Hellraiser VI: Hellseeker

"Hellraiser: Hellseeker" is a Mystery - Horror movie and the seventh sequel of the "Hellraiser" franchise, in which we watch a businessman trying to remember and figure out what happened after a car crash that killed his wife. The only thing he has is a box that he does not know its purpose yet.

I did not like this sequel because I believe that it was not worthy of the name "Hellraiser". Except some minor clues, some objects like the puzzle box and some of the main characters of the franchise, "Hellraiser: Hellseeker" did not reach the potential of Hellraiser's name. I do not recommend anyone to watch this movie especially those who have already watched the previous "Hellraiser" movies.

This entry in the ongoing "Hellraiser" franchise brings back protagonist Kirsty Cotton (Ashley Laurence) from the first three films. Here she's married to a man named Trevor (Dean Winters, "John Wick"), and as the film opens, they have a car accident after which he loses his memory, and she disappears. Unreality begins to invade his life regularly, with no relief from the horrific images. Gradually, the truth begins to emerge, with Trevor realizing that he was NOT a prince of a guy before the accident.

For a while, this all feels rather familiar and predictable, and is not helped by Winters' bland performance in the lead. But Laurence still has appeal, and some of the supporting actors are good. There is some effective doom & gloom atmosphere, some okay gore (but also some ropey CGI), and decent attempts at surrealism. Use of the renowned Pinhead (Doug Bradley) character is somewhat limited, although you appreciate his presence every time he shows up. His booming voice still issues grave pronunciations on the nature of the situation.

It isn't until near the end, however, as the mystery is revealed, that this does become at least reasonably interesting, and *we* realize that we were being taken on a ride where things weren't as they seemed.

The film is not laden with style, but it's adequately directed by Rick Bota (in his feature debut), whose background was in camera operation and cinematography. At the very least, the sexy supporting actresses (Sarah-Jane Redmond, Jody Thompson, Kaaren de Zilva) are fun to watch.

Filmed in the Vancouver area.

Six out of 10.

It had been some time since I'd seen the first two Hellraisers, and possibly the third, and I hadn't seen any of the other sequels. It seems like a lot of genre fans have overlooked these sequels as well, for whatever reason, while the Friday the 13th, Halloween, and Nightmare on Elm Street sequels still seem to attract a fair amount of attention.

Local video stores have been selling off most of their videotapes cheaply, so I took advantage of this fact to pick up several of the Hellraiser sequels.

I enjoyed this one. It does feature relatively little of the cenobites, which no doubt may irritate many (though not as much as if they were absent entirely!). The storyline in this one largely revolves around the questions: what happened? and what is real?

I could see possibly picking up the series on DVD at the right price and watching them all through again. I'm disappointed to hear the recent news that they're remaking the first one, though.

Maybe it's just me, but I feel like this movie as well as the last played like an Outer Limits, Twilight Zone episode..Coulda been done in 1 hour... it was good story, But didn't need to carry the Hellraiser name. This Series as well as it's villain could be causing more mayhem and go in plenty of different directions and hopefully will start moving on to other areas of cerebral dementia... Pinhead is still one of the greatest Villains.. and was good to see the Kirsty character back in it too..

Other reviewers (at least the ones I read) must have watched a different movie to me. What I saw was certainly an effort at originality, and yes, it was better than some of the other sequels to the franchise, but that said it was still a below par screenplay, borrowing heavily from other, cleverer, more original films.

Ironically Hellraiser:Hellseeker shares some of the same flawed plot concepts as the movie it borrows most heavily from: Jacob's Ladder. There's the same two tier story running consecutively and along different, mysterious time-lines, both of which fail utterly to fuse into a single coherent time-line at the end of the film. There's the same solipsist nightmare: how can one truly discern between reality and dreams when the dream state feels as 'real' as reality itself? The second movie from which Hellseeker shamelessly borrows is Angel Heart, a masterpiece of cinematic horror featuring Mickey Rourke before his face went to hell (as a result of high living, screwed up plastic surgery and boxing, not Pinhead) and Robert DeNiro. Where Angel Heart is innovative, Hellseeker is simply repetitive and boring. Where Mickey Rourke excels as the confused protagonist in Angel Heart, Dean Winters sleep-walks his way through the role in Hellseeker, and where DeNiro gets all the best lines, poor Pinhead gets some of the most forgettable I've ever heard him utter.

Granted, compared with the other Hellraiser sequels (all bar Hell on Earth, which I have to say I enjoyed more than I or II) this tries something different, and maybe with a better lead role there'd be something there worthy of a couple more stars. But ultimately the confused mess of a plot destroys itself, irrespective of Winters' deadpan portrayal.

I give this rubbish one star for effort and one for the inclusion of Ashley Laurence who, lets face it, should really be above all this by now. Another star for Doug Bradley as Pinhead who never fails to send chills down my spine with his black 8-ball eyes and his tendency to drag nine inch nails out of his own skull.

Ultimately though, Doug needs to share that last star with Clive Barker without whom the world would be a much duller place.