Jesus Wept

Hellraiser (David Bruckner, 2022)

Somewhat breaking my own golden rule in discussing a movie that annoyed the hell out of me. Would rather talk about films I enjoy, but this is a very special exception on account of the original film and its sequel being very dear to my hellbound heart.

February 20th, 1993 was the night I sat in the rather swanky Empire cinema watching Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth (1992). Fairly sure I had seen it on bootleg video prior, but that's when I realised the franchise had officially jumped the shark. Even though I guiltily enjoyed it for Pinhead going full on Freddy, Terry Farrell, and that Motörhead video, it has never recovered since. Subsequent sequels became lesser and lesser movies; straight to video junk forcefully dropping in the brand onto scripts for unrelated movies. It was a mess. Rumours of a remake or a reboot stretched all the way back to the noughties, but it hasn't been until now that it's come into fruition.

Enjoyed David Bruckner's laddish folk-horror, The Ritual (2017), but I was somewhat underwhelmed by his follow-up film, The Night House (2020) and I never understood the positive praise for it. As you can imagine, knowing he was helming this latest incarnation of Hellraiser put my expectations on tenterhooks. What's obvious about Bruckner's offering is it borrows a lot of winning elements from the first two and best films of the franchise, but it makes some very major errors in the process.

The biggest grievance I have with the film is how insufferably annoying the film's main protagonist is. Riley (Odessa A'zion), a drug addict in rehab and a burden to her brother and his friends, is so bothersome, I found myself praying for her to have an early death. Don't get me wrong, Frank and Julia Cotton, the original hellraisers, were hardly likable characters, but they were essentially the film's real antogonsits, while Riley is meant to be the film's lead and does her utmost to be a thorn in everyone's existance; including me, the viewer. If her personality is bad, then prepare for the weird collagen lips and unkempt mop of hair which makes her look like the illegitimate daughter of Howard Stern. Sure, that sounds immature and pedantic, but wondering whether or not her lips were real was an unnecessary and constant distraction throughout the film. Although not to the same extent, Riley's "friends" are also rather unlikable. Not sure if it's today's scriptwriters, but the way young people are portrayed in today's cinema is unbelievably poor. However, considering this is a horror film, they're merely in the film to serve as body count fodder; so forget about character developement and all that rubbish, right? The only non-cenobite character that is remotely interesting is Goran Visnjic's Roland Voight; the rich investor bad guy who comes from a similar mould to Dr. Channard from Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1989).

Gone is the BDSM leather apparel. The look of the new cenobites (the collective term for them is "gash") are a mixed bag. Liking the look of the new Pinhead / The Priest as played by Jamie Clayton and I'm not bothered about the character's obvious gender switch like some folk seem to be online. The character was originally described as "androgynous" in Barker's original novella, The Hellbound Heart. Too nitpick, I do feel Clayton's Pinhead voice lacked the commanding presence of Doug Bradley's original portrayal. Pinhead is also robbed the best line from the film, "save your breath for screaming!", which is uttered by what looks like a Poundland Angelique named The Gasp. Best and most unique looking one of the lot is The Masque, probably because it looks like an anorexic Michelin Man. The rest, really are nowhere near as striking as the original clique from the eighties film; or from some of the follow-up movies. They also lacked any real dread and acted like slasher villain wannabes at times; which hardly separates them from the cenobites in the sequels, does it?. The cenobites don't distinguish between the summoner, the innocent or other cenobites to tally up the score of sacrificial souls in this film. Really grinds my gears, since one of my favourite lines from the O.G Pinhead is "No! No! No! It is not hands that call us. It is desire". Other than the obvious, what made Pinhead so unique was you could bargain with this ambassador of pleasure and pain. It seperated him from the other horror movie villains at the time. This update does away with that and just has Pinhead and her gash (ha!) act like your typical monsters; there's even a scene where one of the cenobites chases after Riley like your typical movie maniac, which feels like a massive blunder to me. Another scene where the Chatterer cenobite employs brute strength on an iron gate. This is taken even further with Voight's mansion serving as a trap for the cenobites. Physical obstructions now pose as obstacles to these dark angel travellers of time and space. What the fuck?

For a modern update of the franchise, it considerably feels dated. The second half of this laboriously paced film essentially consists of twenty-somethings inside a creepy mansion running from monsters. There's even the predicatble betrayal cliche, which adds insult to injury. Admittedly, Voight's motivations, along with his mansion, does move the film into 13 Ghosts (1960) territory. Sadly, the viewer is still made to suffer from Riley's exasperating behaviour amongst it all. The way the lore is updated feels like Hellraiser for Dummies with its simplistic explanations of the configuartions of the Lament Configuration puzzle box.

Much of the film's cinematography and art direction attempts to evoke the first two Hellraiser films, but it's usually ruined by that awful digital sheen that's so common today. Along with some very obviously shoddy computer generated visual effects, such as chains and gore effects, and the film really feels like a noughties horror entry rather an a contemporary one. Leviathan and the labyrinthian maze look considerably worse in this film in comparison to their realisations from the Hellbound: Hellraiser II. 

All in all, this Hellraiser reboot makes the same egregious errors as many other modern updates we've had to endure. Bruckner's attempt is reminiscent of J.J. Abrams franchise "fixing" atrocities. It jumbles up past glories and throws it all into the mixer as one film; passing them off as new creative efforts with the vain hope no-one will realise, or if they do, label them as "homages". There are a few redeeming highlights like Jamie Clayton and Goran Visnjic's performances, but all the numerous aforementioned problems I had with the film make me never want to revist this film ever again. It's better than many of the Hellraiser sequels; but a turd is still a turd, no matter how much spin it's given. Tore my soul apart.