Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth

Here's part three of the Hellraiser Saga... Once again this continues from where the last film ended, though it's a looser connection. The battle between Pinhead (Bradley) and his original human self, Captain Elliott Spencer, allowed him to break free of hells shackles. Entrapped in a monolith, he is awoken by Sandy (Leigh), when an accidental cut splashes blood on his stone features. Revealing himself to JP Monroe (Bernhardt), an unscrupulous womanising club owner, Pinhead makes a deal to free himself from his confines and to help JP to achieve his dreams...

This leads to lots of twists and turns in the storyline as you know you can't trust a daemon. The only thing which stands in his way is an aspiring investigative reporter, Joanne "Joey" Summerskill (Farrell), who's investigating the gory and violent murders which are appearing in the city.

The first thing that becomes evident is the amount of budget available for this film. Instead of being kept within the confines of a house or a hospital, now we're out in New York City. Penthouses, apartments, clubs, restaurants, ally's and streets. The locations are so much bigger. This is good, as it gives scope for a larger story with more hellish violence and gore... and it nearly delivers. Nearly, because the scene where the Cenobites finally take to the streets is actually underwhelming. What was required were a few more Cenobites and quite a few more victims, both pedestrians and police. It's nice to have explosions... I just wanted more.

The acting is okay, Bradley still stands out and is excellent as Pinhead. Farrell does a good job as the reporter. However, it's Bernhardt and Marshall, who plays Terri, who have their bouts of woodenness. The direction too is quite different from the first two, gone are the artistic and atmospheric lighting for a more natural feel. This is okay, but the film does lose a little of its mood and spirit, which added strength to the first two movies. I can understand the need for doing this. If you expand the daemons universe to include a lot more of reality then it stands to reason to get that feeling across would be to lose the more imaginative aspects of the filmmaking. That said there are still quite a few iconic shots, such as the entrance of Pinhead at the club and later in the church, and nicely thought out camera shots and angles.

Though I didn't find it as good as the first films it's still as enjoyable, though for different reasons... and as Pinhead would attain, variety is the spice of life.

Another good thing is that this film actually works as a stand-alone, you only need a vague idea about the previous stories; whereas, Hellbound actually made you feel as though you should have watched the first film before viewing. So for that reason, I would recommend this to all horror fans and newbies alike. This is a well written, structured, and acted film... which has its fair share of tension, fear, and suspense.

Where Hellraiser 1 and 2 were both very dark and very British, Hellraiser 3: Hell On Earth is very Hollywood.

J. P. Monroe is the scumbag, soulless owner of The Boiler Room, a somewhat gothy dance club decorated with morbid art. In his search for more profane objects to add to his collection, J. P. comes across, and subsequently purchases, an odd pillar in an art gallery, which fans of the first two films will have no trouble recognizing. Enter Joey Summerskill, a frustrated reporter who comes across a bizarre death in a hospital emergency room. As she watches, a young man is torn to pieces by hooks and chains that appear out of midair. Eager to discover the story behind the gruesome, supernatural death, and with only one clue to follow, Joey arrives at the Boiler Room and befriends the insecure and abused Terri, J. P.'s ex girlfriend. Together, they discover the history of the Lament Configuration, the bizarre happenings at the Channard Institute and the story of Kirsty Cotton. But it doesn't end there. Joey begins having dreams about a man named Elliot Spencer, a World War One soldier who warns her that evil has been unleashed in the form of his own evil alter ego, the Cenobite Pinhead. Indeed, Pinhead soon breaks free and turns The Boiler Room into a slaughterhouse. Now he wants Joey. But can Elliot Spencer stop Pinhead before Joey is taken to Hell?

This isn't a terrible sequel, really. It's not great, but it's nowhere near as bad as some of the others that followed. There's some nice bloody gore and naked girls, and Pinhead, as always, seems to be enjoying himself immensely, seducing his victims with a smile and making his offer of an eternity of pain seem quite irresistible. His scene with a priest is particularly nasty and blasphemous...and wickedly funny. The storyline doesn't always make sense, there's a lot of unintentionally laughable moments and some of the acting borders on the ridiculous, but all in all, Hellraiser 3 is pretty good cinematic junk food. If nothing else, Doug Bradley alone always makes these films watchable with his flawless portrayal of Pinhead.

6 out of 10.

In New York City, Pinhead, the puzzle box, and the other Cenobites are trapped in a pillar. J. P. Monroe buys it for his nightclub, The Boiler Room. Frustrated TV reporter Joey Summerskill (Terry Farrell) encounters Terri (Paula Marshall) at the hospital who brought in a victim of the club. She decides to investigate when her story is turned down. Terri turns out to be one of Monroe's many girlfriends and she has the box.

This is the franchise turning into a more standard horror. It has the skin-ripping fun. The characters work. I love Farrell from Star Trek and she's fine as the protagonist. I like the mind games from Pinhead. The WWI dream stuff can be better substituted with an additional character. It's trying to explain the monster when it doesn't need explaining. It does give a final solution which is very important. Honestly, Pinhead is a brilliant monster design. The new ones are pretty cheesy. The camera and the CD Cenobites can exists no other time. They even try some quippy dialogue although Pinhead is undefeated as a character.

I have yet to see Bloodline or Inferno, but Hell on Earth is the worst of the first three Hellraiser movies. It lacks both the wit and the sheer terror of the first two films. What's more, it breaks the rules established in the previous Hellraiser films (that is, Cenobites cannot harm the truly innocent, the Cenobites can be summoned or banished by the box, and so on). And while Pinhead actually spoke very little in the first two films, in Hell on Earth he is downright talky. Unfortunately, only a few of his lines are very memorable. It is unfortunate that Clive Barker did not have more to do with this movie (he wrote and directed the first and wrote the story for the second), as it might have turned out much better.

Look, we've already seen what Pinhead can do with his hooks and chains, but how is he back into action?

It makes no sense to go into the details of how Pinhead came back after being destroyed in part two. Through some improbable and convoluted way involving a copper statue, the box, and a pompous night club owner, Pinhead was brought back to life in New York. Now he's in the real world and he is seeking to stay.

A struggling reporter named Joanne "Joey" Summerskill (Terry Farrell) has the box and the ability to send Pinhead back to hell. The way to send him back to hell is very vague and uninformative, but at least Joey understands... I think.

This entire episode was a mess. No one is going to accuse horror movies of being intelligent, but some are dumber than others. Pinhead still desires pleasures and flesh, but the victims this time around are just set pieces, they have no personalities and no true characteristics besides vapidity. "Hell on Earth" went for maximum carnage as though that was an adequate replacement for substance. So many horror movie franchises do that once they get into their third, fourth, and fifth episodes. Their idea wells run dry so they just reach for the body count button as though that will mask the pitiful plot when all it does is make the movie bloodier and dumber.