Film Review: Hellraiser (2022)
After countless sequels of dubious quality, the Hellraiser franchise decided to reinvent itself with a remake in 2022. The end result was equally dubious, though will likely look like a masterpiece when placed next to the atrociously acted Inferno, which, shockingly, isn’t even considered the worst of the sequels. Warning: SPOILERS.
Plot: After the Cenobites take Riley’s brother, Matt, the only way to get him back is to solve the mystery of the puzzle box from hell. Her quest leads her, her boyfriend Trevor, Matt’s grieving boyfriend Colin, and their friend Nora to the previous owner of the box – Voight, a billionaire connected to several missing people and who himself disappeared years ago under mysterious circumstances…
The movie opens with another hapless fool acquiring the infamous puzzle box. This time, it’s an employee of a bored billionaire, Voight. He’s so bored that he doesn’t even take part in the orgy he’s hosting and instead would rather see one of his guests solve the Lament Configuration with predictably deadly results. The puzzle box from hell got a makeover and instead of its previous deceptively innocent-looking ingenuity, now it has a blade that springs out to stab the puzzle solver and mark them for sacrifice. And that’s not all – it can also be solved in different configurations, each bringing its solver closer to an audience with Leviathan who will grant them one wish. However, the remake didn’t just abandon Hellbound: Hellraiser 2’s importance of intent, which, to be fair, wasn’t present either in the original book, Hellbound Heart, which is a bit inconsistent in that regard (Frank is given several chances to turn back, while Kirsty is immediately doomed), nor in the comic book sequel from BOOM! Studios. In this new Hellraiser, solving the box becomes meaningless. Not only whoever got someone else to open the box can benefit from their solution, but people are also allowed to hand over a replacement sacrifice to avoid their fate. Yes, Kirsty did that, but Frank had escaped the Cenobites in Hellraiser (1987), and at least in Hellseeker they already knew her. When her replacement, Riley, is given the option, she’s just some random human who solved the puzzle, so it doesn’t really make sense for her to be offered this out, apart from the fact that she’s the lead. Like Voight, who’s introduced in the midst of an orgy, Riley has her first appearance in a less than wholesome scenario. We meet her mid-fuck, which she stops when her not quite boyfriend Trevor foolishly says he loves her. Despite all the overt sexuality, this never reaches the inventive twistedness of the original – both book and movie. Oh, look, another rich people orgy. Yawn. Even Riley and Trevor’s vigorous display feels like just going through the motions.
Riley is probably a very realistic depiction of a struggling addict, but that doesn’t mean she’s not incredibly annoying. The movie tries to give her some character depth with her difficult relationship with her brother, who’s finding it increasingly harder to be supportive. However, we just didn’t care about any of these dull characters. Movie Julia lost some of Book Julia’s complexity because of the lack of inner monologue, but there was still a lot there. Riley, Matt, Trevor, Colin, Nora, and even Voight are just empty vessels. Really, the most noticeable thing about Riley was her seeming inability to close her mouth (blocked sinuses maybe?). In addition to being annoying, she’s also a complete mess, which makes Trevor’s decision to let her keep the evil puzzle box after they steal it from a nearly empty warehouse while he looks for a buyer nonsensical. Especially after the twist. What would’ve happened if she had lost it? Unfortunately for society in general, it’s responsible, well-adjusted Matt who cuts himself on the surprise blade after a stoned Riley solves the puzzle and passes out in a park. He’s taken by the pain-loving demon angels and by the time she wakes up, he’s gone. Surprisingly, no one suspects Riley of killing her brother in a drug-fuelled psychotic break or something.
Since she knows Matt’s wasn’t a normal disappearance, Riley gets Trevor to help her look for the previous owner of the box. They find the person who put the puzzle in the warehouse, Serena, who’s dying of cancer in a hospital. She was also the one who acquired the box for Voight and locked her boss’s mansion after he mysteriously disappeared years ago (which of course means he’s totally alive and will show up at some point). During their conversation, Serena makes some warnings and ends up cutting herself on the puzzle box. This leads Riley to… leave without seeing what happens. Wait, what? Why wouldn’t she want to stay and find out what happened to her brother? Well, she doesn’t, and by the time the new Cenobites led by the new Pinhead show up to claim their victim, she and Trevor are long gone. The new Cenobites look more grotesque, a little too grotesque maybe. Their body modifications are so extreme that they seem fake. It’s like they’re made of plastic. Skinless, gooey Frank managed to look better in 1987.
Despite the failed encounter with Serena, Riley doesn’t give up and after some googling and pointless arguing, she, Trevor, Colin, and Nora all end up at Voight’s supposedly empty mansion. Who also shows up at the mansion? The Cenobites. Their presence means that the vanilla foursome won’t be able to leave when a murderous, predictably alive Voight turns out to be hiding inside the walls. He actually managed to solve the puzzle 6 years ago and got his wish, only it didn’t work out like he’d hoped and he ended up with some weird, clockwork mechanism stuck in his open chest that curls strands of flesh at random intervals. One, it looks terrible, two, why would he have survived Leviathan’s sexy gift when that usually leads to the recipient being torn apart by chains? Also, all that research and he expected something normal? Seriously? Idiot. Anyway, now he’s trying to solve the puzzle again to fix it. Of course, this means stabbing people with it, which makes exploring secret passages in a strange house an even worse idea than usual. This doesn’t stop Nora, though, and leads to an attempted escape to take her to the nearest hospital. It doesn’t work and Nora gets whisked away to the Cenobite dimension. By the way, the Nora/New Pinhead interaction is probably the most Cenobite-y moment in the whole movie. Even though it was Voight who stabbed her, Nora counts as a sacrifice for Riley, too. The amount of outs is insane and just keeps growing. So, in addition to Riley not even having to kill someone herself, Cenobites count as acceptable sacrifices, too. Not that the Chatterer minds being torn apart by chains. Well, at least when they’re being stabbed, they’re not running, which is something Cenobites should never, ever do. Really, it looks ridiculous. The movie naturally saves Riley the anguish of having to choose between Trevor and Colin or even, gasp!, sacrifice herself (really, why didn’t she try doing that?), by revealing her not quite boyfriend as being in league with Voight. This is so dumb. If Trevor wanted someone to solve the puzzle for him why not find some puzzle aficionados? Why involve a mess like Riley? Was she a puzzle solving champion before she succumbed to drug addiction or something? Then again, Voight’s victim from the beginning seemed pretty random, too. The evil billionaire does give Riley an important piece of advice: the Cenobites only give pain and they will trick her.
Anyway, with the final configuration achieved, it’s time for Riley to have her wish… and for Voight to put his devious plan in motion. Turns out the weird structure around the mansion is a cage to trap the Cenobites and force Leviathan to reverse his previous gift. Well, that was a nice twist. However, instead of being mad, the Cenobites and their god are impressed and decide to turn him into one of them. Oh, so he’s Frank and Channard. They drag both Voight and Trevor into their realm, and it’s time for Riley to pick her wish. Naturally, after everything she’s seen, she’s not eager to accept their gifts. Instead, she decides to let Matt go and accept reality, leaving things as they are. According to New Pinhead, this is the infamous cubic Lament Configuration. This means that an even more depressed Riley and Colin can finally go home. The movie leaves the audience with Voight’s transformation, which involves some very unrealistic looking body modifications. Really, why does it all look so bad? Even though Voight had shown zero indication of enjoying pain up until then, he doesn’t seem to have a problem with all the cutting. It’s a weird ending, and that’s not a compliment.
Much has been said about the new Pinhead, but the truth is that, despite the pins, neither one looks like Clive Barker’s original description in Hellbound Heart.
Its voice, unlike that of his companion, was light and breathy – the voice of an excited girl. Every inch of its head had been tattooed with an intricate grid, and at every intersection of horizontal and vertical axes a jewelled pin driven through to the bone. Its tongue was similarly decorated.
Of course, that Pinhead isn’t even the leader. And it’s a woman Cenobite who takes Frank after they heighten his senses in a scene that presents the kind of sexualized weirdness that’s sorely lacking in this remake.
Not it he now saw, but she. The hood it had worn had been discarded, as had the robes. The woman beneath was grey yet gleaming, her lips bloody, her legs parted so that the elaborate sacrification of her pubis was displayed. She sat on a pile of rotting human heads, and smiled in welcome.
The collision of sensuality and death appalled him. Could he have any doubt that she had personally dispatched these victims? Their rot was beneath her nails, and their tongues – twenty or more – laid out in ranks on her oiled thighs, as if awaiting entrance.
It’s a shame that the movie decided to play it safe because there was enough material available for the filmmakers to do something other than go over what had already been done. Instead, these Cenobites are closer to ordinary horror villains than the kinky demon angels they’re supposed to be. This is probably why, whenever the movie tries to bring out the freakiness, it just feels fake.
VERDICT
Hellraiser (2022) has the chains, the blood, and the weird looking antagonists, but it all feels superficial. None of the new characters gets close to pervy Frank and murderous, repressed ice queen Julia. We don’t get a Channard, reveling in his transformation, either. Voight had potential, but unfortunately, the movie chose to focus on Riley and her friends, who are as vanilla as can be. They could’ve been in any other horror movie, and they would’ve been exactly the same. And if you’re expecting anything as quotable as the tears line or the wonderful sights one (which gets repeated in the end), forget it. There are no memorable characters, moments, or dialogue. The Hellraiser world is an unconventional one, and this latest offering never got there. It’s like an empty shell – it lacks soul.