Hellraiser VII: Deader

Rick Bota returns as director, and again delivers a film in the form of a mystery thriller. This time about a reporter on an assignment to find a missing woman. In her search for answers, she ends up much deeper than she ever thought possible, and I thought Kari Wuhrer was rather good as reporter Amy Klein. The story was not originally written for the Hellraiser franchise; instead an existing script was converted for the series, and that's evident, as there's very little resemblance to the previous films. Just as with Hellraiser 6, there are way too many dreams and hallucinations. It is almost as if they had different ideas and opinions for the film but didn't know how to incorporate all of them, so they did so via means of the dreams and hallucinations. It wasn't scary, and it wasn't NOT scary. It wasn't bad, and not all that good either, but certainly more enjoyable than 3, 4 & 5 in the series. The stabbing scene in the hotel room was incredibly well done!! Pinhead again only appears very late in the film, and only stays around long enough to convince us this is indeed a Hellraiser film .

Well...I blame these sequels on the Weinsteins almost entirely...made for market fluff. Hellraiser: Bloodline was probably the only installment that had anything unique to it, and let us not forget the overwhelming sins of Hellraiser 3: The Greatest Blunder Ever Told.

But I digress. A persistent formula has manifested again: Someone opens the box who doesn't realize what they've done and find out at the end he/she is in the Cenobite's realm and now it's their ass.

I'd really like these movies to stop. Let's have Pinhead's Corner: A segment hosted by Pinhead the film critic where upon completion of the review he tears the soul of the director apart...maybe the producer too. That would be a giggle.

A London journalist travels to Bucharest to investigate a cult called "The Deaders", who seemingly have the power to return back to life.

Kari Wuhrer stars as Amy, an investigative journalist for an underground newspaper sent on assignment in Romania after her editor (Simon Kunz) receives a video tape of cult ritual in which a woman commits suicide but is then revived. Once there, Amy becomes entangled with the local subculture and tracks down Winter LeMarchand (Paul Rhys), leader of The Deaders and descendant of the puzzle box maker from Hellraiser: Bloodline.

Hellraiser: Deader is not a particularly good movie, but it's honestly one of the better Hellraiser sequels. The characters at least have traits and motivations, and the movie feels a little bit higher budget than Hellraiser: Hellseeker thanks to more set variety, something which was accomplished within the budget due to filming in Romania. (By the way, this movie was filmed in 2002 but shelved for a few years).

There were a couple scenes I enjoyed; one in which Amy searches a disgusting apartment for clues, and another in which a character tries to remove a knife from their own back (which looked like fun). I also thought the acting was decent, at least by Hellraiser standards. Overall there were some things to like, especially in the earlier parts of the film.

Unfortunately, Hellraiser: Deader still suffers from some of the same problems as its predecessor. There are constant fake-out dream sequences, and it gets to the point that it's difficult to figure out which scenes are real or fake. Furthermore, director Rick Bota (who also directed Hellseeker) makes some questionable choices once again, including too much slow motion. There's also one scene near the beginning of the movie which is really bizarrely edited; it keeps flashing back and forth between Amy getting on a train and having a conversation in her boss's office. I get what they were going for, but the way they went about it is jarring.

For me, the movie really fell apart in act three. Without spoiling it, logic was thrown out the window, and the conclusion of the film was very stupid. This ending was a result of shoehorning the Cenobites into the film, as Hellraiser: Deader is yet another Hellraiser film based on a spec script that originally didn't feature Pinhead and company.

Worse, of all the movies in the series up to this point, Pinhead felt the most of out place. He and the cenobites seem to revert back to the "boogeyman" status of Hellraiser III, and have very little to do with the plot until the very end of the film - where they appear and ruin the movie. Not to be mean, Pinhead was looking kinda old - and dare I say a little pudgy - in this one. It doesn't help that his entire head seems to be grey, except his eyes, ears, and mouth which are blue; this ruins the illusion, as it's painfully obvious he's wearing makeup and prosthetics.

Hellraiser: Deader has issues, but it isn't the worst Hellraiser movie. It's more watchable than most of the films in the series, even though it suffers from many of the same pitfalls. In what is clearly a bad horror franchise, I would rewatch this direct-to-video entry before most of the others.

Few franchises have nose dived to the extent of the Hellraiser series. What started out as an ingenious memorable horrific set of movies turned into bafflingly bad boring titles with little relevance to what we had learned to love.

Hellraiser Deader is just one of many recent dire attempts at cashing in on Pinhead and though this one does feature Doug Bradley he is on screen for mere moments.

Starring Kari Wuhrer who to her credit is better than usual here we have another confused tale revolving around a cult and the infamous puzzle box. Sadly once again it makes little sense and is immensely boring.

Fans of the series will not be happy with this one.

Hopefully one day Hellraiser will find its way home, for now it's well and truly lost in the desert.

The Good:

One tense scene

Wuhrer is on form

The Bad:

Confusing plot

Practically no cenobites at all

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

When entering a property and finding a corpse that you have no intention of reporting it makes perfect sense to leave your fingerprints everywhere

Alike the real world the term "God help me" has never worked in movies

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.