With that `clever' subtitle, how could this film suck?
Enter the mistake all horror films with on screen villains make: because the heroine dies and/or moves on to other projects, the villain moves to the spotlight. This is an even more fatal blow to Hellraiser because Pinhead never was meant to be in the spotlight, have too many lines, and this series was not meant to be a slasher.
Ooh, I know, since Hellbound: Hellraiser II made the mistake of pulling off a tolerable explanation let's correct that mistake and explain it to death! Let's go into more detail about pinhead and the box and set us up for Hellraiser: Bloodline with 90 minutes of backstory and no story for itself!
I really don't have much else to say and don't think I need to say much else. Ashley Lawrence isn't the only one abandoning ship on this one (no, the 10 second cameo doesn't count), Chris Young also disappears on us. The concepts of the first two films go away, and we have Pinhead moving to Elm Street with his band of `clever' new cenobites. This is hardly an ambitious move for any horror franchise, especially for Hellraiser. I mean, don't we have enough ominous unstoppable killing machines wandering around the horror aisles at your local rental place? At least Jeepers Creepers did some things differently.
All the latter Hellraisers get points for ambition. #3 is just mediocre slasher with Cenobites and a box. It's not necessarily the worst in the series, but damn it's the most boring . . .
