Hellbound: Hellraiser II

Hellraiser was always going to be a hard act to follow (especially with Clive Barker handing over so much control to others). This first sequel starts promisingly enough though, beginning on the same night as the original ended. It features the return of Ashley Laurence's heroine Kirsty and the resurrection of wicked stepmom (no, really) Julia (Clare Higgins). However about two thirds into the movie any attempt at story progression, character development or coherency goes out the window and instead the film throws up albeit interesting imagery and ideas seemingly at random. That's not to say that Hellbound : Hellraiser 2 is a totally bad movie, it just seems like such a wasted opportunity. If the next sequel would have followed on more directly (instead of going stateside and bringing in different characters) maybe the ideas about Hell and Leviathan could have been explored and developed more fully. However without this safety blanket, much of Hellbound seems confused and half baked. Kenneth Cranham lends weight to the role of sinister Dr Channard but as soon as he's made into a cenobite the film goes into high camp and I wonder what happened to the sombre tone of the original. Clare Higgins seems t be enjoying playing her return as Julia like a Hollywood bitch on drugs and it's interesting to find out something about the origin of the cenobites albeit briefly(and at least Pinhead's human origin is something that does get explored further in Hellraiser III). If you like the first film, it's probably worth checking this one out and you may want t view it more than once to catch everything in it but just don't expect another Hellraiser like the original.