A Way-Too-Early Halloween at Shangrila Towers, Part 2 - Hellraiser Trilogy retrospective

Spooky Season seems to come around sooner and sooner each year, and I am leaning into the madness with a series of Halloween-themed blog posts well in advance of the big night. 

In the run-up to Halloween Horror Nights, I decided to bone up on the media that the HHN houses were based on: I listened to some Ozzy Osbourne, watched Evil Dead Burn, and rewatched the first three Hellraiser movies (sorta - the third one wasn't readily available and isn't very good, see below)...

Hellraiser

Hellraiser's creator, Clive Barker, is one of the greatest horror writers of all time, and he also did a fine job directing the first entry in the long-running series:

Coming in at a lean 93 minutes, Hellraiser is the most focused and grounded of the movies. The plot centers around the Cotton family, including the perverted Frank, his wicked sister-in-law/lover Julia, and the final girl, Kirsty. While the film has a pretty loose plot, its visual design, especially that of the Cenobites, holds up well - even in a sea of '80s slasher villains, the iconic Hell Priest (a/k/a "Pinhead," a nickname Barker hates) stands out, although the real monsters of the story are the black-hearted human antagonists.

Rating: 8/10

Hellbound: Hellraiser II

The first sequel, and the last "good" Hellraiser movie, has a lot of similarities with A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors: a mental hospital setting, expanded lore, and a new deuteragonist that the original final girl assists.

The plot (never a strong point in the Hellraiser series) gets even messier here.  The second half of the movie sees the characters wander a dreamlike maze featuring all manner of barely connected vignettes, including a brief battle between the Cenobites and the true villain of the movie. The oddity wears a little thin after awhile, but if you want strange, unforgettable images, Hellrasier II delivers.

Rating: 7/10

Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth

This is the first of the movies filmed outside the UK, and it waters down the concept into something almost unrecognizable. I guess the mandate was to turn Pinhead into the next Jason or Freddy, because in this one, he starts to murder people indiscriminately.  Combine that with more comic creature design (the infamous CD Cenobite) and you have the beginning of a long, slow decline in quality.

Rating: 5/10