Hellraiser (2022)

 Hellraiser will always have a special place in horror history. Clive Barker's creation was so unique, so personal back in 1987 that it almost seemed like a nasty little open sore on the skin of the world, showing another, sleazier, more interesting reality beyond*. Even today, with all the purported creative freedom afforded by the streaming market and cheaper effects, it's rare to see something that approaches its (or its sequel Hellbound's) dark, exuberant imagination, perversity and grisly imagery. It made a lifelong Barker fan out of me.

 A reboot with Barker's involvement for the first time since the second movie has long been rumored, even in the midst of increasingly forgettable sequels (I missed the last one, I think.) And now it's finally out.

 It doesn't even begin to have the same impact as the original did - how could it? And it feels curiously... restrained, for a series that at its best embraced batshit insane excess. It's slick, well produced, and a bit too normal. But it's still good, and it does get to do some great shit by the end.

 The protagonist this time around is Riley (Odessa A'Zion, doing a great job), who's a bit of a mess; she's on a twelve-step program (it doesn't last) and living in a shared flat with her overprotective brother, her brother's partner, and another roommate (this living arrangement doesn't last, either.)

 Egged on by her shady boyfriend Trevor (Drew Starkey) she falls off the wagon and helps in the robbery of a familiar-looking art-deco-ish puzzle cube from an otherwise empty container. Later, after a fight with her brother that gets her kicked out of the house, she gets even more wasted at a playground and starts fooling around with the cube, unlocking it and causing a blade to snap out. A gruesome figure appears and tells her to cut someone using that blade, so they can claim a victim... but she's too far gone to pay attention.

 Riley is so out of it she barely notices her brother arrive. Feeling guilty for kicking her out, he's there to take her back; but while gathering her stuff he stabs himself with the cube's blade.

 Cue a very effective scene where walls start moving and the Cenobites take her brother away (It does look a mite more impressive than the original's flimsy moving walls, but nowhere near as iconic.) When Riley comes back to, there's nothing left of her brother except some blood splatters on a bathroom sink.

 Trying to work out what happened, Riley and the remaining flatmates follow a trail of clues that leads them to the original owner of the cube - a millionaire asshole (Goran Visnjic) previously seen in a prologue where he sacrifices a sex worker. They head to his mansion, where some third-act twists raise the stakes, explain what the hell (literally) is going on, and the new Pinhead finally makes their appearance. It all gets appropriately messed up and weird, up to and including an old monolithic friend popping in to a triumphant reprise of Christopher Young's original score.

 But... mostly it's neither too weird, nor too extreme. The 2022 model has more than enough carnage to cater to any gorehound's needs, but until the very very end there's nothing nearly as memorable as Frank's resurrection, or his glistening, flayed form strutting around and groping at Julia in the original film. This is my biggest issue with this version of Hellraiser: Almost all of the perversity is gone, the wild psychodrama and overriding horniness have been excised. This is not your (perverted) father's Hellraiser.

 The visual effects for the weirdness that happens when the cube are pretty cool; There are a lot of surreal scenes where perspective fails, walls open up and distances don't behave as you'd expect them to (most memorably within the back of a moving van.)

 I'm not a fan of the design of the new Cenobites; they're very detailed, but seem oddly... sterile. I get what they were going for, but I much prefer the tortured, mangled meat puppets of their previous incarnations. Pinhead gets some pearl-headed pins, which I thought was an abomination, but rereading The Hellbound Heart, he originally had multi-coloured, jewel-handled pins. Glam Cenobite would be a fun image, but pearl handles are probably a good compromise. Still, at least the Hellpriest's and the Chatterer's designs are pretty cool, and while no one will ever replace Doug Bradley, Jamie Clayton gives it a very creepy, otherworldly spin.

 As the plot synopsis up there indicated, the core mythology of the setting has seen some changes. Now it's more of an occult ritual, with every configuration of the box a step towards a goal (some of these permutations had been seen in previous movies, but just as stages in resolving the puzzle.) It's a good premise on which to hang this movie, but I again prefer the original version where jaded perverts and hedonists sought out the box to find pleasure at the other side of (or inside of) pain; The new interpretation, as I see it -that there's only pain, the cenobites just don't understand or care about pleasure- is in keeping with this more boring, safer version of Hellraiser.

 But it's as good a version as could be done without a singular vision like Barker's given full control, and much better than I expected after finding out one David Goyer was involved in its long, long march toward completion. It's a very well-made movie oozing with obvious love and respect for the original; Well acted, and with a lot of cool scenes courtesy of director David Bruckner and cinematographer Eli Born. Seriously, it's a really good looking film!

 And they do tie things up with a killer ending (vague spoilers) - an emotional gut-punch that recontextualises the lament configuration (the box's canonical name) beautifully, followed by the films craziest scene, an epilogue where a cenobite gets his wings. It's a shame it will be overshadowed by the ending of Men in the 'most batshit horror scene of 2022' department, because it's a cool, beautifully grotesque scene that could only happen in a Hellraiser movie. Much respect for that.

*Nightbreed and Lord of Illusions were similarly, startlingly original, but failed to catch on. I'm clearly in the wrong timeline.