HELL ON EARTH (1992)

The avante garde, hedonism, and art noir encapsulated in a pretty hate machine of a movie. The two female leads, Terri and Jamie become buddies, and roommates starting the movie off in a friendly and unassuming manner. The first death is terrific, as Pinhead, trapped in a statue after part 2, comes to life again, revived by blood, passion, and betrayal.

The story is decent enough, but things might have been better if the cenobites from Part 2 were in part 3 rather then the silly new ones the writers thought up. CD man, camerahead, bartender, they were pretty silly and not at all scary. The primal genius of The Chatterer, or the carefully delivered lines of Barbie, and the silent smugness of Butterball were far more satisfying in my mind. Sadly this movie makes the same mistake Nightmare on Elm Street made with part 4. Replacing esoteric and philosophical depth and lore, with superficial one-liners. Basically the writing gets dumbed down, and the integrity of the franchise suffers. This occurs because the creator is trying to kill the franchise so he can move onto something different.

I do not understand why some people think this movie is better then part 2, they are greatly mistaken. Part 1 and 2 are true to the nature of the films. Built upon layers of esoterica and occult, part 3 lapses into stupidity and levity, while part 4 returns to the story in the future, redeeming itself by ways of a more heady storyline, while bringing a resolution. In the end that became a red herring of an ending. I have yet to see parts 5 and up so I cannot review their merit at this time, alot of people think part 4 was worthless and a terrible hellraiser film, I disagree. It was simply not as dark. While the other films are deeply steeped in depravity, surrealism, and archetypal madness, part 4, Bloodline brings in an expansive quality never seen before in the Hellraiser series, at least not beyond the physical wherewithall of Ashley Laurence. This time we have a movie about the ingenium of man and the success of redemption through will. It is still garbed in the esoteric, but finally is ascendent, the flipside of the other movies, to me that is not a bad thing, it is the other side of the coin. The Sun card to the Death card of the Tarot if you will.

Trivia: Who plays the man walking his small black poodle outside the Pyramid Gallery?