Hi, Hive. As a high school student I was seriously into horror books - I read Stephen King, Dean Koontz and, of course, Clive Barker, whose stories intertwined sexuality and fear in an absolutely incredible way. I was especially impressed by the Hellraiser adaptation, and the image of the hayseed Pinhead, played brilliantly by the British actor Douglas Bradley.
Unfortunately, the series of films from the 4th part onwards began to seriously lose quality (and I think the 5th film, which was quite good on DVD, should have been stopped), so films 6 to 9 caused a great deal of pain and suffering. About the 10th film it is better to keep silent and I don't recommend this disgrace, like an amateur theatrical production.
When I found out that the streaming service HULU was going to relaunch it, I naturally prepared myself for the best, especially because the director was the trendy horror-maker David Bruckner, the author of a very good folk-horror The Ritual, and after watching it, I confess that I was pleased with it.
At least Hellraiser is like a big movie again!
So, the film revolves around a girl named Riley (Odessa A'zion) struggling with addiction and living with her brother (Drew Starkey). One day her boyfriend (Brandon Flynn), whom she meets at a support group, suggests she steal something stored in a safe he has access to and to the disappointment of both of them - it contains not gold or valuable papers, but a puzzle box.
The girl solves the puzzle and releases the cenobite demons and, to avoid ending up in hell, she needs to offer another victim instead. That person happens to be her brother. Tormented by guilt, the girl and her friends try to solve the mystery of the box and save her brother, which leads them to the eerie mansion of a reclusive occultist who disappeared years ago under mysterious circumstances.
The story turned out very well and perhaps the only complaint about the plot is that in terms of structure the film turned out to be a regular teenage slasher. That is, a group of young people are killed off one by one by demons, but even here Bruckner has set the accents correctly and the cenobites do not look like ordinary maniacs. According to their logic, they bring people gifts and new sensations, so they don't rush anywhere and follow the rules unquestioningly, which corresponds to the tradition of the first films.
The same is true of the demons themselves - their gifts-curses, as before, are able to frighten the unprepared viewer (the scene with the wire is just a nightmare), and the appearance is literally mesmerizing. Terrifying and beautiful at the same time. And Pinhead, now played by trans persona Jamie Clayton (Sense8) is damn good! Even more androgynous than Douglas Bradley in the first films, with an interesting manner of speech and equally impressive plasticity. Of course, I will be very happy to see Jamie in the sequels of this movie.
Yes, it's not a perfect reboot, and in many ways it's a far cry from the first dilogy, but overall the film looks good and even disguised as a family drama, the story of the Hell Box makes a great impression.
Posted using CineTV