Hi, I'm Torstein from Cinema Terror and what do you know, we have a new Hellraiser movie
on our hands!
Here's my review of the tenth movie in this franchise, Hellraiser: Judgment.
The Hellraiser franchise has had quite the rocky ride over the years.
Ever since the troubled fourth entry to the saga, Bloodline from 1996, the movies have
been made simply for Dimension to keep their rights to the franchise.
It's basically been movie after movie done on unrelated horror script with Pinhead popping
up in a few scenes so they could slap the Hellraiser name on it.
The last one, Hellraiser: Revelations came out in 2011 and wow was it a terrible one.
After that I thought there would be no other way for Pinhead to return unless they were
to reboot it the franchise, but I guess I was wrong.
Hellraiser: Judgment was originally supposed to come out last year, but after being delayed,
it finally was released on VOD platforms now on February 13th.
In Judgment we follow the two detectives and brothers Sean and David.
Sean, played by Damon Carney, is the older of the two and he is the cliche rough, alcoholic
type of cop.
The main story of the film revolves around him, while he and his partner are on the hunt
for a clever serial killer that they nickname The Preceptor.
And that's all I want to say about the plot of the film as its not easy to give a better
description without going into spoiler territory, which I will try to avoid here as this is
a fresh new film.
What I will say is that I found the story told here to be unengaging.
I did not care about any of the characters and found nearly all to be them to be dull.
The film basically has three parts to it.
One is with the detectives on the hunt for the serial killer, the second is the yellow
looking torture place where a new character named The Auditor is interviewing sinners
as the first act in them receiving their judgement for their evil deeds.
The third is a blueish one where Pinhead sits for most of the movie, only to be interrupted
a few times where he has to get up and actually do stuff.
I can appreciate the idea of the different color schemes and I am sure that some will
like the way it looks, but the found especially the on purpose ugly yellow look was just,
well... ugly.
It looked like something from ten years ago in the Saw / Hostile era.
It is a good example of the movie as a whole as there are ideas here, they are just not
executed good enough.
It also feels like they steered away from some obvious chances to get gory.
They have no trouble getting bloody in other places of the film, so I am gonna guess that
the budget just did not stretch for complicated gore effects.
I will put some of the blame for this on Dimension Films, who are just not putting enough resources
behind these projects, making it hard for the filmmakers to make the story they are
telling come to life.
This is the Hellraiser world, it's not exactly something that can be done right on a shoestring
budget.
The guy who still wanted to take on this nearly impossible task was Gary J. Tunnicliffe.
He has been working on makeup and special effects for years and he has worked on the
Hellraiser franchise since the fourth one, Bloodline, so he is obviously attached to
the world of Pinhead.
He has also been vocal about his dismay of how Hellraiser: Revelations turned out, which
he is credited as a screenwriter on.
So Judgment was his opportunity to make things right.
He wrote the script, directed, did the special effects and also acts in it as The Auditor.
That's a lot of hats to fill and even if I didn't care much for the film, I gotta applaud
his drive to get this movie made.
Speaking of The Auditor character, he is the best part of
the film.
I enjoyed this new cenobite ish guy.
He is not just an evil demon, but has some characteristics to him.
I would actually have prefered it if this film was just about him instead of forcing
Pinhead into the mix.
And speaking of which, this time he is portrayed by actor Paul T. Taylor, the third in line
to play Pinhead after the iconic Doug Bradley played him in the first eight films before
leaving the role open for Stephan Smith Collins to step in on Hellraiser: Revelations.
The change of actor for Pinhead got a lot of criticism of the fans as they would rather
have them focus on other cenobites instead of giving us a different Pinhead.
It didn't help that Collins didn't come close to looking or feeling like the same Pinhead
that Bradley had given life to either.
When it comes to our new guy in Judgment, I will say that he looks more like Bradleys
Pinhead, although this version feels a bit more sarcastic and bored.
Not bored as in bored with the movie, but that Pinhead has grown tired of humans trying
to test him and disrespect his authority.
I did not mind this new Pinhead, although he was also underwhelming.
The voice was off a few times and I would again much more prefered to spend screen time
with the new character The Auditor.
There are also some small cameos with filmmaker John Gulager showing up as an uncreative weird
disgusting guy called The Assesor and Heather Langenkamp from Nightmare on Elm Street fame
has a cameo that you will miss if you look away for the few seconds she is on screen.
While I did not care much for Hellraiser: Judgment, I will say that I would not be surprised
if die-hard Hellraiser fans find this to be an improvement over the later entries.
They do attempt to do something with the original mythology and while I didn't care much for
it, at least it feels connected to Hellraiser and for that alone it will spark some interest
from the fans.
Hellraiser: Judgment is not a good film and I doubt it will do much for the franchise,
except keep it in Dimension Films hans for some more years.
By this point I would much rather see a remake of the franchise instead of a continuation
of these low budget Dimension movies.
There are some stuff to find interesting in Judgment, but it is not enough to warrant
a good score for the film.
Hellraiser: Judgment only gets a 1.5 out of 5.
Have you seen Hellraiser: Judgment yet or have you given up on the franchise by this
point?
Do you want more of these films, a remake or just for them to let Pinhead rest and go
on to enjoy his participation in comic books instead?
Let me know about it in the comment section below, and if you enjoyed this review then
there are plenty more to be found on my channel.
Thank you for watching.
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