Since Clive Barker's 1987 film first introduced the world to Pinhead, the concept of leather, latex, and pain as a source of sexual pleasure has become more common. The new Hellraiser feels tailor-made for our current era of sex positivity and anxieties over how people relate to sex because of its many narrative updates.
There is a lot to like about Hellraiser, particularly for those who are interested in testing their limits with art. Hellraiser sometimes becomes too potent of a grotesquerie in its efforts to be as beautiful as it is.
The story of a young woman named Riley who inadvertently releases chaos and pain into the lives of the people she loves most is the main plot point of Hellraiser. As Hellraiser opens, Riley, her brother Matt, and their friends can't begin to comprehend what the new Lament Configuration has to offer. In an early scene that takes away some of their mystique, the movie presumes that it's all familiar enough to warrant a brief glimpse at the next generation of censors.
Hellraiser starts on a surprisingly chaste and almost prudish note as it tells the story of a group of young people being attacked by a group of people. Riley met her boyfriend at a 12-step program. Matt's sister and her boyfriend have no problem with him having sex in his apartment while he and his boyfriend are entertaining guests.
In the original Hellraiser and The Hellbound Heart, people's sexualities and deep-seated desires were big parts of the animating energy. There is a lack of eroticism outside of a sex scene between Riley andTrevor that shows how unreceptive she is to his midthrust declarations of love. The new Hellraiser doesn't have simmering sexual tensions that bubble over into madness, but it does have a fraught relationship between Riley and Matt.
Hellraiser is not all that interesting because it establishes its hero as a woman who can't get past her demons. After Riley andTrevor broke into a storage container in search of valuables to fence, they found a small golden box that made them feel uneasy.
Once the box has gone through its initial transformation and summoned the first of many new Cenobites that Hellraiser really starts coming alive and demonstrating how the 11th iteration in a horror franchise can make you sit up, in moments, it is time to see the movie. If you've seen a Hellraiser movie, you'll know how the Cenobites like to get down, and each of the new movie's gruesome murder scenes will strike you as a return to the franchise's roots
The Chatterer, The Weeper, The Gasp, The Asphyx, and The Mother are new Cenobites. The information about the Cenobites that the concept designer, Josh and Sierra Russell, put into each character's unique body is more than enough to make up for the lack of a script.
The Pinhead, the Hell Priest, is truly a sight to behold and a brilliantly elegant remake of the classic demon, with an ensemble fashioned more out of the absence of flesh than just scarification and skin-tight material. Pinhead is dropped into just enough key moments to allow her to sing without being too nervous.
As captivating as Pinhead and the other Cenobites are, it is still a mediocre movie as it draws to a close. Hellraiser's firing on enough cylinders to be exactly the sort of gore-fest that people are wont to watch as we roll into spooky season is appealing to different people. For people who just aren't into torture porn as entertainment, Hellraiser should be avoided.
The stars of Hellraiser are Hiam Abbass, Goran Vinji, and KitClarke. On October 7th, the film will be available on the streaming service.
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