Hellraiser: Revelações

Every review of this movie has ripped it to shreds. Some reviews were fair, however. I'm one of these people who looks deeper into what he sees before him rather than the surface. While it is true that this film is by no means a masterpiece, it certainly isn't the biggest cinematic monstrosity of all time ("Children of the Living Dead" owns that title).

First off: Doug Bradley's absence. I'm a huge Doug Bradley/Pinhead fan, and there will never be anyone to play Pinhead better, but you have to look at what the new guy was up against. Very short shooting schedule and immediate fan ridicule pretty much doomed this poor guy. Overall, I felt he did a decent job with what he was given.

Second: special effects. Come on people, it's a direct-to-DVD movie. Are we looking for 'Star Wars' visuals here? Honestly, I felt the effects here were a bit better than they should have been.

Seriously, if you're a fan of this series, leave high expectations at the door and just give it an honest chance. You never know, you might end up liking it.

I gritted my teeth and gave it a chance, but in the end there is no escaping it. No Doug Bradley, no Pinhead. No Pinhead, no Hellraiser. It's not worth talking through the awful script, the mediocre effects or the below par acting, others have covered those in existing reviews. My only comment would be that the actors on screen know they are making a fail movie and it shows on screen. And when the fake Pinhead arrives on screen, it's game over. After watching this, I looked up the interviews with Doug Bradley to find out why he didn't get onboard with the project, after all, he's been involved with every Hellraiser film so far. I would recommend watching the interviews BEFORE the film, it might save you 90 minutes of your life that you won't get back.

The best friends Steven Craven (Nick Eversman) and Nico Bradley (Jay Gillespie) travel to Mexico to have fun. They meet a vagrant (Daniel Buran) in a bar that gives a puzzle box to Nico. When he opens the device, he finds that it is a key to hell. Nico brings Pinhead (Stephan Smith Collins) that inflicts pain to him and Steven and the youngsters vanish.

Later, in Los Angeles, Dr. Ross Craven (Steven Brand), his wife Sarah (Devon Sorvari) and their daughter Emma (Tracey Fairaway) receive Peter (Sebastien Roberts) and Kate Bradley(Sanny Van Heteren) to have dinner. Both families miss Steven and Nico and they hired a private detective to seek them out, but he only finds Nico's backpack. When Emma snoops around the backpack, she finds the puzzle box and out of the blue, Steven returns covered of blood. But soon they discover that it is not Steven's soul that is inside his body.

"Hellraiser: Revelations" is a very bad sequel, actually the ninth movie of this franchise. It shows the terrible fate of the classic Clive Baker's horror story "Hellraiser" (1987) and its great sequel "Hellbound: Hellraiser II" (1988).

"Hellraiser: Revelations" has a messy screenplay that does not show anything new. Indeed, Doug Bradley has probably given up of performing Pinhead and Stephan Smith Collins is very weak in this role. The worst thing is that the conclusion gives the sensation that the author intends to make another sequel that should be released straight to garbage instead of to video. My vote is three.

Title (Brazil): "Hellraiser: Revelações" ("Hellraiser: Revelations")

In 1987, Clive Barker unleashed the first film in the "Hellraiser" saga onto the masses, from his literary work "The Hellbound Heart." The first film was, and still is in many ways, an iconic, classic entry in the horror genre. The rest is history. At the time I am writing this review, the series has spanned nine films (with rumors of a TV-show possibly in the works), and countless spin-off media including a popular line of graphic novels and comics.

"Hellraiser" is a staple in horror, which is what makes this latest film so infuriating and heart-wrenching.

"Hellraiser: Revelations" is the latest in the series (beginning with the fifth film, all releases have skipped theaters and been plagued with lower budgets and even lower-grade actors and crews). Directed by Victor Garcia (from a script he also co-wrote), this mess of a film is DOA, with lame-brained acting, penny-pinching special effects, and a horrid plot that is essentially a lazy re-imagining of the original film. This is a slap-in-the-face to fans of the series, who have stuck by it even as the later sequels got worse and worse following the surprisingly strong second film. (Which is one of the rare horror sequels that had any thought to it, and is arguably almost as good as the original, despite obvious differences in tone and scope.) Beginning with the third film, the series took a nose-dive, although one or two entries, notably the fifth film, were watchable and enjoyable. This one, however, is the worst of the bunch.

Two spoiled young men, Nico and Steven, vanished sometime ago during a wretched trip to Mexico where they partook in prostitutes and copious partying. After murdering a prostitute, and after being given the mysterious puzzle box by a vagrant, Nico solved it, summoning "Pinhead" (played by a new actor... more on that later), whom dragged him to hell. Steven brings Nico back from hell via sacrifices, and later shows up to a house where he and Nico's family are having dinner.

At the house, Emma, Steven's sister, finds the box, and eventually the families begin to experiences strange and bizarre things over the film's anemic 75-minute running time, before a series of lame-brained twists that I won't spoil ends the film in an abrupt and very anti-climactic climax.

First the acting. I haven't really seen any of the actors in this film before (which I'm guessing is due to the almost non-existent budget preventing us from getting any name-actors), so I don't have anything to compare them to. But the acting was uniformly foul. All emotions by all parties seem forced, and our two leads (Jay Gillespie and Nick Eversman) are about as believable in their performances as a sheep wearing a dollar-store werewolf mask trying to blend into a pack of wolves. They simply cannot act.

Technically, the film is a mess. Garcia's shot-choices are bland, boring, and scream "inexperienced film-school student", and the lighting is atrocious. I was shocked to learn the cinematographer was David Armstrong, whom proved himself to be a capable DP on numerous other films, including six of the seven "Saw" films. Here, all of the lighting and shots seem hastily thrown together, and you could tell Mr. Armstrong didn't have enough time or motivation to work with. I study film and video production at college, and I've seen student-films shot on standard-def camcorders that look better than this from a technical standpoint.

The effects are also lousy. The cenobites looks soul-lessly designed, and their costumes looks like cheap rental-store robes. Pinhead's new design doesn't work and has too much shadow-work around his needles and creases/cuts, making him look a bit goofier than the eerie paper-white look of past films. Gore effects are phoned-in, with cheap, obvious prosthetics. The few CG-type effects are hilariously cheap looking. The set-design is bland and uninspired as well. Especially in the Hell scenes, which haven't been updated since the original film. Hell's still just a mass of swinging chains and pillars, which worked in the original film due to some excellent shots by Barker and the fact we hadn't seen anything like it before, but looks silly and cheap nowadays.

And onto the biggest complaint most people have... and a very justifiable complaint it is. Doug Bradley, whom portrayed Pinhead in all eight previous films skipped out on this one. He wasn't pleased by the script or the next-to-nothing paycheck, so he bailed. Our new Pinhead is portrayed by Stephen Smith Collins, with voice-over work by Fred Tatasciore. And good-lord, is the performance(s) bad!

I already mentioned the new makeup for the character's head didn't work as well as in previous films. But I could forgive that if the performances for the role were good. They aren't. First of all, Collins, who does the on-screen acting just doesn't look the part. He looks more like a light-weight professional wrestler with his head-shape. And his body language doesn't have any of the poetry or art of Bradley. He performs the role as though he had no rehearsals or prep-time, and is timidly being told what to do by the director off-screen. He seems in over his head. And Tatasciore's voice-over work is laughable. Gone is the booming voice of past films, which was dripping with darkness and emotion. Now, Pinhead sounds kinda like Don LaFontaine (the man known for providing voice-over work as the narrator of just about every movie trailer before his untimely death) trying to whisper with a bad Eurpoeon accent while suffering a sore-throat. It's just... awful.

This film is undoubtedly a career-killer for most involved, and it may just kill the franchise. It's beyond awful, and I give it a 1 out of 10, not just for being a bad film, but for being a tarnish on the classic original's legacy. Avoid this, I saw it for free on Netflix, and I still feel like the studio owes me a refund!

This was the worst film in the series by far. I understand it was rushed out but the script seems to have been written by a 10 year old.

The characters were cardboard cut-outs. Actually I think I would have had more of an emotional connection to cardboard than the cast.

The storyline and I use the term in the loosest possible sense was so jumbled it was nigh on impossible to keep track of what was happening and when it was happening.

I am so glad Doug Bradley refused to appear in the film as he would have shone so brightly among the others the screen would have just been a white light.

So Revelations. Well if the word is translated as Apocalypse I think I was a valid title.

Don't bother to see this film unless you enjoy staring at wet paint.