Hellbound: Hellraiser 2
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Movie Reviews of Hellbound: Hellraiser 2
Movie Review: Time to play!
Summary: 4 Stars
The blood, gore, "the box", and the cenobites continue. The movie picks up right were the first one ended. Kirsty made a deal with Pinhead, who is the leader of the cenobites, to give them Uncle Frank (he escaped them) in exchange for her. After they took Frank, the female cenobite goes after Kirsty until she is able to use the box to send them all back to Helll. Her father's home then gets destroyed....
Kirsty is now in a psychiatrist's hospital. Dr. Chinnard is fascinated with the mind, the brain, and the other dimension. He was able to take the bloody bed with the chains in it from Kirsty's house. He also has the box which summons the cenobites. Chinnard unknowingly helps Kristy's stepmother Julia to escape the cenobites as she comes out of the bloody bed the way Frank looked in the first Hellraiser (all blood, bones, muscle but no skin). Together the conspire to get Julia back her skin and in return, Julia would show Dr. Chinnard, the other "place" including her god, the lord of flesh and desire; Leviathan. But she has other plans for him as well.
Kristy is hell bent (sorry for the pun) on trying to get her father out of hell as she sees a message in blood in her hospital room. With help from Chinnard's assistant, Kristy is able to get out of the hospital as Chinnard's assistant, Kyle was able to see that Kristy was telling the truth about the box and the demons it caries. Kristy learns that Pinhead as well as his cenobites use to be human. She finds a picture in Chinnard's house of Capt. Elliot Spencer (played by Doug Bradely) and belives it is Pinhead himself. Earily, one of the cenobites is a little child (I'm not going to give up the whole plot). Kristy, even though she didn't open the box, runs into her old "friends," the cenobites, who let her explore as Kristy and a mute girl who loves to solve puzzles are being chased by another demon (not going to give it away) with alternate plans. Pinhead is looking to "play" with Kirsty and get to know her flesh. He also stops his troops from killing her mute friend as Pinhead says," It is not curious hands that summon us, it's desire." As he points to Chinnard's secret room because Chinnard was using the mute girl as a gineau pig. This leads to the ultimate showdown between Pinhead and his troops against the other demon. Will Julia be able to do what Frank couldn't? Escape!
Julia had a great couple of lines when she faces off with Kirsty. "Come on Snow White! Take your best shot!" Who would of thought you would hear the words, Snow White, in Hellraiser (Hellraiser 2 to be exact)!
I thought Hellraiser was slightly weaker than the first one, third one (Hell on Earth) and the fourth one (Bloodlines). I was a little disappointed towards the end (not going to give it away). Don't get me wrong, it's still one of the best horror movies back in the time when horror movies relied more on acting than on special effects/CGI. Pinhead once again shines as the angel/demon of mercy looking to explore peoples flesh and desires while taking their souls. The way to dial his number is by solving the "box" which is known as the Lament Configuration. The boxes history is explained in more detail in Hellraiser: Bloodlines.
I would give this movie a 4.5 but still a great addition to your horror collection. The picture is great and no extras that would make you go, WOW!
Movie Review: Why Hellbound is weird.
Summary: 4 Stars
Firstly, Hellbound:Hellraiser 2 is not just a second-rate sequel, but expands on, and perhaps even betters it's original. Now with Hellbound there's really two ways to approch it. #1 is to sit there, wracking your brain, and trying to make sence of the whole thing. And #2 is to put your chair right infront of the T.V., turn the lights down low (to create the horror movie atmosphere)press play, settle down and stare at the screen for a hour and a half. I chose the latter, which was probably for the best, because otherwise I'd probably be up all night. But don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that this movie is confused or that it doesn't make sence or anything. What I mean is that I think they just tried to fit too much into one movie. There's enough matirial for two movies.But, hey I love it. Let's take a look-see: The new characters (Dr.Charnard, Tiffany) are both interesting (perhaps a little disterbed, but who cares?) plus Kirsty returns but Steve managed to slip out of it.But here's the part that trips me up: Dr. Charnard lets a mental paceint slice himself up royaly on the mattress containing Julia's soul,(very nasty) thus resurecting her. Resurecting Julia. Who in their right mind would do it? Well Dr.Charnard falls in love with her,(and makes out with her) even though she's a skinned corpse (nice, hey?).
Anyway off they all head down to hell. Actually I found the concept that everyone has their own, personal hell very intreiging. That was heaps interesting. So anyway everyone's there and basicly all hell breaks loose, thus the expression. Dr. Charnard gets turned into a Cenobite, who's linked directly to Levithan. And so there's another who's trying to kill Kirsty and co. Also Julia gets hers back on Frank for killing her in the original. But I think the best part of all is when Kirsty confronts the Chatterer, Butterball, Pinhead and She-who-must-not-be-named with their own humanity. But God knows how she managed to reconise Pinhead from the picture of Elliot Spencer. But then, God has no part in this flick. Also, I really liked the part in the beginning when they showed us how Elliot Spencer solved the dreaded box and was transformed into the delightfuly nasty demon, Pinhead. A painful and traumatic process, but not half as painful as watching TVSN from 7 til 12, but that's a different story.
So it really is quite a good movie with some killer moments. And as for the gore, well there's a (...) load of it. Come on, let's face it; this movie can't go more than 1 minute without spearing, killing, sliceing, diceing, cutting, gutting, you get the idea. But here's the thing with splatfestival movies like Hellboud: they are compleate gross-outs at first, but after a while one just get so used to the grossness of it that the gore just washes over one. That's what I think of that aspect of Hellbound. But hey if I didn't want, dicapitation,skinning,throat cutting and dismembering I should've rented Bambi instead. Am I right? or am I right?
This is, without a doubt one of the nastiest, most sadistic movies I have ever witnessed. Infact I wouldn't even call this a movie, it's more like an experience.
So all in all I really loved it, delightfully gory.It may even be better original and Hellraiser 3. So I recomend it,(if you can take it) your suffering will be legendary even in hell!
Movie Review: 4 stars for sheer, unadulterated WEIRDNESS.
Summary: 4 Stars
I had already become a huge fan of Clive Barker's short stories by the time the first "Hellraiser" film came out, and I had very high hopes for it. After all, I thought, if Clive Barker can somehow translate his ghastly literary style onto the big screen, this could be a superlative horror film.
Well as it turns out, being a good horror writer doesn't necessarily make one a good film director. I didn't find the first "Hellraiser" film particularly scary at all, and I like my horror to be scary and, first and foremost, SERIOUS. "Hellraiser" was a mixed bag, but if anything it provided a showcase for Clive Barker's sense of the very, very weird.
If sheer, unadulterated WEIRDNESS gets your attention, you should take a look at "Hellbound: Hellraiser 2." As a sequel it's superior to the original, with a bigger budget, better special effects, and a gleeful amount of gore. Like the original, it's not particularly frightening, but there's something extremely ghastly about parts of this movie that gets under your skin and makes your eyes widen. The film essentially consists of a series of extremely bizarre set pieces, strung together by a so-so plot about an evil psychiatrist who wants to see something beyond the ordinary world we live in, and a young woman who has seen a bit of that mysterious world and now wants to rescue her father from it.
It's the aforementioned set pieces that make this film worth viewing. One in particular, in which the wicked Dr. Charnard finds himself getting a bit of a makeover in a strange Cenobite machine, is for my money one of the most seriously f*cked-up sequences in the history of horror film. I just kept watching it over and over and over. And at a time today when an overreliance on CGI in horror films ends up diminishing the impact of the special effects, the visceral impact of "Hellbound" is all the more refreshing.
Movie Review: Into Hell Again.
Summary: 4 Stars
Picking up where the original left off, "Hellbound: Hellraiser II" follows our unlikely hero from the first film, Kristy (Ashley Laurence), as she is plunged into the depths of Hell in search for her father. With her is a new friend she made in the mental ward, Tiffany (Imogen Boorman), a mute with convenient puzzle-solving skills. Hot on her trail is her arch-nemesis and step mother, Julia (Claire Higgins), who has seduced Kristy's doctor and turned him onto the wild side of life (read: Hellraising good times).
While the film lacks the vision and focus of the original, it's certainly a worthy successor with more than a few creepy elements at play. First and foremost, the visions of Hell are unique and unlike anything seen in film before it. Also, there's plenty of bloodshed and elaborate special effects and make-up work to go around, making this one almost as visually unsettling and disgusting as its predecessor. Director Tony Randel doesn't work the same sort of magic behind the camera as Barker (it doesn't help that the script is a bit bloated) but is more than up to the task of delivering an intense and visually striking follow-up. It's also worth noting that the film lets us in on a bit on the origins of the lead cenobite from the first film, Pinhead, as portrayed by Doug Bradley, in one of the film's most imaginative and intense sequences.
While it's certainly not a patch on the original, for what it's worth, "Hellbound: Hellraiser II" is miles above and beyond the myriad of sequels that would follow in its wake. Fans of the first will appreciate the fact that it attempts to take things one step further, and although it stumbles along the way, in the end, it's a gruesome and grueling experience that more than lives up to its name.
Movie Review: Director and Screenwriter duke it out
Summary: 4 Stars
I'm assuming that any reader of this review is sufficiently familiar with the series as to NOT need a re-hash of the plot. Your question is more likely to be, "What's on this DVD that I haven't already seen/heard?" The commentary, of course - but you have to wonder just HOW many commentaries have director Tony Randel and screenplay author Peter Atkins done? (Poor Ashley Laurence sits in embarrassed silence thoughout almost the entire movie.) As with many (most?) commentaries, those doing the yakking seem to be more interested in endulging themselves with nostalgic trips down memory lane than in what is going on in the flick. For example, in the crucial (gruesome, gratuitous) "Julia's resurrection" scene, Atkins is blabbering about how he used a manual typewriter because computers weren't around in 1987 (well, not in *his* world, anyway). He frequently steps all over some of the best camera-work in the picture, MUCH to Randel's annoyance. Not to be topped, Randel squawks throughout the ENTIRE scene in Hell that he doesn't like this scene, it doesn't work, it slows the pace down, yadda yadda yadda. Mr. Atkins, if the movie's title is "Hellbound", I'd expect there WOULD be a scene set in.........Hell, and it was YOUR job as DIRECTOR to MAKE IT WORK. Sheesh. There is frequent verbal sparring between Atkins and Randel - it makes you wonder what life was like on the set. They DO have a few interesting tidbits of info (especially concerning the never-shown scene of Pinhead and the Female Cenobite in surgical garb), but in general their commentary is irritating at best and infuriatingly oblivious throught the majority of the movie.The tranfer and THX soundtrack are excellent - 5 stars for that, 1.5 for the commentary. I'm not going to rate the movie - you either like it or don't. Selah.