiser, nothing at all, sure the lament configuration is there and there's an online game but let that be all. And pinhead do appears but he isn't what he is used to be. No punishment at all, okay, here we do have back some cenobites but that's it.

Pinhead is really forced into the story to make a Hellraiser flick but it didn't work at all. He do uses his one-liners but it's so forced and I really got pity with Bradley that he was involved in this little stinker.

Also, it's the first Hellraiser with that amount of nudity. Sadly, it doesn't add a thing to Hell. It's also the franchise that we see Bradley performing for the last time as pinhead, Revealtions (2011) was the follow-up and we all knew what that was, a flop.

Gore 0,5/5 Nudity 1,5/5 Effects 2/5 Story 2/5 Comedy 0/5

I've got to say i wasn't too impressed with this to be honest. I love the original hellraisers and i just keep hoping that they make at least 1 more decent sequel but thats looking unlikely.

Having said that i've seen worse films but its seems to have gone down the the traditional slasher film a bit too much. The real shame is that there's some good ideas in it. They just don't seem to have been pulled off.

Don't go out of your way to watch this unless you're really into the series. It doesn't add anything, just offers a slightly different slant on the story.

Like Freddy Krueger, Micahel Myers, Jason Voorhees, and Chucky, Pinhead has become a pop culture icon the years. He first appeared in Clive Barker's novel "The Hellbound Heart", which was later turned into the 1987 hit movie HELLRAISER, which was written and directed by Barker. The success of HELLRAISER lead to three theatrical sequels, comics, and action figures. In the eighteen years since its release, the cult status HELLRAISER as grown bigger and bigger. Knowing they have an audience of die-hard Pinhead fans, executives at Dimension Films insist on cranking out a new direct-to-video sequel every few years. None of them are particularly any good, but I just like the legion of other Pinhead fans, watch them with the hope that one of the sequels with be as good as the original HELLRAISER. This year saw the release of two direct-to-video sequels. The first was HELLRAISER: DEADER, which was better than the average direct-to-video release, but still not nearly as good as HELLRAISER was. The second direct-to-video sequel featuring Pinhead to be released in 2005 is HELLRAISER: HELLWORLD, a film so lackluster that makes all the other direct-to-video Hellraiser sequels look like cinematic gold. 'HELLWORLD' is yet another horror flick that seems to have been inspired by Wes Craven's NEW NIGHTMARE. However, while NEW NIGHTMARE was a clever and original horror picture, HELLRAISER: HELLWORLD is anything but. The premise seems dated and it is not nearly as clever as the filmmakers believe it is. The plot is just one of the many faults with this poorly edited, dreadfully acted, and misdirected failure. Like HELLRAISER: DEADER, 'HELLWORLD' was long delayed and it's not hard to see why. It's sloppily put together and for something that is supposed to be a horror thriller, lacks tension altogether. On the plus side, the make-up and effects are decent, some gratuitous nudity is thrown in, and Lance Henrisken is good in his role. The best thing that can be said about it is that it is not quite as bad as HELLRAISER: BLOODLINE. With any luck, this will be the last Hellraiser sequel. If there is actually yet another sequel, hopefully Clive Barker will be involved. The franchise as lost its steam. It's time for Pinhead to finally die. My rating: 4/10

A group of college kids who have messed around with the Lament Configuration in an online Hellraiser game, resulting in the death of one of the group before the movie has begun, are invited to a party at the mansion once owned by the man who created the puzzle box in the first place. There they are met by Lance Henrickson (!), who is hosting a big party for Hellraiser game fans. From this point, confusion reigns until the last five minutes when all is neatly explained away. The ending definitely contains a neat and unexpected twist, but one cannot forgive what has gone before and which takes well over an hour to get to the point. Decent gore, although true Hellraiser fans will be puzzled (no pun intended) by some of the goings-on,which bear no resemblance to the Hellraiser canon -- that is, until Lance explains all at the end. Pinhead is strictly a fleeting guest in this one, which has happened before, God knows. The film is new enough to have been influenced by the SAW series and the basic plot as such (discounting the explanation at the end) is straight out of the HALLOWEEN flick where the crowd gathers for a night of live televised fun and terror in Michael's family home. Shot back to back with HELLRAISER: DEADERS by the same director in Romania, this one is a notch above that incredibly dreary effort. Ah well, we can only await the cinematic remake of the original HELLRAISER.

This movie was terrible. I can't believe all the good reviews it got. This is easily the worst movie ever to bear the name Hellraiser, and if it weren't for Lance Henriksen, it wouldn't have even been a 2 in my book.

The acting ranged from mediocre (Chelsea) to downright abysmal (Jake), with the lone exception being Henriksen in his usual calm and menacing demeanor. The dialogue was clichéd, and Pinhead was turned into a crude mixture of Freddy Krueger and Jason Vorhees. He is supposed to be an arbiter, a ferryman to the other-worldly pleasures of the Hellraiser world, not some mindless killer of teenie-boppers. I couldn't care about any of the characters, which is what so painfully divides this movie from the 1st, which was built upon its characters. This is like Scream, except without any meaningful attempt at suspense or scares. The whole movie was so damn predictable that I was able to call every surprise.

I could tell though, before any of drivel that passed as "horror" in a franchise that isn't even supposed to be horror, that this movie would suck based on the Pinhead shirt one of the characters was wearing. That and a guy in a cenobite mask removed all attempts at a dignified motion picture before it even really began.

What disappoints me so much though is not the crappy acting, the swiss-cheese plot, or the sheer failure to achieve even mediocrity. Its how far this movie has fallen form the 1st or the 5th. Hell, Deader was worlds better than this, and even 3 and 4 had at least good quotes. This movie is an embarrassment, and Clive Barker should be infuriated at how his once-noble franchise has been mutilated.