Starring: Lance Henriksen, Katheryn Winnick, Christopher Jacot, Khary Payton, Henry Cavill, Anna Tolputt, Doug Bradley.
Director: Rick Bota.
Despite everyone asking them politely to stop, Dimension Films went ahead and kept making Hellraiser installments. This one involves video games. You're welcome.
On the plus side, Henry Cavill, otherwise known as fucking Superman, appears here as some guy. Actually, Cavill did a couple horror flicks before getting his fame as the new Superman. Interestingly enough, despite those horror movie outings, he's actually killed more people as Superman than he has in any horror films so...yeah. You're Welcome.
We open on a vague scene of a shirtless guy covered in wounds digging a hole, and then we jump to his funeral where a group of his friends discuss vague exposition: the guy was addicted to a video game called "Hellworld" and apparently committed suicide. The kids are suitably concerned for a horror movie cast, with the apparent victims Brother being mad at the group of friends for suitably vague reasons.
Jump forward, the group win invitations to a Hellraiser party-it's meta!-due to their extraordinary Hellraiser video game playing skills...I hate that I just wrote that. Knowing where this plot goes makes this all very painful: how did the villain know they would even play the game, let alone beat it? Was he pacing back and forth saying "Shit...what if I made it too hard? How do I know they even want to go? I should have just hired a professional killer instead of all this game nonsense" and then drank a fifth of whiskey and wept bitterly? It's also the fifth annual party he's thrown...
Okay, let's back up: Lance Henriksen has designed this whole complicated murder scam. The kid who killed himself was Henriksen's Son, so he apparently purchased the game the kid got super into, designed a special task in the game where, once completed, the gamer is given an invite to a super-secret party where they can revel in debauchery or whatever. Did I mention that the game is basically the Hellraiser franchise? That's kinda key.
So, basically, for the past four years he's been throwing this party, apparently waiting for this one specific group of friends to all get invites so he can murder them with his own virtual reality tech and some hallucinatory drinks. He's thrown the party for four years. I figure it's an oversight: they didn't pull it off the first four years, so he realized he had to throw the party to maintain his cover. This is literally the most expensive murder plot I can think of. It's maybe even a billion dollar plan. He probably could have hired a bunch of the Hellraiser fans to just murder them in their sleep or just burned a house down with them in it or whatever. Would have been cheaper. A LOT cheaper.
It would have made more sense if it was just the five characters who won and went to the house. Then it's basically just House on Haunted Hill with Pinhead, which is dumb but it'd still be fine. It would certainly make more sense: at least it would be specific to the characters and provide a sense of intimacy. Instead we wander through this expansive party which is said to be debaucherous and sexy but is mostly people in masks doing shots. Hardly Eyes Wide Shut. It's not even Hellraiser, it's just...I dunno, Can't Hardly Wait. It's a HELLRAISER party, shouldn't these kids be having an orgy with razorblades and bondage? There isn't even a single human being wearing goth clothing or fetish gear. It's hard to believe these kids would even play a game of this style.
Anyway, these characters are about as interesting as staring into space. Probably less so, since space doesn't make oh-so-fresh "Can you hear me now" jokes. I hate to say it, but Khary Payton may be one of the worst actors in a Hellraiser film. His wide-eyed, giggly reactions to Women is akin to a cartoon wolf, and it's rather awful to look at.
The death scenes aren't so bad: while Henriksen's establishment of the weird torture device is a bit over-the-top(Henriksen does make it work: he's easily the only thing about this film that does) but the gore and aggression of the first kill-on poor Allison, who seems like she may have been an interesting character if offered a bit more time, at least more so than the lead who basically is a know-it-all complainer-is actually interesting enough visually.
There's an actress somewhere out there who can say "I gave Superman a blow job in Hellraiser:Hellworld" and I say we give her her own country to rule or something.
There's almost something apologetic about the death scenes in this film. It's almost as if Rick Bota read the script, realized how shitty it was, and figured "Well, if I can make the death scenes over-the-top and kind of rad, maybe people will be more forgiving." Pinhead decapitates a guys head, and the head falls into a bowl full of blood. There's a huge splash and Bradley looks fierce and all actually seems right with the world for a minute, and then we're back watching these dullards wander around.
There was a choice to include a LOT of boobs in this movie. I'm not going to say that's a bad thing, it's just another seeming apology by Bota: if we have a lot of boobs and gore, maybe it will satisfy the needs of horror fans and they won't hate us forever. Unfortunately...we hate you forever.
Just kidding, I don't hate you Rick Bota. I hope you have another opportunity at another horror flick, because your visual eye is actually pretty good, and your film-making fundamentals are strong. I think, given a better script, you could do something very special.
Meanwhile...stuff happens. This movie is a chore.
Seeing Superman meekly say the words "sweet cheeks" should do more for me than it does. So should seeing him run through with a meathook contraption run by a crappy Cenobite...but, now that's done, we're down to out two least interesting characters, which is saying something.
Oh, Lance Henriksen...our lead jumps into her car, finds out it's out of gas, Henriksen pokes his head out and says "It's like a bad horror movie, isn't it?" It is, Lance. It really, really is.
Favorite part so far: Cop stops Chelsea, asks what her name is, and she seems to forget for a second. Favorite. Part.
Drink every time someone says "Hell" in this movie. "Welcome to HELLworld, Chelsea." "Come on, Chelsea, let's raise some HELL!" I want to organize viewing parties of this shit film where you do shots of some sort of horrible concoction that I would then name the Hellraiser. I'd love to hear suggestions of what you think should be in it. Hell, and you can see what I did there, we can make a Pinhead drink, a chatterer drink, the butterball...the lament configuration...these things write themselves.
Anyway, two leads make it out alive, due to dues ex machina. Henriksen then is in a dank hotel where he gets killed by Pinhead. The End.
Final Thoughts: Superman got a blow job. Good for him.
Final Rating: One star. It exists.
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