Hellraiser: Hellworld

Like Freddy Krueger, Micahel Myers, Jason Voorhees, and Chucky, Pinhead has become a pop culture icon the years. He first appeared in Clive Barker's novel "The Hellbound Heart", which was later turned into the 1987 hit movie HELLRAISER, which was written and directed by Barker. The success of HELLRAISER lead to three theatrical sequels, comics, and action figures. In the eighteen years since its release, the cult status HELLRAISER as grown bigger and bigger. Knowing they have an audience of die-hard Pinhead fans, executives at Dimension Films insist on cranking out a new direct-to-video sequel every few years. None of them are particularly any good, but I just like the legion of other Pinhead fans, watch them with the hope that one of the sequels with be as good as the original HELLRAISER. This year saw the release of two direct-to-video sequels. The first was HELLRAISER: DEADER, which was better than the average direct-to-video release, but still not nearly as good as HELLRAISER was. The second direct-to-video sequel featuring Pinhead to be released in 2005 is HELLRAISER: HELLWORLD, a film so lackluster that makes all the other direct-to-video Hellraiser sequels look like cinematic gold. 'HELLWORLD' is yet another horror flick that seems to have been inspired by Wes Craven's NEW NIGHTMARE. However, while NEW NIGHTMARE was a clever and original horror picture, HELLRAISER: HELLWORLD is anything but. The premise seems dated and it is not nearly as clever as the filmmakers believe it is. The plot is just one of the many faults with this poorly edited, dreadfully acted, and misdirected failure. Like HELLRAISER: DEADER, 'HELLWORLD' was long delayed and it's not hard to see why. It's sloppily put together and for something that is supposed to be a horror thriller, lacks tension altogether. On the plus side, the make-up and effects are decent, some gratuitous nudity is thrown in, and Lance Henrisken is good in his role. The best thing that can be said about it is that it is not quite as bad as HELLRAISER: BLOODLINE. With any luck, this will be the last Hellraiser sequel. If there is actually yet another sequel, hopefully Clive Barker will be involved. The franchise as lost its steam. It's time for Pinhead to finally die. My rating: 4/10

A group of college kids who have messed around with the Lament Configuration in an online Hellraiser game, resulting in the death of one of the group before the movie has begun, are invited to a party at the mansion once owned by the man who created the puzzle box in the first place. There they are met by Lance Henrickson (!), who is hosting a big party for Hellraiser game fans. From this point, confusion reigns until the last five minutes when all is neatly explained away. The ending definitely contains a neat and unexpected twist, but one cannot forgive what has gone before and which takes well over an hour to get to the point. Decent gore, although true Hellraiser fans will be puzzled (no pun intended) by some of the goings-on,which bear no resemblance to the Hellraiser canon -- that is, until Lance explains all at the end. Pinhead is strictly a fleeting guest in this one, which has happened before, God knows. The film is new enough to have been influenced by the SAW series and the basic plot as such (discounting the explanation at the end) is straight out of the HALLOWEEN flick where the crowd gathers for a night of live televised fun and terror in Michael's family home. Shot back to back with HELLRAISER: DEADERS by the same director in Romania, this one is a notch above that incredibly dreary effort. Ah well, we can only await the cinematic remake of the original HELLRAISER.

Now, don't get me wrong: the movie by itself wasn't *that* bad, it was just horrible (no, not in *that* way) in the Hellraiser context. The problem, you see, is the following: the first half of the series (yes, even the 4th installment which most people dislike) were monster-movies - a mysterious box, a couple of evil looking beings that came with it, and a lot of unlucky people who came in contact with them - while "Inferno" and the rest have been turned into mind game movies, where people see things which may, or may not, be related to the box...

What we have in "Hellworld" is a genuine mediocre teen slasher: 5 young people, who were once dedicated players of the Internet based game "Hellworld" but are taking it cooler since the suicide of their fellow player, get invited to a big party. From the beginning things seem weird and soon our heroes start to die one by one... And that's it. Pinhead, once a scary creature from Hell, has basically been turned into a serial killer with minimum imagination. The whole "you dared to open the box, we came, now you'll be tortured for all eternity" is gone. It's quite obvious that this script wasn't written with Hellraiser in mind. It's actually a mystery why it was even made part of the series, when it'd worked quite nicely independently... It could have used more deaths though.

I have to mention two positive things about the movie: Lace (hey, it doesn't matter if it's a brilliant masterpiece or Z-class production when Lance is in it!) and the fact that everybody was familiar with the Hellraiser mythology (the main character Chelsea even mentions that cenobites could never attack her because she would never open the box... beside the fact that it's all just fiction).

But all in all I'd give it a 4 out of 10 - not enough deaths, lame story, has virtually nothing to do with the Hellraiser franchise, but the deaths were OK and Lace played along.

I don't waste my words for this movie. I knew the Comics the movies and the novel. The first from Bota was good. Better then INFERNO. I make it short. Bad acting. Bad Pinhead. Bad Light. Bad music. Bad writing. Bad. bad. Bad. Bad DIRECTOR. The Horror in this movie is very small. The actors plays like bored first time actors. And this modern editing with Rockmusic and speeder velocity is out. And why teens. Why not older People? Please Mr. Bota. Stop to direct the Hellraiser movies. Every Hellraiser fan would make a better Hellraiser movie. A bad 3 from a bad 10. I couldn't believe it how bad and uninspiring that movie is.

I hope Barker never see this. ;)

I've got to say i wasn't too impressed with this to be honest. I love the original hellraisers and i just keep hoping that they make at least 1 more decent sequel but thats looking unlikely.

Having said that i've seen worse films but its seems to have gone down the the traditional slasher film a bit too much. The real shame is that there's some good ideas in it. They just don't seem to have been pulled off.

Don't go out of your way to watch this unless you're really into the series. It doesn't add anything, just offers a slightly different slant on the story.