Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1988)

 

Released just one year after HELLRAISER, HELLBOUND continues right where the first movie left off, and even includes a digest version of the final scene of the first movie in case you completely forgot what happened in that, or maybe just randomly decided to see this horror sequel and need to know what happened during the last 10 minutes of the first movie but absolutely nothing before that.

HELLBOUND is an entertaining movie but an underwhelming sequel.

It is entertaining because of how imaginative it is; with a few changes here and there, it would make for an excellent fantasy adventure film.  You could say it's an ultra-violent and sadomasochistic version of THE GOONIES (1985)—or, perhaps more appropriately, RETURN TO OZ (1985) due it focusing on a young girl who is wrongly kept in a mental institution and has the ability to travel to a fantasy world.

It is an underwhelming sequel because, although it is a direct continuation of the story, it is a typical horror sequel that attempts to add unnecessary backstory to characters and situations that were wisely left vague in the first movie.  HELLBOUND therefore explains in some detail from where the Cenobites come and what they were before they became Cenobites.  The first movie presented the Cenobites as completely alien beings, so I expected them to hail from a similarly alien reality.  Much of the second half of the movie takes place in this reality, and while the atmosphere and effects are both excellent, it's a bit of a letdown to find out that these explorers of human experience who are beyond pain and pleasure live in a spooky scary maze where you are confronted with your worst fears.

Having said all that, this is very fun movie.  The effects are just as good if not better than those in the first movie, but the higher budget means that everything is of a much larger scope.  The acting is all around better as is the pacing, suggesting that having Tony Randel replace Clive Barker in the director's chair was a good idea (Barker is credited with the story only for this one).

There is, however, one major problem with this movie and that's the script.  A lot of the dialog is poor, and it only gets worse when a new Cenobite is introduced toward the end of the movie.  Spitting out one-liners like some kind of lame doctor version of Freddy Krueger, this guy is awful.  He's also got a ridiculous design as he's tethered to the Cenobite realm with a tentacle attached to the top of his head... I was hoping for a scene where the heroines escape by running just out of reach of his tether.  Sadly, that doesn't happen, though the way he is killed is pretty awesome.

This suggests that HELLBOUND was an attempt to go mainstream and get some of those Freddy bucks, which is a shame.  This would only get worse (much worse) as the series continued.  But that is a story for another day.

Hellraiser (1987)

A sweaty, sweaty man sits in a room, playing with a tiny box.  He seems to be struggling, but suddenly his thumb catches some hidden switch and the box begins opening on its own.  However, instead of G. I. Joe action figures and candy, this box is full of spiky chains that shoot out and embed themselves in the man's flesh, pulling and eventually tearing him apart.

Hell having been raised, we are transported into another movie as a married couple step into their new house.  Who was that guy with the box?  What connection does he have with the married couple?  It is a mystery to this day.

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HELLRAISER is a great low-budget shocker with a fascinating concept and some of the best gooey effects ever put to screen.  The box, it turns out, is a sort of key to an alternate dimension that is home to the Cenobites, sadomasochistic beings who have explored the peaks and valleys of ecstasy and agony so thoroughly that concepts such as pleasure and pain no longer apply to them (they still have no problem with exploding your head though).

The story focuses on a man (Larry), his daughter (Kirsty), his evil scumbag second wife (Julia), and his evil scumbag brother (Frank).  Julia and Frank have a history together, and it turns out that Frank was the guy from the intro that got torn into bits... he still survives, to some extent, as a quivering sack of meat under the floorboards in the attic, and when Larry mistakenly bleeds on the floor like a total buffoon, it sets in motion Frank's resurrection.

The rest of the movie involves Julia seducing and killing men so that Frank can drink their blood and slowly regenerate his muscles, flesh, etc.  I have a major problem with this premise as Julia is depicted as some sort of seductive vixen, but in reality she's sort of a frumpy middle-aged lady that you'd expect to see doing some weeding in her garden, and definitely not seducing men at the local bar.  Her poofy 80s haircut doesn't help matters, although I suppose back then it was irresistibly sexy.

The HELLRAISER series would go on to focus more and more on the Cenobites, specifically their leader "Pinhead" (he's the one with pins in his head).  In this movie, they are just a menacing presence lurking in the background and are better off for it.  They're played here as completely disinterested in what they do, almost bureaucratic, and it is actually quite a chilling contrast with the typical maniacal killing machines (Jason from the FRIDAY THE 13TH series or Michael Myers from the HALLOWEEN series) that were popular at the time in horror movies.

The movie itself is well-paced and a bit of a special effects tour-de-force.  It is not without its problems though.  The quality of the acting outside of Claire Higgins (Julia), Andrew Robinson (Larry), and Doug Bradley (Pinhead) is uniformly awful.  Sean Chapman (Frank) and Ashley Laurence (Kirsty) are MUCH better in the movie's sequel, so I suspect that this was an issue with the direction on the part of writer/director Clive Barker.  A second problem is the overall structure, which feels episode with a rushed ending, as though no one involved had any idea how to make this awesome concept into an actual story.

However, these are minor complaints as the movie works perfectly fine as a "nightmare captured on film" akin to THE BEYOND (1981), SUSPIRIA, or the entire PHANTASM series.  Highly recommended!