Hellraiser II: Renascido das Trevas

After the strange events of the first movie,Kirsty is sent to a Institution for the Mentally Sick, commanded by the mysterious Dr. Channard,a crazed psychologist who is willing to open the doors of hell by manipulating the Puzzle Box.In doing so,Channard brings Kirsty's perverse stepmother Julia back to life,and consequently he provokes the rage of the dreadful cenobites,the cruel and evil creatures that give pleasure and pain in the same measure.Hellbound Hellraiser 2 is an extremely well-done film,thanks to the generous budget given to newcomer filmmaker Tony Randel and a first-rate production.The special effects are simply terrific (specially considering the time in which the movie was done,1988) and they create a bombastic,scary visual.I never saw a movie with such an incredible scenery and imagery,except maybe for Dark City.Clive Barker's vision of hell is brought to life with mastery through the work of Randel and Director of Photography Robin Vidgeon. The plot sustains the tension and keeps you on the edge of your seat from start to finish,though the first half hour of Hellbound: Hellraiser II is a little bit slow and descriptive (but never boring); a great portion of the action and the terror is concentrated in the last minutes. The last thirty ones are a realistic and gutsy "tour de force" through fear,violence and suffering.This is definitively a masterpiece, but not for the squeamish.Hellbound: Hellraiser II is rated R for extreme violence and sex scenes,it runs 99 minutes(uncut version released by Anchor Bay).It stars Clare Higgins as Julia, Ashley Laurence as Kirsty, Imogen Boorman as Tiffany,William Hope as Kyle McRae and Kenneth Cranham as Dr. Channard.If you like this movie, you might also enjoy Phenomena and Suspiria.

Kirsty Cotton (Ashley Laurence) survived the first attack from Hell in "Hellraiser", but her troubles are far from over. She is now locked up in a mental ward run by an occult-obsessed doctor (how appropriate) and her evil stepmother, Julia (Clare Higgins) refuses to stay dead.

This film is incredibly polarizing, I fear, because it has such strong qualities of both good and bad. The bad include special effects that really date the movie (though are still superior to much of today's work) and the introduction of a certain level of silliness that pervades the later films. The doctor as a cenobite is a bit strange in form, and opens the door for the even more bizarre creatures in part three.

There are some plot and continuity issues, such as wondering where Kirsty's boyfriend from part one went. And while the film seems to try to explain loose ends from the first film, it creates a whole lot more... the maze (presumably hell) is not adequately explained, nor is the role of the giant puzzle box. While some of this is addressed in later films, it seems that what we learn later tends to contradict what we see here.

But let us say some good things about this one. First and foremost, the Julia without skin looks incredible. It is hard to say they topped Frank without skin (from the original) but I think they did. The way she comes crawling up out of the bed... her blood-soaked flesh. Beautiful. "Right to Die" owes a huge debt to the work in this film, the same way that this film owes a debt to "Bride of Frankenstein" with its use of thunder and bandages...

We also have to give the gore creators some credit, because the insane man with the knife was pretty intense... actually, all the asylum inmates are well-played. For all the flaws this film may have, they more than made up for it with a couple of memorable scenes. While my favorite in the series is "Bloodline" (I believe I am in the minority on this), I think part two may have been the last great addition. Sequels were not necessary, and obviously everything after part four just gives the franchise a bad name.

Anchor Bay has released a twentieth anniversary edition, and I would strongly recommend it. Older features, such as an audio commentary from 2001, are available, as well as a few new featurettes. "The Soul Patrol" features new interviews with Barbie Wilde, Simon Bamford and Nicholas Vince. "Outside the Box" features a new interview with director Tony Randel and "The Doctor is In" features a new interview with Kenneth Cranham.

As someone who has met Ashley Laurence, Doug Bradley, Clive Barker and each of the cenobites, I have a strong personal interest in this film. I can say that the Anchor Bay edition is easily the best to date and any "Hellraiser" fan would be making a mistake in getting an older, inferior edition.

Even if the story's weak, bringing back the surviving (or not surviving) cast members of the original, can make a sequel better. Everyone thinks crazy old Kirsty Cotton is making up stories of demons from hell (which happened to be her attic), but we all know better, don't we? She's now in a mental institution with a girl with a penchant for solving puzzles, under the guidance of a sadistic doctor with a penchant for a skinless Julia. Part of the story is just a re-hash of the first with different characters in similar situations. This time around we go to hell and find that it's like an Escher painting with a giant "Lament" diamond spinning in the sky. Not as good as the first film, but pretty close--a bit gorier and disturbing (but after "Hellraiser", I was expecting this) The acting is similar to the first film, but the special effects are a bit more elaborate this time around as the budget was bigger due to the success of it's predecessor.

Hellraiser was always going to be a hard act to follow (especially with Clive Barker handing over so much control to others). This first sequel starts promisingly enough though, beginning on the same night as the original ended. It features the return of Ashley Laurence's heroine Kirsty and the resurrection of wicked stepmom (no, really) Julia (Clare Higgins). However about two thirds into the movie any attempt at story progression, character development or coherency goes out the window and instead the film throws up albeit interesting imagery and ideas seemingly at random. That's not to say that Hellbound : Hellraiser 2 is a totally bad movie, it just seems like such a wasted opportunity. If the next sequel would have followed on more directly (instead of going stateside and bringing in different characters) maybe the ideas about Hell and Leviathan could have been explored and developed more fully. However without this safety blanket, much of Hellbound seems confused and half baked. Kenneth Cranham lends weight to the role of sinister Dr Channard but as soon as he's made into a cenobite the film goes into high camp and I wonder what happened to the sombre tone of the original. Clare Higgins seems t be enjoying playing her return as Julia like a Hollywood bitch on drugs and it's interesting to find out something about the origin of the cenobites albeit briefly(and at least Pinhead's human origin is something that does get explored further in Hellraiser III). If you like the first film, it's probably worth checking this one out and you may want t view it more than once to catch everything in it but just don't expect another Hellraiser like the original.

I enjoyed the original "Hellraiser" movie and have been watching all the movies in the franchise as they have been released. Though I have to say that with each passing new movie that the franchise spawned, the quality of the storyline and ideas just grew weaker and weaker. However, the 1988 "Hellbound: Hellraiser II" is almost as good as the original movie.

The storyline in "Hellbound: Hellraiser II", as written by Peter Atkins, picks up after the events of the 1987 "Hellraiser" movie, and it is a good continuation of the storyline. There is a good continuity between the 1987 movie and this 1988 sequel, and that works very well in favor of the movie.

It was nice to see cast members from the original movie, such as Ashley Laurence, Clare Higgins and Sean Chapman return to reprise their characters from the first movie. Just as it was great to see the Cenobites return to the screen as well; that being Doug Bradley, Simon Bamford, Barbie Wilde and Nicholas Vince. I am not sure if all of those playing the Cenobites were from the first movie, though.

Visually then "Hellbound: Hellraiser II" is good. Sure, the movie is showing signs of being 34 years old already, but the effects are still adequate today and keep the movie as being watchable.

I enjoyed "Hellbound: Hellraiser II" and have seen it about five times or so, since it was originally released.

My rating of "Hellbound: Hellraiser II", from director Tony Randel, lands on a six out of ten stars.