Hellraiser 2022

The last few entries put in exactly zero effort to make a passable movie, so the bar for this franchise is pretty fucking low. Dimension Films were shitting out sequels in order to retain the rights, but somehow, Hulu got involved, and decided to put in some actual effort for a change. What a concept!

It's not a sequel, but it's not a remake. It bears little in common with the original and is a fairly unique story among the series. Nobody escapes hell and craves blood to regrow their flesh in that whole plot thread. It's more about dealing with the ramifications of the puzzlebox's fuckery, but it hits all the right beats. The puzzlebox, the chains, the cenobites, and the bizarre machinations of hell.

I don't have anything really to say about the "new" Pinhead. Yup, it's a she now. It doesn't really add or detract anything. It probably could've used Doug Bradley to make it a legit entry, but whatever. I guess his days of raising hell ended a while ago. The cast does a good job, and I did like the main girl. I'd do her.


Pardon the pun, but the cenobites strike me as more fleshed out here. Particularly in that they play a bigger threat, have more defined mechanics, and are plenty weird. I'm not sure if they ever made much sense to begin with, though. Why does Pinhead always have powers while the others are purely pawns? What made him/her a hell priest/priestess? We wont get our answers to that here, because while the sequels tried to bank off of that character, this new one treats him more like in the original movie, where he was just the "lead cenobite". It isn't about that character, nor should it be. It's about solving the box and claiming your "reward".

One dude's reward is pretty interesting. And pretty gross. In fact, the whole movie has its gross moments, but it still seems pretty tame for the most part. But... I didn't hate it. That's the most you can hope for with a series that's been run into the ground as much as Hellrasier has.


And now, the real question... Is HBO Max's Hellrasier series still moving forward? Haven't heard anything on that in a while...

#Review