Starring: Craig Sheffer, Nicholas Turturro, James Remar, Doug Bradley, Nicholas Sadler, Noelle Evans.
Director: Scott Derrickson.
Long before he was famous for stuff like Exorcism of Emily Rose and Sinister, Scott Derrickson made the direct-to-video Hellraiser:Inferno and somehow succeeded as a film-maker anyway. You can't judge these guys for these movies, though, really: everybody starts somewhere, usually at the bottom, and Derrickson took an opportunity to get himself on the scene. I may be getting ahead of myself, though: I seem to remember going kinda back and forth on this movie through the years, thinking "maybe it's not so bad" to "well, this is kinda garbage" so I guess I need to wait and see what my reaction is this time, when it's official and on the record.
In a couple of ways, Inferno is a little ahead of it's time. Derrickson puts a lot of gritty, procedural crime drama tropes into the film when they hadn't exactly become tropes yet. Also, the unlikable horror protagonist is here, too...in other ways, it's behind the times: slow jazz, slow-motion, bad voice-over...a lot of bad nineties cliches.
We have the poor-man's David Boreanaz, Craig Sheffer, as our lead. The guy is absolute scum: a crooked detective, cruel(he recounts a story of bullying a man who was just murdered back when they were high school classmates with a smile), philandering(hookers), and a drug addict. The character presents an almost anti-charisma, a sense of innate dirt that invites absolute contempt from the audience. Sheffer is pretty well cast, which I don't mean to be an insult to the man: Sheffer just brings the hate. There seems to be a desire on the part of the script that hopes that maybe redemption is possible, but it doesn't seem to be entirely focused on or pursued. I'm not sure the film knew quite how to deal with subtext.
It doesn't take long for monsters to show up: Joe opens the box, finds himself in a house and some cenobites show up to torment him. Obviously, this direct-to-video effort didn't have the cash that some of the earlier films had on hand, so none of it looks as good as it probably should, which is kind of a shame: Derrickson's presentation is actually pretty solid, if not a little unimaginative.
What follows is mostly more cliche, faux-noir content. Joe's hooker friend is killed, Joe leaves evidence implicating his partner behind. He beats up a couple of informants. Hears talk of a weird crime-lord called The Engineer. It's all pretty normal. I feel like that's the movies' greatest sin: it's dull and uncreative. There's nothing specifically incompetent about it-as such, it isn't bad-it just doesn't offer anything exciting or interesting.
The only thing that really works, well beyond Derrickson's aforementioned competence at the helm, is Sheffer's performance. He seriously is pretty good in this film. Both he and Derrickson suffer the same fate: there's talent and ability there, but the material isn't doing them any favors. It's a by-the-numbers noir detective story with a weird monsters. It borrows fairly shamelessly from films like Bad Lieutenant and Chinatown but without any of the artful elegance. Sheffer does the best he can at providing a performance that attempts to balance corruption with potential redemption-he may be crooked and uncaring, but he does want to save that child more than anything-but he just can't work miracles with the middling script. There are a couple moments when the stars do align, though: When Dr.Gregory comments on Joe's love of sleight-of-hand and how Joe's Daughter must love it, Sheffer gives a wonderful look of guilt and confusion when it dawns on him that he never even showed it to his Daughter. Most times when Joe is confronted by a loved one on his behavior, Sheffer offers a strong reaction.
While the scenes with him feel like they drag-it's a missed cue by Derrickson, he's trying to create serenity among chaos, but the chaos is not chaotic enough to actually earn that serenity-but James Remar does some okay work here, too. Like I said, the concept is a sound one: as Joe's case spirals out of control and he becomes more frenzied,he meets with the very calm and priest-like Doctor who offers him consult and maybe even offers a small bit of absolution, as a calm place for him to rest briefly(it's very Jacob's Ladder but, again, without the weight). In a stronger film it might work, especially considering that that trust and serenity is subverted and destroyed by the (admittedly kinda obvious) reveal of the Good Doctor actually being The Engineer/Pinhead.
The last act is suitably stylish enough, but is mostly only interesting as seeing it give birth to Derricksons' style. Again, it's almost ahead of it's time: a lot of these techiques become pretty standard a few years later. But it's mostly a meh climax and even more meh ending.
Final Thoughts:In a lot of ways Inferno almost feels like a tragedy: I feel like if you showed me just bits and pieces of this film, I'd feel pretty good about it. I feel like the people who worked on the film felt pretty good about it...there's so much that could work on it's own but just somehow doesn't. Nothing quite connects like it should. The sudden death of his Daughter and the shattering of her frozen arm has a brief effect, but not because there's an earned response but simply because it's a child. It's a frustrating movie, simply because it feels like it COULD be good. So many moments FEEL like they should mean something. But they don't, and I really can't quite put my finger on why.
Final Rating: Two Stars.
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