Hellraiser VII: Deader

HELLRAISER: DEADER is pretty good, especially in the first half which has two of the more intense and creepy scenes I have seen in a DTV flick in a while. I'm talking, of course, about the first videotape and when Amy explores the abandoned house.

Where DEADER fails is when it tries to tie into the HELLRAISER mythology. As has been well publicized, DEADER started out as an original screenplay by Neal Marshall Stevens that Dimension Films bought for no less than 1 million dollars. Then they lost faith in it and let it collect dust before hiring Tim Day to do a rewrite and turn it into a HELLRAISER sequel. I don't blame the guy, because he probably did the best he could, given such a ridiculous task. But it's a shame that DEADER did end up like this. Without the 30 seconds worth of Pinhead at the end this could have been a minor genre masterpiece. As it stands, it's just a bizarre, schizophrenic film with some outstanding moments, some scenes that really work and some that really don't. Once again, shame on Dimension Films for wasting this opportunity.

In addition to original screenwriter Stevens, director Rick Bota also deserves some praise. He's made a good looking and often tense film that is never less than competent. Hopefully he'll be able to break free from his current job at Dimension eventually. The guy has talent.

A rather forgettable additional to the Hellraiser universe that quite frankly could have been left out and no one would have missed it.

To make an effective Hellraiser movie you cannot simply inject Pinhead and the Coenobites into any old script and expect it to carry any essence of the universe to which they belong.

Deader is a rather apt name for the movie as it also describes the writing.

Its not the worst entry in the franchise but it is another example of sucking at the teat of what was once an iconic movie series.

I'm glad this hasn't been the end of the series and have rejoiced at the 2022 Hellraiser which finally does something for the fans :)

There's an unwritten rule in horror cinema that says: you know you're in trouble once they stop numbering the sequels to originally successful genre classics. This is the seventh installment in the Hellraiser franchise and yet they already stopped giving them numbers since "Hellraiser (4): Bloodline". And can you guess where exactly it started to go wrong with the series?? Oh well...the good thing about these Hellraiser movies is that, no matter how mediocre the stories are, there are always some remotely interesting elements in them to satisfy horror lovers. In this seventh entry those elements are the presence of Kari Wuhrer, some sinister settings and really a lot of gore. Wuhrer stars as a chain-smoking, hard ass journalist who's sent to Bukarest to investigate the bloody rites of an underground cult. The leader seems to have a talent to bring recently deceased persons back to life and he promises his followers a world of pleasure once they returned from death. What he really looks for, however, is the one person who's able to open the mysterious puzzle box in his possession. As you can guess, our female journalist is that chosen person and she'll have to fight both the leader of the cult and Pinhead; the ruler of hell. The actual plot of "Deader" definitely shows potential, but it's confusing and it tries to be overly intelligent. Pinhead's share in the story is limited, as it already was in the previous two sequels, and he seems dragged into it simply because it wouldn't sell otherwise. The sequences inside the Romanian subway-trains are nice to look at and there's a lot of gruesome butchering going on. Kari Wuhrer is a talented and beautiful actress but she starred in too many dire, straight-to-video horror productions already. Apart from this failure, she also appeared in two sequels of "The Prophecy", a turkey called "Final Examination" and in the belated sequel to "The Hitcher". Even the bigger productions she starred in recently ("King of the Ants", "Eight Legged Freaks") were disappointments. We have another Rick Bota sequel coming up, namely "Hellworld".

The latest installment in the Hellraiser series is by far and wide the worst entry. Fans seem to be torn in regards to the direction the direct to video sequels have taken. Some are upset Pinhead is no longer a central character, some don't care. I love Hellraiser II which features Pinhead prominently and I also love Inferno in which he barely has a cameo. So I am not biased either way. I will not tear this movie down just because Doug Bradley has a minuscule role. I will tear it down for being an incoherent piece of crap. This particular script was pre-existing (simply titled Deader) and the good folks at Dimension decided that they could turn it into a stellar Hellraiser film. It didn't work. Clive Barker's Cenobites just don't fit into this story. It's as simple as that. And that title: Deader. Talk about poor English. Expect yet another Hellraiser sequel (again directed by Rick Bota) in September.

The Hellraiser film set ended after bloodline. This like the others after bloodline which are less slasher more trying to be some kind of deep psychological horror. Of course like the others its fails miserably and leaves you yearning for something to actually happen. Thats not to say the previous films did not have 'mess with your head' factor, They certainly did. However they managed it on a level that wasn't thought out, it came across more as a by-product of the film. You get to see pinhead about once for a proper scene and its nothing to write home about.

I would not bother even renting this film if you started out as a big fan of the first few. If you're easily scared they get it, why not.