Hellraiser - Hellworld
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Movie Reviews of Hellraiser - Hellworld
Movie Review: Not Much of a Hellraiser Film
Summary: 2 Stars
To start this one off, let me first say that this film is not really worthy of carrying the Hellraiser title. Do you remember the "Freddy's Nightmares" TV series or the "Friday The 13th" TV series? Remember how they carried the names and the titles of their predecessors but none of the story? This is similar in concept, though it does actually feature the cenobites and the Lament Configuration -- the puzzle box. But without these most obvious characteristics there is very little in the story to link it to the Hellraiser film franchise. The story completely deviates from the Hellraiser path.
What I find most disappointing about this film is that the bulk of the lead characters are taken out of the game so fast that you don't even get a chance to like or hate them. And the characters themselves seem very shallow and petty and uninteresting.
A difficult part of the movie to tolerate is the constant feeling that the movie is not following any kind of plot, that it is just a bunch of scare scenes cobbled together. I was pleasantly surprised at the end to discover that this feeling was wrong. Throughout the bulk of the movie, the story definitely has little cohesion and makes very little sense, which can be somewhat frustrating to sit through, but if you can wait patiently until the end, the writer actually did a decent job of wrapping up the story and giving you closure.
As for the horror aspect of the movie, I have to say that it is mediocre. There are moments that are somewhat suspenseful, but all-in-all you generally know what is coming and when it does come it is not that scary. The beauty of the Hellraiser franchise is that, even though there is the concept of gateways into hell and demons like the cenobites, the real horror can be found in the normal humans and their greed and selfishness and the hellish aspect is purely the gavel coming down in judgment of the accused -- and maybe the bystander as well. This movie touches on this concept only vaguely and generally deviates from the normal Hellraiser course to a point where they should have just changed the whole theme entirely and taken "Hellraiser" out of the title.
To sum it all up, I think this movie would have been far more enjoyable were it _not_ a Hellraiser film and instead were its own, unique slasher film. Had they done that they probably could have better augmented the story and the characters and built more on suspense and mystery to make a more well-rounded and complete film.
Movie Review: Halloween: Resurrection Rehash
Summary: 2 Stars
Fans of the Hellraiser series had a glimmer of hope with the fifth and sixth installments in the series, INFERNO and HELLSEEKER, as both hearkened back to the series' origins and captured at least some of the quiet dread and terror of the original HELLRAISER.
Part Seven, DEADER, was a turn for the worse with the rapidly-tiring formula dragged down by an incomprehensible storyline adapted from another screenplay. This brings us to HELLWORLD, finally an original story yet by far the worst of the bunch since BLOODLINES. Not at all unlike another "Part 8," HALLOWEEN: RESURRECTION, HELLWORLD follows an immemorable group of teenagers around a party based upon an online version of a Hellraiser video game.
HELLWORLD starts off with a bit of promise, acknowledging the series within the film and tossing off bits of inside trivia at every opportunity. Fans who adore the Lemarchand mythology will take some pleasure in Lance Henriksen's tour around the site of the party, the Leviathan House (if you think that's bad, try not to groan when you discover it sits on "Hellbound Lane"), during which he and the protagonists spout off the entire Hellraiser backstory for those arriving late to this series. What follows is a lame descent into nightmares and murders and cenobites, the latter of whose latex is looking at little dull at this point. This entry into the series doesn't play by the Hellraiser rules (who needs a box to summon Pinhead anyway?), something even the characters point out more than once, reducing the film to just another teenage slasher flick.
The cast is forgettable, the direction uninspired (a real letdown after Bota's previous installments), Pinhead an outright cliche (his scenes could have easily been recycled footage from any of the previous films) and Lance Henriksen phones in a performance he could have (and very well may have) done in his sleep - yet the biggest disappointment in this series lies in its climax, which reminds this viewer of the rotten revelation at the end of Friday the 13th Part V. Even a last-minute Henriksen-Pinhead encounter doesn't make up for this train wreck of a film which all but destroys a franchise that was on the brink of reinvigoration. I used to believe that "in Space" episodes of horror films (e.g., BLOODLINES, JASON X, LEPRECHAUN 4) signaled the nadir of the series. The eighth installment of Hellraiser, like Halloween, provides a convincing argument that "in Cyberspace" may be a more appropriate indicator of doom.
Movie Review: Another "not really a Hellraiser movie" entry
Summary: 2 Stars
Hellraiser: Hellworld (Rick Bota, 2005)
Hot on the heels of the seventh Hellraiser-franchise film comes Hellworld, the eighth. As with Deader, its predecessor, Hellworld actually has little to do with the mythos itself, and what it does have to do with it is presented in quite a clever way.
Four friends-- Chelsea (Two Weeks Notice's Katheryn Winnick), Derrick (Khary Payton, recently in Latter Days), Allison (gorgeous newcomer Anna Tolputt), and Mike (I Capture the Castle's Henry Cavill)-- are heavily involved in an online videogame called Hellworld, based on the Hellraiser mythology. They are acquainted with another pair of friends, Jake (Going the Distance's Christopher Jacot) and Adam. Adam, who allows the game to take over his life, ends up killing himself, and the movie opens at his funeral, where the four are excoriated by Jake, whom they never expect to see again. Two years later, Chelsea no longer plays the game, but the other three do, and all four are invited to a party well outside town celebrating the game. They go, and find their host (the indomitable Lance Henriksen) a rather interesting sort of fellow. Everything seems to be going great, until Jake shows up...
Once again, this is basically a Hellraiser film only in name; most of the connection has to do with the characters' involvement in the mythology, rather than the actual events of the flick. Unlike Deader, however, this is not a movie that could have stood on its own. It borrows too heavily from the mythology, and a number of other series films besides (A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors is especially in evidence). There's also an exceptionally annoying little plot point that I'm sure most of the movie's defenders are going to be able to explain away with spoilers: party guests are invited to choose their own cell phones, so how is it the caller ID always comes up with the right name? (No, the explanation you're considering giving me doesn't work. Think about it.)
All that said, Lance Henriksen is always a joy to watch, even in Z-grade horror films, and he pretty much makes this a watchable film. There are a few decent gore effects, but nothing spectacular. It's not bad-- certainly superior to Inferno or Hellseeker-- but it's not great, either. **
Movie Review: Eh.....
Summary: 2 Stars
I was actually looking forward to this movie for several months now, so I must say that I was pretty disappointed. The whole "deadly website" thing is a great premise, but I have yet to see anyone who actually does it right. I had hoped that they would do so in Hellworld, but that wasn't really the plot of the movie anyway.
I like how all the HellRaiser movies are different from one another, unlike a lot of other horror franchises. I know how important some people think having a sequel is, but I'm sorry, but if you're just going to repeat the formula the same way with different faces just to have a sequel, I don't see the point. HellRaiser doesn't do this, and for that I am grateful. They try different things with Pinhell and the Lament Configuration, some of which works better than others. Unfortunately, HellRaiser doesn't really work well as a teen slasher movie. I'm not really too much of a fan of teen slasher movies anyway, so I guess that probably worked against Hellworld. But in a lot of ways I guess it did fit well as a teen slasher movies as it had generic characters that you realy don't care about and bad acting.
On the positive side, there is some sense of continuity as they do remain true to the HellRaiser mythology. Unfortunately (and this REALLY turned me off to the movie), much of it was looked upon as little more than an old wives tale, just a game and nothing more; a bunch of BS. It seemed more like a shallow teenage fad than anything else, and I didn't like having to see Pinhead like that, and it certainly would not be how I would want to remember the franchise years down the line.
Inferno, HellSeeker, and Deader had gotten a lot of heat by some of the HellRaiser fants, but I actually enjoyed those movies, and I'm sorry to say that I was disappointed with this one. The fact that the picture quality wasn't all that great probably didn't help matters either, I suppose. I was also sad to see that Pinhead never gave any of his speeches regarding the beauty of suffering either.
Movie Review: Hellraiser-Hellworld Review
Summary: 2 Stars
I'm a huge Hellraiser fan, and I mean huge. So I was really looking forward to seeing this movie ever since I got word they were filming. If you have seen the previous film Deader, and like me, you found it very entertaining, then you probably had high hopes for this film also.
Hellworld stars the fantastic Doug Bradley and Lance Henriksen, which are the only two big names in this movie. Rick Bota, who directed the last two or three Hellraiser movies also directs Hellworld. After the fourth Hellraiser film, the movies took a different direction. Each film shows less and less of Pinhead and the cynabites, and each film is either turned into a mystery or a puzzle. This has surely disappointed a lot of Hellraiser fans that want to see more screen time for Pinhead and the cynabites. The last three films have all been put together so well with such good ideas and stories that even with Pinhead and cynabites having limited time on screen the movies still have been very impressive.
After the last four films, Hellworld turns out to be the worse. In this movie Pinhead gets the least amount of time on screen and is shoved into the movie at very odd times that don't help the film at all. Hellworld gets worse as the story goes on and by the end of the movie you are just left with an ending that is half decent at best.
I give this film three stars because it's still an ok film, it's just not as strong as any of the other Hellraiser movies. If you are a Hellraiser fan or you like horror movies in general, then I would check this film out.