A film that's
bound to divide fans of the series more than any of the previous movies. Not because it returns to the original
format of the earlier films, BUT because it has someone else playing Pinhead ("Heresy" I hear you cry).
The story for this latest outing revolves around the family of a missing teenager named Steven (Nick Eversman), who disappeared with his friend Nico (Jay Gillespie) one year earlier whilst travelling round Mexico. Steven's sister Emma suspects that her mother knows more about their disappearance then she is letting on, and rummaging through his belongings, finds one of those lament configuration puzzle boxes (you can see where this is leading). But as she begins to play about with it, her brother suddenly appears outside covered in blood.
Shocked at his appearance, they find that the blood is not actually his, and he tells them that he escaped from the world of the Cenobites (kind of like Uncle Frank did in the first film). Needless to say, Pinhead is not very happy about another one getting away and will stop at nothing to drag him back to hell, as the family are about to discover. But it seems Steven is not really who he appears to be and there's a new Cenobite who has a score to settle with him...
Loosely based on Clive Barker's book "The Hellbound Heart", the film is basically a reworking of the original Hellraiser. Whilst some may argue this is still better than adapting unrelated scripts, which the other later sequels did, it is very obvious this was an extremely rushed production. Personally, I have mixed feelings about the film. Portions of it are made up of "lost camera" footage from the lads camcorders found in their belongings, which brought a Blair Witch element to the film, which I wasn't sure about and there's also a new Cenobite, like a Pinhead junior, which I wasn't sure about either ("mini me" anyone?).
The old vagrant, seen in the first 3 films who goes around selling puzzle boxes, is back (has he got a stash of these or something?) which is arguably a good thing. HOWEVER, the real let down is the fact that Doug Bradley, the iconic face of Pinhead, is not in this, being played this time by Stephen Smith Collins.
I think, to be honest, the most positive thing I can say about the film is that I didn't hate it. Had they given this a larger budget and some decent actors, this might have been a half decent film. Again, one for die hard fans of the series only.
