So I watched the new Hellraiser movie last night, was probably a bit too drunk as immediately afterward i began writing a review here on TE and subsequently deleted the post by accident after a fairly lengthy alcohol iduced ramble on the Hellraiser series as a whole.

This morning i gave the film another go, sober, and may as well give the review another go. ***contains spoilers for Hellraiser Judgement & other films from the franchise***

I love me some Hellriaser. The movies, the stories, the comics, the art, everything. I mention this so you have an idea of bias, or maybe more predisposition, in my writing about these films. I know the vast majority of them are bad, even terrible. I just don't care.

Anyway, we don't need a recap of the 9 films spanning 30 years leading up to this latest installment, everyone knows about Pinhead & co, but i'm gonna do a brief one all the same.

The Theatrical Years
Clive Barker adapts his own short story The Hellbound Heart into a movie, Hellraiser (1987). Given a decent amount of control for a first time director he delivers a twisted tale of lust, greed, obsession, madness and blood. And introduces us to the Cenobites.

Successful enough to spawn a sequel a year later we get Hellbound (1988), which is also well received. In '92 Pinhead becomes the focus of the franchise with Hell on Earth, one of the weaker entries with some needless backstory. Finally (as far as the cinematic releases go) Bloodline comes out in 96, part slasher in space, part origin story this movie is undeniably a mess (it has an Alan Smithee credit for director), but kinda entertaining nonetheless.

The DTV Years
After the relative disaster of HIV (ha!) the studio took to adapting original screenplays into Hellraiser flicks and blasting em out on video, mainly just so's Dimension could keep the rights.

Inferno (2000) is my favourite of the sequels, maybe the entire franchise. A psychological thriller in the vein of Angel Heart with Pinhead stuck on, or in, via a couple of cameos. There's also a Barker link as the film stars Nightbreed's own Craig Sheffer

Next up comes Hellseeker (2002), basically a poor repeat of the previous movie that brings Ashley Laurence back and heralds the start of the Rick Bota era. in 2005 Bota made back to back 'Raisers with Deader (awful) and Hellword (Lance!)

The Wilderness Years
Much like Henriksen's Host, Hellworld buries the franchise and almost kills it off entirely. Many mooted reboots and sequels are rumoured, including Clive's return, or Pascal Laugier lending some French extremity to the nightmare realm of the Cenobites, but nothing surfaces.

Until 2011 & Revelations. Ugh. Even i found this hard to stomach, not just for the total lack of budget (not necassarily a bad thing) the shoddy script, clunky acting, all this could be overlooked, but the betrayal of Doug Bradley was the straw that broke this donkey.

Englund is Freddy, Hodder is Jason, Bradley is Pinhead. Simple. Apparently not, the story goes 'they' refuses to let Doug read the script before signing on, and he was worried (correctly as it turns out) the new film might further tarnish an already battered series. One thing I will say about Revs is that it at least tries to be faithful to the original Hellraiser movie and universe, which is the least you'd expect when it's the first one written specifically to be a H movie since 1996.

Anyway, sorry that was meant to be brief, did ok for the first eight...

Hellraiser Judgement 2018
We open with Pinhead and what I presume to be The Auditor, a Cenobite or just Pinheads lackey, chatting about how to lure human souls in for the torturing. They flipping love that stuff.
This leads us to the Ludivico house of interrogation - immediately warning bells go off. Is writer/director/star Gary J Tunnicliffe suggesting I may have to clamp open my eyelids to endure the next 80mins? Surely this is better than Revelations, which he also wrote. And, thankfully, it is.

The Auditor presides over a sort of courthouse where he type up victim's confessions. These are then fed to a fat dude, who pukes up some blood into a funnel which syphons through to three topless top heavy blood honeys who deliver a verdict. Usually guilty is the impression that i get.

After which the victims are 'cleansed' then killed horrifically by a surgeon, or butcher, or both i dunno. The Jury (for that is what the semi nekkid ladies are) reminded me of Odd Nerdum's painting 'Dawn', which is pretty cool and was also referenced in another horror movie, Tarsem's The Cell. Fun fact: David Bowie owned the original painting.


All this is the ten min intro to the main story, a cop/serial killer one that we've all seen before. Once in this very franchise... Dude Bro Dets Carter & Carter, along with Token Lady Det Edgerton, are hunting for the Preceptor a violent serial killer who's murders have ritualistic elements.

We get a one scene cameo from Nancy, plenty of blood thrown around & some strange expansion of the Pinhead mythos with the introduction of Jophiel, who may be a fallen angel, or may not.

Meanwhile The Sheff is still chasing the Engineer (wrong one) Ahem. Meanwhile Dets Carters & Edgerton are still chasing the Prolapser and the religious Carter Jr is developing some nasty nightmares, where's this going? Yeah, there.

The finale sees some old friends return (flying chains, Jesus weeping) and a silly twist to presumably, er, justify the title.

Ultimately i enjoyed this 10th installment to the canon, but then i more or less like the other 9 too, making my opinion redundant and your reading this a waste of time...