The 326th review!
What's nice about today is Notre Dame is on a bye so I don't have to wonder why Brian Kelly hasn't been fired yet. Well, I'll ponder that anyway, but at least I won't have my blood pressure raised watching the offensive line give up a million sacks. Instead, let's discuss...
Hellraiser: Revelations (2011)
This movie... I really had no desire to jump into any of the sequels past number two. The first one was really good and I liked the second one quite a bit. But it's easy to see that they go off the rails pretty quick after that. I love Doug Bradley as Pinhead and acknowledge he's an important figure in horror, I just didn't care to see any of the new ones, but then I read about Revelations.
So, Dimension Films realized they were about to lose the rights to the franchise so they went into the two minute offense to bang one out as quickly as possible. To say this movie was rushed is an understatement. The entire production took three weeks because time was running very short. It was so rushed there was no second draft of the script! They literally took the "sloppy copy" and then 11 days to shoot the whole thing. They approached Bradley to reprise his iconic role but declined when he found out there would be no second draft. After reading all that, I HAD to watch it.
So two affluent young men, Nico and Steven, decide they're going to run away from home and make a go of it in Tijuana, Mexico. After a lot of drinking and an accidental death, they meet a vagrant. Not only does he know who they are, he strongly implies he knows that Nico may or may not have murdered someone. But the important thing is he gave Nico an ornate puzzle box. Next, the annoying little shit opens the box, summoning the Cenobytes who take him away.
We fast forward in time and the families are grieving in their own way. They have gatherings every so often where they have a big dinner, drink wine and ignore the fact they have no closure outside of the boys' video camera that documents their drunken shenanigans and Pinhead's appearance. Things start getting weird though when out of the blue, Steven shows back up at his home.
That's the best I can describe the plot. There's more going on and I'm leaving out a lot. Not because I don't want to spoil it, but because there's too much to explain and the whole thing is incredibly convoluted. With that said, the idea is interesting and if it were executed better and not just a warp speed production, it could have been average to passable. It's funny because it's one of the few sequels that was designed to be a Hellraiser movie from the beginning. A lot of them involved the production company taking an already-made script and slapping a fresh batch of Pinhead paint on it and putting Hellraiser in the title.
The production isn't the only problem, the characters are nothing special and Nico is obnoxious from the jump. They introduce a lot of family melodrama that I really didn't care about and Steven's little sister Emma is a trip. She was Nico's girlfriend when they took off and is all over the place. Out of nowhere she starts seducing Nico's dad, then she starts making out with her brother, who doesn't end up being her brother, it's weird. Then when the Cenobytes show up, Pinhead looks at her and pretty much says, "You a freak, girl! Keep the box because despite everything you've seen tonight, you're gonna call me in the future. HMU!"
The ending keeps throwing twists at you and some really bad overacting that borders on silent film expressions. Steven gets a hold of a gun and spends the entire rest of the movie yelling bad dialogue delivered in the cringiest possible way. I could go on and give you a play by play on everything wrong with the end like Steven's dad really dumb ass decision, but let me talk about the dumbest thing about the ending, and it happens right before we go to black.
Everyone has been wiped out, some more brutal than the others. Emma sees her brother, mutilated beyond recognition tear out Nico's mom's throat with chains and then they take her mother for a literal eternity of torture and pain. She sees all this happening right in front of her too. When the Cenobytes leave she curls up with her dying father. When he passes she reaches across the table and grabs hold of the puzzle box. Before we get the credits, she gives a seductive look to the camera. This movie is stupid as hell, but at least it's short.
3 Dr. Chainsaws!
Hellraiser: Revelations
1 h 15 min
2011
Rated R
Directors: Víctor García
Starring: Fred Tatasciore, Tracey Fairaway, Daniel Buran
Supporting actors: Jolene Andersen, Sanny van Heteren, Adel Marie Ruiz
Producers: Aaron Ockman, Joel Soisson
Studio: Lionsgate
A pair of buddies on a mission to get laid over spring break unwitting release the demon Pinhead who creates havoc. This is the ninth film in the horror franchise.
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