Active Member
This was the best Hellraiser film since 2. 3 had elements I liked, but was crap by the end of it. Inferno is good, but in a trashy way. The rest I can live without ever seeing again.
It amazes me that Hellraiser Judgement was made by a fan since that film still feels like an irrelevant horror script with cenobites shoehorned in. Probably because it was a retread of Inferno. Best part about that film was the auditor.
tempus est umbra in mente
Inferno suuuuuuuucked. it was obviously a movie that was intended to be something else, and it all fell apart, because it obviously sucked on so many levels, so they were like "lets throw Pinhead into this shit and make it a Hellraiser movie"
Throbbing Member
It is true, there are many better films than this Hellraiser one. I've seen the whole franchise so I keep coming back to see if any are ever good and they never really are.Originally Posted by elevenism
This one is ok. Decent production value but it was WAY too safe for Hellraiser. Blumhouse cenobites for sure is what it feels like. And for a movie about S&M demons, it sure is void of all sex or anything sexy. If I had my 2 hours back I'd rewatch 1989's Pet Sematary again or something like that. This is the spooky season after all, I'm not trying to waste it on mediocre crap. Then again, you may love it, who knows?
Last edited by burnmotherfucker!; 10-09-2022 at 04:43 PM.
I was nobody. Nothing.
i'm a fucking hoarder. You should see my room.
Some people lose guitar picks and keys.
I lose bottles of wine and playstations and shit :P
RA-MEN ROPPAI
III was the one where you got to see how Pinhead became Pinhead.
Have you seen the Reconstruction Workprint for Hellraiser IV? It's available on YouTube in 9 parts and/or on the Internet Archive.
Throbbing Member
Mark me down as someone else who was thoroughly unimpressed by the new Hellraiser. Doesn't start too badly but it quickly descends into convoluted tedium. You could tell they really thought they had an interesting, emotional narrative arc for the main character but it's ultimately a very uninvolving, static one that amounts to running in place and all of the other characters are super half-baked and lacking. Compared to the curdled soap opera drama of the first two films, the human relationships in Hellraiser (2022) are exceedingly superficial and predictable. The characters move the progressively ridiculous story forward while never really being interesting or engaging enough to make anything happening to them scary. I also found it annoying the way they changed how the puzzle box works - Spoiler: the whole "the blade needs to stab you for the cenobites to take you, specifically" thing was so obviously borne of narrative convenience so the lead character wouldn't be taken by them right off the bat (when, really, there are other ways to negotiate this that don't involve being a lazy writer), and that the cenobites themselves are, preposterously, acceptable blood sacrifices to the box themselves was a twist so ludicrous and nonsensical it rendered them completely toothless and flimsy as a threat. The whole "douche one-percenter luring normal plebs to be fed to the box for his own knowledge / gain" angle had some potential but it was so sketchily, lazily rendered that ultimately, everything they were going for with that character was done first and far better with Dr. Channard in Hellbound: Hellraiser II.
Really it just feels like an average mainstream adjacent modern horror movie that had access to appropriating the franchise iconography. It's basically what I was worried it would be after I saw The Night House - that film started strong and had a terrific performance from Rebecca Hall but of all the possible directions it could have gone it headed straight into rickety slipshod vagueness and totally fizzled into nothing by the end. Some of the cenobite designs are kind of cool but I found the performances from the ones who spoke a little try-hard and unintimidating and the shit lighting often makes it hard to get a good look at them anyway. Honestly the "walls opening to the Labyrinth" effects and sequences were more effective and imposing than the cenobites themselves often were.
Halloween (2018) and Candyman (2021) were admirably strong legacy-quels that honored their predecessors while bringing something interesting and fresh of their own to the table (it's too bad Halloween Kills was dogshit). I don't think Hellraiser (2022) was successful on either of those counts.
EDIT: I should note that I actually think Inferno is one of the better entries of the series after the first two (dire offerings most of them, admittedly). Yes it was not written as a Hellraiser film, but ironically, in having the cenobites serve more as eerie guardians of the narrative in a supporting role to the central drama, it ended up hewing closer to the first two films than many of the other sequels, which focused on foregrounding Pinhead and turning him into some stupid, one-liner spouting, Freddy Krueger-esque horror celebrity. Hellraiser (2022) doesn't get as garish as III or IV in that regard but still feels too preoccupied with the threat of the cenobites and too unoccupied with what the first two films were really focused on, the human monsters.
Last edited by Deacon Blackfire; 10-09-2022 at 10:58 AM.
tempus est umbra in mente
yeah maybe my expectations/hopes were too high here with Hellraiser. I thought it might be sorta weak, but at least have some imaginative cool shit going on, but, not really sadly
Throbbing Member
@Deacon Blackfire
Very well said! I agree with pretty much everything you're getting at here in regards to the new Hellraiser, The Night House, and The new Halloween series. You sir are a scholar and a gentleman. I especially agree with your take on Inferno. That movie works because it's characters are well rounded and actually thought out. That's more than most movies in this franchise have. This new one just felt very copy paste character tropes all around for the entire film. I think they thought having cenobites was enough. For a slasher film to be good, it needs to have interesting characters, even if they are just there to be killed they still need to matter for any of it to work.
Just tickles my balls!
FATUM NOS IUNGET
If anyone's looking for one, I follow no less than probably 5 instagram accounts where people make custom masks, so they're pretty easy to find. I bought one from Dean Knight 333, sorta expensive but worth it.
Throbbing Member
The new Halloween movie...
It's not good
Active Member
I thought Ends was an improvement over Kills at least. It's still a big mess, and it falls into a lot of the same traps that the other two films did, but I appreciated the fact that they tried to do something different this time. Unfortunately, it was too little too late. Overall, this trilogy has just been one big missed opportunity in my opinion.
Throbbing Member
I'm fine with them doing something different. But this was so nonsensical that I was laughing at how bad it was by the end. I thought 2018 was good and it's hard to believe the same team made kills and ends. Bring on the next creative team, because this thing is going to make millions so there will be a new installment within 5 years.
Give me Halloween 3: Season of the Witch 2
FATUM NOS IUNGET
I enjoyed the hell out of it. Better than Kills. * shrugs *
Just tickles my balls!
Active Member
I liked Kills. It was kinda stupid but they’ve all pretty much have been after 2-3? Let’s be real. Some of the bike scenes were strange as were the old timers flittering. It got right what what the last one didn’t. More or less.
Throbbing Member
Halloween Ends makes Halloween Kills look like Halloween 2018.
Halloween (1978) makes all of the sequels look like dogshit.
Active Member
watched The Wolf of Snow Hollow and it was very strange: it had funny bits but they also seemed to be way too angry at the same time.
I did really like that last, "I'm going to need you to stand all the way up" scene. If you were paying attention to the conversation that preceded it you caught the slip and then the turn and stand...really well done.
Riki needed to stop eating ramen with chopsticks right over her laptop keyboard though. that scene was more panic-inducing than the rest of the film.
I was nobody. Nothing.
Oh shit, YEAH!
With the military stuff, was it? Good god, it's been SOOOO long.
I was nobody. Nothing.
Oh man. We fucking LOVED that one.
It isn't Spoiler: really a horror movie at all, imho.
It had a lot of Twin Peaks in its DNA, I thought.
And I LOVED the funny parts.
Also, I feel like Mr. Robert Forster poured more of his heart into.that one than any of.his other final performances.
"Let me UP! I can...I CAN STILL DO IT!" (something like that.) Fuuuuuuck me. And did you notice how he was being helped around, Forster, in almost every scene?
Jesus, man: that shit had me in tears.
Last edited by elevenism; 10-15-2022 at 02:07 PM.
Stubby Member
Halloween Ends in my opinion was not a good Halloween movie. But if it was not apart of the franchise it would be a good stand alone movie. Hope that makes sense. Love Boy Harsher is on the score though.
Throbbing Member
Wolf of Snow Hollow is great! One of my favorite horror movies of the last few years. And it is 100% a black comedy from start to finish. One of the funniest movies I've seen in quite some time. Jim Cummings is great. The scene where he falls on the oven door had me in tears!
Active Member
About Hellraiser : apart from everything that's been said about it (and I rather agree) I didn't think the designs were even that good. Well, they're "nice", well done, but they're supposed to be visceral. Thing is, that movie is way too clean. Cenobites are dressed in pink latex, okay. Oh, wait, that's supposed to be flesh ? There's never a sense that those beings are in a constant state of ecstatic torture, which I thought was the whole point ? I don't know, to me Hellraiser is supposed to feel sweaty, its inception comes from the SM scene for fuck's sake, it's supposed to thematically and visually make the squares uncomfortable, but here they just looked like cool video game skins.
Same for the characters, closest we get to some sleaze is the fuckboy at the beginning of the movie, and from then on everyone is rather vanilla, in personality or dynamics.
As much as I liked the Evil Dead remake, it had the same problem : this movie doesn't know its own identity. Your antagonist is here to illustrate your point, but you gotta have a point and a story to tell. I have no idea what Hellraiser was trying to tell, and I didn't really care...
Just tickles my balls!
Oh man, Halloween Ends was just painful to watch. Who came up with that plot? Michael living in a sewer hole for 4 years? Really? And that annoying kid?
RA-MEN ROPPAI
I don't even remember the annoying kid, I tend to block the Scrappy Doo characters out.
Jason Voorhees spent seven years at the bottom of a lake. What's four years in a sewer, eh?
Active Member
Michael spent a year in a coma at the beginning of Halloween 5 while being looked after by a Hermit. I haven't even seen the new film, but that doesn't remotely sound absurd to me. Dude probably lived off rats. I mean he ate a dog in the original film, so what's keeping him from eating rats?
Throbbing Member
Terrifier 2 is the best horror movie I've seen this year.
$250,000 crowd funded indie movie and it puts the major franchises (I'm looking at you Halloween Ends and Hellraiser) to shame. Fall/Halloween/October vibes throughout the whole film. If you can, see this thing in the cinema and if not check it out when it hits streaming. Especially if you were disappointed by all the other recent franchise films.
Just tickles my balls!
I can’t wait to see Terrifier 2!
The Conjuring 4 has been announced.
Active Member
I thought the first Terrifier was awful, so I think I will pass on the sequel, especially after hearing that it's over two hours long. The first one already felt wayyy too long.
Anyway, I watched Midnight Kiss on Hulu last night. Was hoping for something decent, especially since there's a distinct lack of LGBTQ+ horror films that aren't total camp fests, but it felt pretty bland for the most part. I guessed who the killer was about ten minutes in. Not surprised it missed the mark though since it was produced by Blumhouse.
Last edited by BRoswell; 10-22-2022 at 12:16 PM.
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