Leviathan: The Story of Hellraiser and Hellbound: Hellraiser II

This film is mistitled. It's the story about all the people who made Hellraiser and Hellbound. You already know it's much too long. I finally gave up after 2 1/2 of the 4 plus hour version. It's basically asking 40 different people the same question, filming their response, and then clipping it all together.

There are some odd moments. Doug talks at length about Clare's audition for the part, how he read with several actors but when she finished her read, he knew she had the part. Then it cuts to Clare saying, "I don't know what Doug is talking about; I never auditioned for the role." And there is ZERO comment from the interviewers! Every interview is in its own silo with no commentary or corrections or clarifications asked for.

It's one of the strangest films since there seems to be no editing whatsoever; every play Clive wrote is discussed (who cares? Isn't this about Hellraiser?), the back, back, backstory of the special effects teams are told when we really don't care about their personal lives or experience.

Worst of all, it's boring. I kept waiting for some insights but other than everyone calling Clive a genus and saying how challenging their roles were, there's very little digging here. If this was chopped back to a 90 min documentary with some editing and chapter breaks and titling to give it some structure, it would help tremendously. But there isn't, so it just plods along and goes on and on and on....

It's hard to believe that a documentary can have a run time of minutes under 8hrs, one single documentary!

Now when they did the Friday 13th documentary (Crystal Lake Memories: The Complete History of Friday the 13th (2013)) it covered 12 different films and was around 6hrs long. This is 8hrs and covers 2 films, 2!

Nobody can dispute that the documentary is thorough and is arguably a must watch for fans of the first two Hellraiser movies but 8hrs is far far too long.

As you can imagine the documentary goes over old ground several times, it's interviews are decent but the number of people interviewed is far less than you'd imagine especially the absence of Ashley Laurence (Not as if she was the lead or anything)

I liked Hellraiser and considered the second film a watchable affair but this was seven shades of overkill and damaged my enjoyment. This really should have been edited down to 2hrs, 3 at the most.

The Good:

Very thorough

Some decent interviews

The Bad:

Too few people interviewed

How can you do this without the lead? Seriously?

Far too long

Bit repititious

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

I have far too much time on my hands

Leviathan: The Story of Hellraiser and Hellbound: Hellraiser II (2015)

*** (out of 4)

This documentary from Kevin McDonagh is apparently out there in a couple different versions. Apparently one runs nearly eight hours long and the other, which is the one I watched, comes with the Scarlet Box from Arrow Video and runs around 210-minutes. Now I obviously can't comment on the "uncut" version but I must say that I'm not sure a film like HELLRAISER really needs four hours devoted to just it. Having watched the Arrow Video version, I can say that HELLBOUND: HELLRAISER II really didn't need a two hour documentary on it.

I'm not going to list all of the people interviewed here because there are dozens and dozens on each movie. Actors, cinematographers, special effects artists, directors and others are all interviewed. Clive Barker is missing outside of some archival interviews but just about everyone else that you'd want to hear from are here and telling stories ranging from how they were hired to various production bits.

Look, if you'e a die-hard fan of HELLRAISER and its sequels then I'm sure you're going to love this. I enjoyed the first two movies but I'm just not sure I needed this much of a documentary. Many of the stories just weren't interesting enough to where they were needed and after so many of them you've got an extra long documentary that just drags at spots. I thought this was certainly the case with the two hours devoted to HELLBOUND.

Still, you have to respect the filmmakers for trying to deliver EVERYTHING to the fans of the film. Your level of being a "fan" will determine how much you enjoy this.

I stumbled upon the 2015 documentary "Leviathan: The Story of Hellraiser and Hellbound: Hellraiser II" here in 2021. And having been an avid horror fan since my childhood and having seen all of the "Hellraiser" movies, of course I had to sit down to watch this 2015 documentary from director Kevin McDonagh.

While "Leviathan: The Story of Hellraiser and Hellbound: Hellraiser II" was watchable, it was not really a fulfilling documentary, as it didn't really offer all that much insight into the two movies. Sure, there were bits and pieces, but once the documentary ended, I felt somewhat cheated, as it didn't delve as deep into the world of the Cenobites and the macabre world of "Hellraiser" that Clive Barker conjured up.

"Leviathan: The Story of Hellraiser and Hellbound: Hellraiser II" is certainly something for the fans of the franchise, in particular the first two movies. Which, hand on heart, were undoubtedly the two most enjoyable and entetaining of movies in the entire franchise.

There are some good interviews here with some of the cast from the movies as well as with production crew that worked on the movies. And they do offer some nice pieces of information that might not have been otherwise publicly known about the two movies.

I am rating "Leviathan: The Story of Hellraiser and Hellbound: Hellraiser II" a bland five out of ten stars, as it wasn't really as informative or fulfilling as I had hoped it would be. Watchable, for sure, but not an outstanding documentary.

"Leviathan: The Story of Hellraiser and Hellbound: Hellraiser II" is a feature length documentary uncovering the history and the making of Clive Barker's "Hellraiser" and "Hellbound: Hellraiser II" films.

First of all, the opening credits are a bit drawn out and I wish that wasn't the case. But the rest of the film makes up for that. In fact, the Arrow Video release is very extensive, and (as I understand it) was expanded to the point that it had to be turned into two documentaries. (The first half is 90 minutes and I assume the second half is similar.) Where this documentary excels is where it goes into great detail about the makeup and special effects, because this is what really makes "Hellraiser" stand out. Also, the coverage of the Coil music is awesome, because I don't know how many people know their work or knew they had anything to do with the film. (The Arrow set goes into much more detail on the Coil-Barker connection.)