Tuesday, October 22, 2013

31 Days of Halloween - Day 22 - Movie 1



Following his defeat at the end of Hellbound, the cenobite known as Pinhead is trapped within a pillar of souls which a scuzzy club owner buys as decor. Pinhead soon has him providing him with bodies in order to break free into our world. In the meantime, novice reporter, Joey (Terry Farrell) is contacted by the soul of Elliot Spencer, the human component of Pinhead, who asks her to help trap him and send him back to hell.

This is the first time I've seen any of the Hellraiser movies beyond the first two. I don't know what kept me from Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth (1992), but I stayed away. Writer Peter Atkins played the Butterball Cenobite in the first two movies and doubles here as the bartender and the Barbie cenobite, so the Hellraiser universe is familiar to him, and there's a clear effort to do something different with this movie. Having said that, this one is lacking the dark sexuality of the first two, and the new cenobites seem a bit forced in their conception, with one of them speaking in zingy one liners that feel more at home in a Freddy Krueger movie than here. The cast is okay, but Joey can't replace the angry, clever,  and determined Kirsty either. It's an okay movie, I'm sort of glad that I finally watched it, but it would not have made much difference if I hadn't.



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