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), 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 it, 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.) When Riley comes back to, there's nothing left of her brother except some bloodstains on a bathroom sink.
Trying to work out what happened, Riley and the gang 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 gets a sex worker killed. They head to his mansion, where some third-act twists raise the stakes, explain what the hell is going on, and the new Pinhead makes their appearance. It all gets appropriately messed up and weird, up to and including Leviathan popping in to a reprise of Cristopher Young's original score in a homage to Hellbound.
But... mostly it's neither too weird nor too extreme. The 2022 model is very bloody and has more than enough gore to satisfy, but until the very very end there's nothing as memorable as Frank's glistening, flayed form strutting around and groping at Julia in the original film. Almost all of the perversity is gone. It gets points for trying, though.
The visual effects for the weirdness that happens when the cube is solved fare a lot better; there are a lot of good 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 think my biggest complaint is the new Cenobites; they're very detailed and have a lot of attention to detail, but they seem oddly... sterile, somehow. More like McFarlane action figures than the tortured, mangled pieces of of their previous incarnation. And what the fuck is up with the pearl-headed pins?** At least the chatterer and Pinhead (played by Jamie Clayton this time around.) are pretty good.
As the plot synopsis up there indicated, the way the box works is also changed. 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 prefer the original version where jaded perverts and hedonists sought out the box to find the pleasure at the other side of (or inside of) pain; The new interpretation -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 these days without a singular vision like Barker's given full control, and much better than I expected after finding out David fucking Goyer was involved. 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! It's bloody, cruel, and it takes full advantage of today's more permissive atmosphere.
And they do tie things up with a killer ending [SLIGHT SPOILERS] - an emotional gutpunch that recontextualizes 'the lament configuration' (previously the box's original 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.
*Nightbreed and Lord of Illusions were similarly startlingly original, but failed to catch on. I'm clearly in the wrong timeline.
** I've been reminded that in the book, Pinhead sports multi-colored, jewel-handled pins. Now that would have been an image, a glam cenobite. So the pearls are an acceptable compromise.
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