If you’re a Hellraiser fan (in that you’ve seen all the other films) then this 2022 reboot is a huge treat. Yes, unfortunately there are no clear ties to the original film, so don’t expect any cameos. However, it takes the mythology the first film established and fleshes it out in ways the other nine sequels never attempted.
If you’re completely new to Hellraiser then this film is a good entry point. It does resemble a lot of other recent horrors but the characters, themes and imagery are original enough to make the film feel mostly fresh.
Riley (Odessa A’zion) and Trevor (Drew Starkey) raid an abandoned warehouse full of artifacts. The only treasure they retrieve is a strange puzzle box. Riley keeps it and plays with it. When friends of hers go missing and strange beings begin to appear, Riley, with the reluctant help of Trevor, investigates the origin and power of the box.
The Characters
Hellraiser’s cast is that of a standard horror. You have a female protagonist, her boyfriend, her brother, their circle of friends and a handful of supporting characters they either approach or encounter as they investigate the antagonism.
Making the main character an addict isn’t really an inspired choice in the horror genre, look at Doctor Sleep and 2013’s Evil Dead. In Hellraiser however it makes a lot of sense considering the series’ theme of hedonism and the threshold between pain and pleasure.
The characters aren’t badly written, some are actually quite interesting. They’re mostly just vehicles with a few empathetic traits that navigate us through the plot.
For example, your heart won’t break for Riley and her struggles but you will feel her frustration. The film does a good job of showing how her addiction has aliened her from her loved ones. Her brother Matt (Brandon Flynn) is very critical of her, constantly questioning her whenever she leaves the apartment. No one trusts her, when her friends start disappearing her remaining friends assume she’s involved. You do feel for her in these moments. In my opinion she’s more interesting to watch than Kirsty Cotton is in the original.
The Horror
The Hellraiser series has always been more disturbing and unsettling than straight-out scary. The 2022 film is no exception. There’re no jump scares but there’s a lot of body horror and atmosphere. It’s not as gory as the previous films but it does a good job of reintroducing some Hellraiser iconography i.e. hooks and chains, ghostly hallways, people with no skin.
One thing this Hellraiser has that was clearly lacking in the previous films is a budget. Everything the original film tried to do with its limited resources and technology, the 2022 film perfects. The scenes with the hallways appearing for example, emerging and transforming from the architecture of the room, look amazing. Not as artsy as the hospital scene in the original but more organic, like the door is bleeding into our reality, adding a bit more tension to the scenes.
The cenobites look wonderful. With their hardened pale skin and exposed flesh, they’re a lot more eerie and repulsive than their leather clad 80s’ counterparts. While certainly disgusting, when out at night, slowly approaching their victims, their designs do assist in generating the film’s atmosphere. They feel less like demons and more like deformed spirits from another dimension. Pinhead, or ‘The Hell Priest’ (Jamie Clayton) gets an amazing redesign. She of course has the classic needles planted all over her head but the bare tissue on her chest and arms, the strange widgets attached to her neck and her monotone, almost genderless voice result in a very distinct interpretation of the character.
There’s more to the Hellraiser mythology here than in the last ten films. It’s not just guy solves box, demons appear, guy gets ripped to shreds. We learn that the puzzle box can be used to summon a god that can grant several types of wish, examples being power, resurrection and salvation. To achieve this however the box must go undergo several configurations, requiring flesh to ‘feed’ on each time. With a lore this detailed you forget you’re watching a horror film, this Hellraiser feels a lot more like a dark fantasy, which is really refreshing.
It won’t make horror film history but in my mind, Hellraiser is like Cruella. Good horror reboots are just as rare as good Disney remakes and like Cruella, the fact that the film didn’t disappoint, where there were so many areas it could’ve, is impressive enough. I recommend it to fans and non-fans alike of Hellraiser, it’s a good watch for this Halloween season.
I give Hellraiser a solid 8 out of 10.
Duffhood 