Every fake out and every twist is predictable and cringy. There isn't a single amount of originality as this borrows not only in ideas but in style from the Post-Scream slasher era and Saw. Instead of being the meta self-aware Scream of the series this is more like Halloween: Resurrection. An installment that feels like an insult rather than something smart. Making Hellraiser some kind of movie, mythology, or video game people know about in the real world does not a good movie make. I'm willing to forgive some things because there are some good effects in this movie, minus the 2005 CGI, Lance Henriksen is great like always, and I like any slasher type of movie with some bloody kills. From a writing and story perspective I can rip apart this movie scene by scene. While most people may not like the era this movie was from it takes me back to my childhood where I was just discovering pop culture. So the raves, cellphones, giant computers, and hard rock punk music is a soft spot for me because it takes me back to that era. This would be a good movie to play a drinking game to. Drink every time a fake out or predictable twist happens and you're on your way to a fun night.
The movie starts with a friend of a group named Adam, committing suicide. Adam had become so immersed in the Hellworld video game, a real life video game based off the Hellraiser film series. At the funeral the friends Mike (Henry Cavill), Chelsea (Katheryn Winnick), Jake (Christopher Jacot), Derrick (Khary Peyton), and Allison (Anna Tolputt) blame themselves for not being able to prevent his suicide. Chelsea has a nightmare and when she wakes up she sees Mike wearing a Chatterer cenobite mask. This is one of the few clever moments from the movie as it is common to see flashes of the same things you see in nightmares after you wake up and because Mike is wearing a mask it is an interesting fake out. It is a preview for coming attractions though because its one of many instances in this movie where the filmmakers think they have outsmarted you.
The friend group is invited to a party of Hellworld players. Chelsea is at first reluctant to go but eventually does. At the party Jake is reunited with the group after keeping distant from them. This whole thing is shades of I Still Know What you Did Last Summer. The party is at a giant mansion, owned by the mysterious Host (Lance Henriksen). Everyone at the party has been given masks with four numbers on them and cellphones to communicate. The Host gives them a tour of the house and shows off his Hellraiser collection including a painting of LeMerchant who created the box. He offers them all a drink and Chelsea and Jake turn him down. While giving a tour of the autopsy and morgue area he stabs Chelsea with a needle which she seemingly has hallucinated.
Spoiler Section
At that point the group mostly goes their separate ways. Allison is the first to be killed in a very Saw like trap where razor blades cut her throat. Mike is seduced by multiple women and is eventually lured into the morgue where he is killed while hanging from a hook. Derrick loses his inhaler is eventually lured to the morgue room where he is beheaded. Jake is stabbed in his fingers early on by retractable blades by a puzzle box the Host had offered him.
I do like some of the effects in this film. Every kill is sufficiently bloody, though the effects are questionable at times. When Allison is killed there is a lot of spraying blood but no heavy effects work. Though we see her as a cenobite later and there are some cool effects around the impact point on her throat. Same thing goes for Mike who looks like a cool zombie later on. One cop investigating eventually gets a spear through the mouth by Pinhead though the spear looks like CGI. That doesn't end there. When the Host is killed toward the end of the film his body is split in half, quite possibly a callback to Aliens for Lance Henriksen. There are some cool shots in this movie too, though it is plagued by the quick slow-motion to fast motion editing of the popular Saw films. I do like when Derrick's head lands in that bowl and the red blood splashes. I like how dark Allison's blood looks in that cool blue room she is in. I like the shots through the holes in the coffins.
There are some meta elements to this movie I thought were interesting and I wish it had gone further with that. I did enjoy the part where Derrick and Mike see a topless woman and have the exchange of "gratuitous tit shot." "Necessary tit shot," as if they are speaking to the audience. The Hellworld game looks like some quick click game online and not MMORPG by any stretch of the imagination. If they had actually gone into a video game this would've been better. One of the bigger problems of this movie is that by setting it in the real world I question everything that isn't supernatural. Some of the previous sequels use nightmare logic and the supernatural powers of the puzzle box to suspend my disbelief. This is all done through drugs whether by the drink or what the Host does to attack Jake and Chelsea. Do drugs really work like this? Later the Host says it shows them their biggest fears and their guilty conscience but if Chelsea doesn't believe in Hellworld why is she scared of Pinhead? There are other moments too where I cringed. When Jake turned around and killed Chelsea only for that to be another fake out I was like really? Give it up. If this movie had made more commentary on how obsessed people can get with video games to the point of addiction that would've at least allowed for more social commentary but that just goes surface level. The Nokia cellphone stuff and the fake outs on the voices feels straight out of Scream 3 and not an aspect of that movie you want inspiration from.
While it was interesting to see some actors who have gone on to do some things most of the performances are quite bad. That doesn't include Lance Henriksen who puts real commitment into every line as if he believes it. Katheryn Winnick is hot as fuck so I'm willing to forgive that performance. Henry Cavill spends most of the movie wide-eyed and open-mouthed like he's playing the Joker or something. His MGTOW moment where he lets the woman keep sucking him off while Chelsea is calling for help was quite funny though.
Eventually it is revealed that the Host is Adam's father as Chelsea finds pictures of them in the attic. He had drugged them all and buried them all alive. In a very Nightmare on Elm Street move Mike, Allison, and Derrick are killed in similar ways from in the drug trance. I do enjoy how Derrick has the nightmare about losing his inhaler and that is how he dies. Jake and Chelsea survive and the same cop whom Chelsea saw earlier saves them. I must admit the nightmare logic and how it translates to them and their surroundings is a bit better as the film goes on. Could those cellphones really work in a coffin though? Especially at that time. I do enjoy the twist of the Host opening the puzzle box only to really be killed because it breaks some of the meta stuff within this movie making you think that the Hellraiser stuff isn't real. The final fake out though of Chelsea and Jake seeing the Host in the car is stupid and unnecessary.
Rating: 3.5/10
Trivia: This movie has a record of 92 instances of product placement for one product in a film. The Nokia 3210 cellphone being that product.
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