Hellraiser: Hellworld

The 8th film (why) is about a bunch of kids who play an Internet game based on the Hellraiser series. Of course, nobody in Hollywood knows how the internet or video games work, so it doesn't really translate. Anyway, this movie is essentially a slasher movie that is only tangentially related to Hellraiser in any way, almost like the script they used wasn't even supposed to be a Hellraiser movie (it wasn't). To top it all off, and I'm not spoiling anything because you're spoiling your own life by watching this garbage, the whole movie basically turns out to be a wacky, murderous dream! I feel like I've made some great choices this October.

RATING: 19%

Hellraiser: Deader

A reporter goes to investigate some zombie cult in Hungary and ends up accidentally solving the Lament Configuration. In the first movie it seemed so difficult for Frank to actually figure out how to open the box and summon the Cenobites, but by part VII everybody just does it as soon as they pick up the box first thing. This movie is terrible, but it has two notable scenes. The first is a legitimately visceral scene in which the reporter is trying to pick up a folder in a cramped bathroom without touching a suspended rotting corpse. The second is a legitimately silly scene in a goth club on a moving subway train in which there are naked twinks, topless grandmas covered in flour, and speakers blasting public domain elevator music. These movies want to portray some type of goth counter culture but they are so very clearly made by a bunch of squares.

RATING: 19%

Hellraiser: Hellseeker

This is the 6th Hellraiser film, so you'd think they'd do something clever with "666" for the title, but that's expecting a lot of this series! Instead it's called "Hellseeker," which is ridiculous because nobody is really seeking Hell (or whatever dimension the Cenobites inhabit), but in part five there was no "Inferno," so they're just slapping titles on these shits, all the more obvious in the 7th film which is called (seriously) Hellraiser: Deader. Deader!? Back to part VI though - this one is actually pretty good because after an opening car accident that apparently kills the main character's wife the movie's linearity is incomprehensible and hallucinatory. I think it's technically just bad filmmaking, but it actually makes the movie kind of freaky and enjoyable until Pinhead shows up to explain everything into banality in the last ten minutes or so. Anyway, Dean Winters is pretty good but you should've taken out some better insurance buddy!

RATING: 61%