Hellraiser VII: Deader

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.

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 .

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

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.