Only now does it occur to me... HELLRAISER VII: DEADER (2005)

Only does it occur to me... wakka wakka wakka. What do you think I'm going to say here? 

Yet another HELLRAISER sequel based off of an unrelated spec script that managed to shoehorn Pinhead into its final draft. Same director (Rick Bota) as HELLRAISER VI: HELLSEEKER, which was the worst one to that point and kinda felt like LAW AND ORDER: CENOBITE CRIMES UNIT. I'm nostalgic for the days when HELLRAISER sequels had CD-flinging DJ Cenobites, meaty roles for Adam Scott, and featured Lament Configuration-inspired spaceships.

With "DEADER," we certainly have a winner for "dumbest HELLRAISER sequel subtitle" among the eleven films (and counting). I guess the Lament Configuration used to just "kill people dead" and send them to S&M hell dimension... now it makes them "deader?" 

 (The title actually comes from the name of a cult within the film, called "The Deaders." No, that does not make it better.)

Basically, this movie half-heartedly tries to answer the question, "what if Pinhead showed up in TRAINSPOTTING?" 

 

 

It also manages to employ Kari Wuhrer, 

a poor man's Craig T. Nelson (Simon Kunz), 

and a knock-off Flea (Marc Warren). 

Wuhrer is fine, though this role clearly should've been Fairuza Balk's.

Weirdly, this thing manages to feel more like a HELLRAISER movie than the prior 2 installments, and to be fair, this thing is a hair better than HELLRAISER VI: HELLSEEKER. I mean, they shot it in Romania, and the city of Bucharest is cool. It's the only cool thing in this movie.

My favorite quote from the Wikipedia page for this movie is, "Production was difficult due to the inability of the Americans in the cast and crew to understand the Romanian set workers and actors." Yep, that tracks. Nice work, HELLRAISER VII!

Only now does it occur to me... HELLRAISER VI: HELLSEEKER (2002)

Only now does it occur to me... that half of these HELLRAISER sequels are basically JACOB'S LADDER fanfic with a Pinhead cameo. 

 

This is mostly because they began as rejected horror spec scripts which found new life while Miramax was kicking the can down the road and legally keeping the rights to HELLRAISER by crapping out a fresh installment every couple of years.

I've been working my way through the canon over the years on this blog, and as far as the JACOB'S LADDER aesthetic goes, this one makes HELLRAISER V: INFERNO look like a David Lynch film or a Hieronymous Bosch painting.

We're treated to simply the most generic Cenobites imaginable, borrowing the "fleshy, restitched pillowcase" look from JACOB'S LADDER, but forgetting that Adrian Lyne used that so effectively with only the briefest of glimpses and freaky, sped-up frame rates.

Pinhead's appearances are the very definition of Contractually Obligated. This is definitely the first HELLRAISER installment where the major creative force was a team of entertainment lawyers.

The fact that the movie dangles the return of Kirsty (Ashley Laurence, heroine of HELLRAISERS I-III) as its main selling point 

and proceeds to give us about three minutes' worth of Kirsty via a weakly-constructed frame story––

 

this is what actively antagonizes the viewer. Supposedly this was done with an actual iota of Clive Barker input, which is surprising. (Hey, take that paycheck, Clive, no shame!) 

But what HELLSEEKER actually delivers is a movie starring "budget Will Patton" (Dean Winters, now most notorious for his appearances as "Mayhem" in Allstate commercials)

who gives us none of the Tim Robbins pathos which could make this work, and instead plays it (as he was directed, I assume) with the nonspecificity of pre-prestige '90s television, as if this is LAW AND ORDER: CENOBITE CRIMES UNIT. Woof!