Hellraiser Bonus: The Nine Finest Hellraiser Babes

Emma (Part 9)

Amy (Part 7)

Allison (Part 8)

Tiffany (Part 2)

Terri (Part 3)

Sandy (Part 3)

Junkie Cultists (Part 7)

Unidentified Extra (Part 3)

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Horror: dissected and pushed down the stairs. The Mr. Satanism Library is available here.

Hellraiser: The Series

Why?

Hellraiser: Revelations (2011)

Years after they cranked out what even militant atheists prayed would be the last Hellraiser sequel here's Part christing 9, promising us "revelations" but in reality just delivering the same old shit. One change they did make though was replacing the actor who played Pindick in all the previous Hellraisers, a move I'm sure had the nerds who follow this franchise (all 16 of them) up in arms. Me, I barely noticed. Sure, he looked a lot angrier this time around, but I just attributed this to the fact that they hadn't made a Hellraiser movie in eight years so he was probably really, really behind on his credit card payments.

Please use payday loans responsibly.

So, in what's basically a horror movie remake of the Charlie Sheen classic The Boys Next Door, two dissatisfied teenage dorks go on an escalating criminal rampage in Mexico: getting drunk, killing a hooker, and eventually using a Barker Box to open the gates of Hell, unleashing unspeakable misery on the whole of mankind. Fucking kids. Supposedly the original Pindick actor, displaying a hilarious lack of self-awareness, refused to be in this one because he thought it wouldn't be any good, but it's no worse than any other Hellraiser movie, which is damning with faint praise to be sure but what do you want from me? I just sat through nine of these goddamned things. There's some decent gore, some okay tits, a super hot lil' blonde gets felt up by her own brother, and an especially stoic guy holds a long, sober discourse immediately after taking a shotgun blast to the guts. Oh, and in my favorite bit in this entire series, one character does what no fan of these movies has probably ever done and actually looks up the real and fairly prosaic word "cenobite" in the dictionary. Turns out it means "cheese" or something.

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Hellraiser: Hellworld (2003)

When a movie series truly hits rock bottom, after they've done 3-D and "in space" and "in da hood" and the lost & found footage installment, they inevitably hit us with the "meta" sequel, where all the previous entries are portrayed as fictional movies that the characters in this movie have seen or are at least aware of. So it came to pass that Hellraiser (fucking) 8 is about a bunch of norks who (inexplicably) are really into the Hellraiser movies, and, by extension, the Hellraiser online game (which, thankfully, does not really exist) (yet). In the most unbelievable scenario this series has proposed to date, a huge Hellraiser fan gathering is taking place, and to no one's surprise (no one watching, anyway) a very real Pindick crashes the party, cleverly disguised as the guy from Aliens and Millennium. And Piranha Part Two. (We're not gonna forget, dude.) It's basically a slasher movie peppered with nonsensical hallucinations, although we're probably supposed to be impressed because, this being a Hellraiser movie, our slasher is killing these people for esoteric reasons. That said, the two main chicks are real lookers (too bad the hottest one dies first), there's gore and tits, and they pull off a decent twist towards the end, so it's not the worst horror flick I've ever dealt with. Of course, Wendy's isn't the worst fast food I've ever dealt with either. It still turns my ass into a garden hose.

And yet, suddenly, all is forgiven. In fact, I could go for some Wendy's right now.

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Hellraiser: Deader (2003)

When is seven an unlucky number? When it's the seventh goddamned unwarranted Hellraiser movie, that's when. And what the fuck is "deader"? Unless you're comparing something to disco, that's not even a word. Dr. Seuss and Mary Poppins are permitted to invent words. You, Hellraiser Part 7, are not.

So, I guess investigative reporters still barely existed in 2003 (unlike today, when even the major news outlets are content to cut & paste their "stories" from random Twitter feeds), so I'll buy that our main chick is one, hot on the trail of a mysterious suicide/resurrection cult. Oh, and Pindick is senselessly gunning for this cult too, because, let's face it, he just enjoys being a royal pain in the ass. In all fairness this isn't such a bad flick: it's set, wisely, in Eastern Europe (fully exploiting its dual benefits of being intrinsically creepy and a cheap place to film); the main chick is hella cute; there's tits and gore; the cult includes several junkie-looking hotties; there's an admirably twisted scene where the main chick wakes up with a huge knife sticking out of her back; and there's the endless hilarity of Eastern Europe's epic technological fail re: their gigantic telephones. Seriously, when people in Eastern Europe lose their homes, temporarily taking up residence inside a consumer-grade telephone handset probably is a realistic, viable alternative:

Kinda worth seeing, although it would've been a way better movie if they'd simply eliminated the Hellraiser flourishes altogether, or, at the very least, given us a break from Pindick. I mean really, there's no reason he has to show up in every single one of these things. Give him a day off to walk his skinless dog in the park, or get his nails done or whatever. Maybe he'd mellow out a little bit.

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Hellraiser: Hellseeker (2001)

Why must all these Hellraiser flicks have titles like unreleased Deicide albums? Is the simple honesty of "Hellraiser 6" too much to ask? Or really mess with our expectations and call it "Hellraiser: Bunny Ruckus". Seriously, who wouldn't download that one?

"We have SUCH sights to show you!"

This cat suffers blackouts, memory loss, and hallucinations after a car accident. On the plus side, he seems to be laying an inordinate amount of pipe. So what's the deal? Well, apparently his wife is the main chick from Parts 1 and 2, back in a pointless and wholly unnecessary attempt to establish some through-line to these stupid movies, and she has a deal with Pindick, which, after an interminable parade of random nonsense, pays off (in the loosest sense of the term) when we learn that our main cat actually died in that accident, and has been dead the entire time. Wow, we've never seen THAT twist before, you lazy assholes. Seriously, it's high time we put a moratorium (heh) on this bullshit, over-used Owl Creek Bridge/Jacob's Ladder/Sixth Sense gimmick, which, unless you're ten months old and enjoying baby's first movie, is never a surprise to anyone since it's always blatantly telegraphed from the very first scene. (Or the very first episode, if you're J.J. Abrams.) (I figured it out the second that fool got sucked into the plane engine, Abrams.) (You hack.) You know what, screw it: from now on I'm just going to assume that every main character in every movie and TV show ever produced is already dead, freeing me up from watching the lot of them. I'll have a lot more time to get shit accomplished, that's for sure. And, as a bonus, crap I regret watching previously will be considerably more entertaining in retrospect:

Dead. Every single one of these a-holes was dead.

Also blessedly, blessedly dead.

Dead! All dead! Ha ha ha ha ha!

We should be so lucky

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Hellraiser: Inferno (2000)

The problem with Hellraiser's main heavy ("Pindick"), beyond the fact that he just seems sillier and sillier the more you look at him, is that he's such an insufferable windbag. "Blah blah blah, pain, blah blah blah, eternal torment..." Seriously, dude, do you ever stop talking? Maybe that's part of the eternal torment. Fortunately, he's barely in this one, finally granting us a reprieve from his tiresome, dime-store Marquis de Sade-flavored philosophical horseshit. Instead, this sequel focuses on a crooked cop who's on the trail of what appears to be a psychopathic pimp, only to find shit getting darker and darker and weirder and weirder until suddenly his ass is being handed to him by a pair of Asian cowboys and he's wondering how in fuck's name he ended up in a David Lynch film. It's like someone at Hellraiser Central finally said "Hey, let's actually make a real movie out of these wild, bizarre ideas," and while we all know where it's going, having seen four Hellraiser entries prior to this (and if you haven't watched the other four, why are you sitting through this nonsense in the first place?), it's still reasonably suspenseful and creepy and filled with plenty of appropriately icky and/or surreal touches. In short, a legitimately good movie, embarrassing only because it's part fucking five, and follows the "in space" one. Could this be a new direction for the Hellraiser franchise? ("Adequate.") Of course not, but it's fun to think so, just like it's fun to imagine Pindick puttering around the hardware store, all pissed off because he can't find the nails, but no one will help him because they're convinced that if they ask him if that's what he's looking for he'll think they're being patronizing and go off on one of his "We have such sights to show you!" rants before whipping out his penis and twirling it around and around like a party favor, right there in the plumbing aisle. He calls it "the whirlybird".

Fucking sex demons. You can't take them anywhere.

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Hellraiser: Bloodline (1996)

Part 4 in any movie series is when most people stop giving a shit (except for me, of course: I didn't give a shit halfway through Part 1), so it's often the "in space" installment, because whether it's Leprechaun or Critters, Hellraiser or Star Wars, only the truly committed/delusional are still watching at this point, and they'll sit through any ridiculous flogging of the original, if only to have something to bitch about on their blogs later. This Part 4 has a few more tricks up its ass though: besides Pindick in spaaaace!!! it trots out a chick named "Rimmer" (she's not particularly hot, but I'd still like to meet her); the creation of the Barker Box (by a member of the powdered wig set); sex with an ugly woman (is it last call already?); an immortal/immoral dandy; twins who, between the two of them, aren't even one good actor (bonus: even in a movie full of dandies and powdered wigs, they're total homos); and a space station that transmogrifies into a gigantic Barker Box like an especially disappointing, off-brand Transformer. In short, it's pretty much incomprehensible rubbish. Oh, and Pindick brings his dog along this time, but animal lovers beware: the poor thing is so cold (probably because it has no skin) that its teeth are noticeably chattering every time it's on screen. I know Pindick has places to go and people to damn, but how hard would it have been for him to swing by the PetSmart on his way to outer space and pick up an extra-large doggie sweater for his loyal companion? What an asshole.

Seriously, does anyone have the number for Animal Protective Services? This is ridiculous.

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Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth (1992)

Hellraisers I and II were full of ideas. Dumb ones, sure, but ideas nonetheless. So what's the only thing most horror fans took away from them? The demon with the nails in his face, "Pindick" or whatever his name is. As a result he's center stage this time around, initially showing up frozen in carbonite and then, after skinning some hotties alive to facilitate his escape, going on a cheesy horror movie rampage with his new, Videodrome-looking friends. This flick trots out every horror movie cliché imaginable, but the final chase does result in Man of Steel levels of property destruction, one guy explodes on the operating table after assing around with a Barker Box, and one of the main characters is a smokin' hot goddess of a goth chick who must be seen, and masturbated to, to be believed. And then masturbated to again. The plot is dumbed-down even by the not-so-lofty standards of the original, Pindick mis-paraphrases William Congreve, and cheese-metal rockers Armored Saint show up as a dance club's house band (nice career, fags), but all that aside it's still a gory, watchable horror movie full of stunningly beautiful women, and nowhere near as bad as people say. That's not to say it's actually good, of course, but what were you expecting? The Mourning Bride?

Random Hottie Shout-Out: The blonde extra in the leather skirt, gold hoop earrings, and new wave-looking top. Marry me.

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Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1988)

The first Hellraiser ended with leather-fetish demons running wild and killing everyone except the third-act main chick and her Haircut 100-looking boyfriend. Now this chick is in the loony bin, where her plugged-in shrink uses his knowledge of the magical Rubik's Cube -- let's call it the "Barker Box" -- to resurrect the ugly bitch from Part 1, because for some reason that will remain incomprehensible well past the end of time, nobody can resist this hideous trick's non-existent charms. And once restored to her former, mannish glory, this bitch is totally cool with him solving the Barker Box and summoning the demons therein, which should be the last thing she'd want to do and his first clue that something might be amiss. The gates to Hell swing open, everyone strolls on in (including this stunning blonde who suddenly becomes a main character), and it all ends with a gruesome/goofy demon-on-demon-on-hottie throwdown. Despite what many would have you believe (never, ever, trust a movie critic) this sequel is considerably better than Part 1: it's creepier; it doesn't look all thrown-together and low-rent; the director has obviously directed something before, even if it was just a school play or something; it actually takes the time to explore some of its own ideas (if only in the most ham-fisted manner imaginable); there's some good, unintrusive humor; and I liked all the little, clever touches, like the fact that one of the demons was apparently still a little boy when he was originally dragged to Hell for sex crimes (I wonder what his pervo story was?), and the moving man from Part 1 who returns as (I assume) the same moving man for Part 2. Don't get typecast, dude. Sure, the main chick entirely forgets that she has a boyfriend halfway through, and the end feels more like a superhero movie than a horror flick, but after Hellraiser 1 anything is an improvement so I have no choice but to declare this followup inoffensive and competent. And that's the highest praise you'll get from me, Hellraiser II.

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Hellraiser (1987)

In the middish 1980s, several inattentive parents got upset when they learned that the horror movies their kids were watching had horror in them, so there was a huge backlash and Hollywood, to no one's surprise, caved immediately. This is the sole reason a cheap-looking crapfest like Hellraiser managed to be so popular. Sure, it sucked and made zero sense, but it was gory as hell (heh) and featured some light kinky sex, so at least it was firing on SOME cylinders, which is more than you can say for 1987's other big horror movie, Night of the Pussified Horseshit Part 10, in No-D.

The plot, in case you didn't know, concerns a Rubik's Cube knockoff (there were several at the time) that, when solved correctly, impales you with hooks, tears all your skin off, and then drags you to Hell. What happens if you solve it incorrectly? That's never made clear, but based on the evidence it can't possibly be good. The most recent fool to get the business from the cube manages to escape from Hell, but he needs blood to survive/not look like a life-size version of the Visible Man, so he convinces his brother's heinous, manly wife to lure men back to their pad so he can kill them. How a chick this fucking ugly manages to lure any guy anywhere is perplexing, and so is the fact that her husband never notices that an entire room in their smallish house has been wholly dedicated to murder, infidelity, and messy sex with a skinless zombie. Seriously, why doesn't he ever go in there? You'd think, at the very least, he'd be using that extra space for storage, or maybe to hit a jay on the sly. And, coming at it from the other end, what does zombie guy do when he needs to, say, take a shit? Does he have to hold it until his brother is asleep or out running an errand, or does he just go in the corner and leave it for the chick to clean up? Maybe she gets off on it. The whole setup is hardly sustainable, but it doesn't really matter because before too long Hell's cyberpunk S&M demons -- the "Cenobites" -- catch up to our degenerate fecalphiles and settle their hash for good.

Like I said, Hellraiser managed to impress at the time, but anyone watching it now is likely to be totally baffled. It looks surprisingly shoddy for a kinda-major movie, it's inexcusably predictable, and it seems to think it's breaking all these taboos when it's really just flailing around, making a damned fool of itself. It is gory though, so if that's all you're after, have at you. Followed by nine million sequels.

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