#lol cowardly little maggots

[hussyknee]

[cursed-and-haunted]

Okay so I finished watching Hellraiser (2022) and here's my review:

I wouldn't say this is a bad movie and certainly is not the worst Hellraiser movie (remember when Pinhead went to space), there are just some things that were lackluster and left to be desired. I think if you've never seen a Hellraiser movie or are someone who doesn't like persistent gore (which is fair) this would be a good horror movie. However, I love Hellraiser movies and gore so this movie at times left me feeling… meh. 5/10 points off for bad lighting/sound, not wet enough, and lack of bone dragons. And because I had a lot to say about this movie I put a breakdown of my review under the cut

Lighting

Bad. I can't see shit. But this isn't a movie specific problem but a larger Hollywood issue that I don't care to get into right now. 2/10

Sound/Music

Sound quality is bad, but that's the same issue as lighting. The reverb in the cenobites voice is supposed to make them seem scary and other worldly but how am I supposed to fear them if I can't even hear the threats they are making. But if I'm not mistaken they did use some of the score from the original so that was a nice throwback. 3/10

Sets/props

Puzzle Box my beloved (when Riley slipped her finger in the box's hole and the box opened up 👀 I see what you did there 😏). And I love the addition of the little knife that pops out and how the box drinks up blood, very sexy. Also loved the geometric design on the box showing up in other places (on the playground, hospital floor and of course the mansion). I loved the creepy playground. And I loved the mansion. I love when houses are more than just a house. In this particular case it's a giant cage to trap cenobites. Which reminds me of the first ever horror movie I watched, Thirteen Ghosts, where the house was also a giant puzzle box that had trapped ghosts in it. The sex dungeon was lack luster though, like they could have done better than that. 7/10

Special Effects

First off, most of the gory bits are implied and happen off screen which is a cowardly move especially in a horror movie. And what is shown is watered down or only briefly on screen. I liked the effects of the chains coming out of Riley's chest and Nora's death was kind of neat. And Roland being turned into a wind up toy with the machine in his chest and then watching it come all undone was also cool. Also skinless Matt was a nice reference to the original movie. Leviathan my beloved. But my biggest complaint: Not wet enough. Where is the blood, the goop, the slime? If Pinhead's outfit is really her skin that was flayed and mutilated into a dress then she should be glistening wet and yet she's dry as bone and that's just boring. Same complaint for Roland's transformation at the end. You're telling me Roland had his face ripped off and he didn't even bleed a little bit? C'mon! And like even if I gave them the benefit of the doubt and that the censors made them cut back on the gore there are still other ways to add creepiness. Maggots and cockroaches crawling over rotten food. Spiders and flies. Rats. Like it felt like there was more they could have done and they just didn't. 4/10

Costumes

I liked Riley's looks and her overall design. The side characters are a little bland but they're side characters so that makes sense. Roland wearing a suit like any classic villain would. Did anyone else notice Roland cut a hole in his shirt to fit around the machine sticking out of his chest but like it's a button up shirt, like he could've just unbutton his shirt. He didn't have to do all that lol. The cenobites all looked so alien and otherworldly which I guess is nice but like I already said they should have been wetter looking. I liked The Gasps design, it's clear they got inspiration from The Female's design and the way the skin folded on her head looked like a nun's headdress which The Female was a nun before she was a cenobite so that's neat. Ultimately I think it comes down to personal taste so if you like the design of these cenobites I can see why but personally I prefer the old leather daddy designs. I do love that Pinhead has nails painted, like girl who does your nails 💅 6/10

Characters

I really liked Riley and loved that her motivation and what drove the plot forward was her wanting to save her brother. I just wished that the sibling relationship was explored a bit more. Also wish they explored her addiction a little bit more. It just felt like a wasted opportunity there. I liked Matt, Colin, and Nora. I really wished they had been fleshed out more, especially Nora. It kind of bothers me that out of the three human female characters, the two that are literally roommates barely speak directly to each other throughout the entire movie. And like you learn nothing about Nora so when she dies I didn't feel anything and that's like the whole point. It would be different if she was the first to die but she's literally the second to last person to die. There really should have been more to her character but there wasn't. I did not like Trevor. He wasn't very well written and doesn't really bring anything to the story except for maybe the sex scenes but even those were medicore. Honestly, if they had taken him out of the story and given his lines to another character, like Nora, it would barely affect the plot and that's not a good quality in a main character. Roland was a great villain and I'm happy that he got what he wanted. Pinhead was amazing as always and had some killer lines. Also she said the thing! Chatterer, my beloved! I'm so happy they let him bite people. It's what he deserves. I don't like seeing him eviscerated like that but he dies all the time and gets brought back because he's Leviathan's favorite so I'm used to it. The Gasp was great, I love how eager she is to hurt people. The Weeper's hands. Need I say more. The Asphyx sounds like a broken vacuum cleaner and it upsets me how fast he can run. The others don't really do much except creep around so I can't say much about them. 7/10

Plot

Again I liked that the motivation was a sister trying to save her brother and I liked that her prize, or punishment really, is living with the guilt and regret that she ultimately couldn't. It's interesting how the cenobites make the emotional pain of that to be the worst way to suffer, even worse then the physical pain they would've put her through. And that Pinhead seems to in a way acknowledge the bravery it takes to deal with that. The strength and bravery it takes to not die or seek power but simply survive and live with the choices you've made. It's a very interesting thing to explore in a horror story. I also liked the plot structure of going through the different levels of the puzzle box and at the end you meet Leviathan. It gives me Dante traveling through the circle of hell vibes. The betrayal plot line didn't really do it for me. It wasn't really set up properly and there wasn't any foreshadowing for it. So when the big reveal happened it kind of fell flat. An even better plot twist would have been if Trevor was revealed to be an eremite and turned into a bone dragon. If you are unfamiliar with Hellraiser lore, eremites are guardians of the puzzle box and lure unsuspecting victims into hell (and they can turn into dragons) which literally is what Trevor's role in the plot is so it would have been perfect. Just saying it would have been sick as hell. 7/10