This article includes mentions of suicide.
When Clive Barker’s masterpiece Hellraiser arriving in 1987, it changed everything for horror fans. His sadomasochistic fantasy of androgynous demons was fiercely transgressive, distinctly queer and completely unique. Seven sequels later, however, it had become a generic teen slasher starring none other than Superman himself, Henry Cavill. In Hellraiser: Infernal Worldthe iconic Cenobites take a back seat to gamers partying at a house party that appears to have made Mr. Cavill and the critics seriously uncomfortable.
Barker’s original vision, crystallized in Hellraiser And Hell: Hellraiser IIwas a Faustian fable of jaded degenerates seeking extreme pleasures in other dimensions. On the other hand, the heroes of Hellraiser: Infernal World only look for random hookups at secret raves; fans hoping to meet Pinhead will be sorely disappointed. However, die-hard Henry Cavill fans may enjoy seeing the uncompromising superhero play a sex addict in this mind-blowing film with a 0% Rotten Tomatoes rating.
Hellraiser: Hellworld wastes a wild place and several stars
In the original Hellraisera depraved hedonist solves a box of puzzles that summons the Cenobites, said to grant pleasures far beyond sex and drug addiction. These beings are well known to teenagers in 2005 Hellraiser: Infernal World; take a page of Wes Craven’s new nightmarethis story is about Hellraiser fans addicted to an MMORPG called Hellworld. This addictive game drove a young man to suicide. His friends let off steam at an exclusive Hellworld-themed party. Unfortunately, any potential for meta-commentary is wasted in what is mostly a standard slasher film.
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Clive Barker on the big screen |
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The ensemble cast includes The Vikings Katheryn Winnick, The Walking Dead Khary Payton, and of course, the DCU’s Henry Cavill, who often looks like he’s wishing Superman would save him from what is mostly a slow-motion stream of sex scenes. As Cavill told the Happy Sad Confused podcastIt’s really not his thing. He said:
I can’t understand the sex scenes, it’s just something I don’t understand! …[Sometimes they] can really help with storytelling, but a lot of the time the human imagination is going to win out, and so I think it can be a bit of a cop-out if a TV show or movie is just full of spinning bodies.
In Hellraiser: Infernal Worldspinning bodies fill the Leviathan House, built by the architect of the famous puzzle box. The mysterious party host (Lance Henriksen) insists that Hellraiser is a horrible work of non-fiction. The inevitable killing spree features rare glimpses of Cenobites throwing blades and zingers like regular slashers; Meanwhile, the protagonists play by Freddy Krueger’s rules, telling themselves that it’s all just a fear-driven illusion. This only makes sense after the film’s twist ends.
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This film was not originally developed for the Hellraiser franchise
Hellraiser: Infernal World is actually adapted from an unrelated short story called “Dark Can’t Breathe” by Joel Soisson. This helps explain the ending in which the host reveals that he is the father of the boy who killed himself, and that he has secretly given his son’s fickle friends a hallucinatory drug and whispered subliminal suggestions of attack cenobite. By the way, another of the three directors Rick Bota Hellraiser movies, Hellraiser: deaderalso began life as an unrelated spec script.
Hellraiser: Infernal World
screenwriter Carl V. Dupré also wrote the classic teen comedy
Detroit Rock City
.
To be completely fair to Bota, he acknowledged that overexposing the iconic Pinhead could drain his power.He discussed this challenge with Jo Blo in honest terms. He said:
It’s hard to create tension when everyone knows what’s lurking in the dark. The last of the sequels,
Line
so far has attempted to create some of the scares elsewhere. The viewer then feels cheated because he or she has not seen enough of Pinhead.
Hellraiser
enjoyed such success as a cult favorite; It was a difficult act to follow!
To date, the franchise includes ten films, and the 2022 reboot – which, while controversial for some fans, might be the only film after the first two faithful to Clive Barker’s original vision. Perhaps in the case of a story as powerful as Hellraiserexpansion tends to dilute its message rather than deepen it. Despite the series’ ups and downs, Pinhead proved to be highly addictive; If rumors of a reboot sequel come true, the fandom is sure to show up.
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Hellraiser: Infernal World
- Director
- Rick Bota
- Release date
- September 6, 2005
- Cast
- Doug Bradley, Katheryn Winnick, Lance Henriksen, Christopher Jacot
- Writers
- Clive Barker, Joel Soisson, Carl V. Dupré
- Runtime
- 91 minutes