Aaaaand, there it is… I didn’t expect my love affair with the Hellraiser series to last through all 11 films, but even still I’m disappointed in how this movie let me down.
I have been pleasantly surprised by my enjoyment of the Hellraiser series so far, and, even five installments in, I have found merit in all of the movies to some extent. However, I have not harbored any illusions that I would make it to the end of the line feeling the same way. Hellseeker, the sixth entry into the series, is the first Hellraiser film that I completely disliked. While I expected this moment to come, I had an idea in my mind what it might look like. I imagined the decline to resemble some sort of cross between Hellraiser III, the weakest entry of the first five, and A Nightmare On Elm Street Part 6. That imaginary cocktail would feature shoddy production values, a goofy, nonsensical script, and an overreliance on an increasingly corny franchise mascot (Pinhead in this case), but it would not be boring. What we actually got with Hellraiser VI was soooo BOOOORIIIING! In fact, it was sort of the opposite of what I envisioned. Production was cheap, sure, but the script was written in such a way that it didn’t demand any production value, so you even miss out on the fun of seeing fantastical things done poorly. Instead of goofy and nonsensical, the script was actually deadly serious and while it makes some significant unforced errors, there was nothing cheeky about it in a “so bad its good” type of way. Finally, instead of piling more and more on the franchise’s most recognizable villain, Hellseeker barely uses Pinhead, or any of the Cenobites, at all.
In my positive review of Hellraiser V, I wrote: “I hope it does not signal a new direction for the franchise. This feels like a one-off genre experiment, not the beginning of a sustainable storyline.” While Hellseeker does not in fact carry on the story that was introduced in the previous installment, it very much feels like a continuation of the style. Perhaps not as much film noir, but there is definitely a hard-boiled feel and a protagonist who is a fundamentally bad guy that is struggling to come to grips with reality and the dark, supernatural turns that it is taking. The police are after him as a suspect for some grisly murders, despite the fact that he doesn’t recall murdering anyone. I have no doubt that the influence of Inferno played heavily into the production process for this film. And, again, I liked Inferno pretty well, but I had no desire to revisit it any time soon, much less an inferior retread. One of the central problems of the Hellraiser franchise is that it seems to be fixated on the character archetype of Frank, one of the main antagonists of the first two films, despite the fact that his partner-in-sin, Julia, is the far more interesting character. Each subsequent movie (excepting IV, perhaps) has had a Frank type in the primary role, and at this point in the series’ run it is a pretty dull choice. Guess what? He turns out to be a shithead, and Pinhead is tormenting him for his shitheadedness. It is something we’ve seen multiple times before, without the distraction of Clive Barker’s brand of crazy to keep us invested.
If I can give any credit to this film, its that the ending is at least interesting and somewhat unpredictable. The problem is that the pacing up to that point is glacial, and the limited budget basically eliminates any chance for cool new creature designs or elaborate set pieces. Would you believe that everybody in this movie keeps their skin on the whole time?! It’s downright sacrilegious!* I am of two minds going forward in this series. On one hand, the movies are not remotely serialized at this point, which opens up the door for a fresh team to come in and do something fun again with the franchise. So, maybe there will be a rebound at some point? On the other hand, I have a bad feeling that this may have turned into the default mode for the final films of the series, and I’m in for four more dour, unimaginative riffs on the same type of middle aged white jerk getting his comeuppance until I finally get to tackle the recent reboot of the first movie. Time will tell, I suppose, but I’m too far in to hit the eject button now, no matter what direction it goes.
* Er, inverse-sacrilegious, maybe. It’s downright not sacrilegious, which is a bad look for the Hellraiser series.
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