the leading man is my tpye

The Worst Film Ever

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

The third movie in the "Hellraiser" franchise got mostly bad reviews from the fans, but I think this is totally undeserved. It is different from the first two, but not the worse. What's more, to me it's better than the first one. The story is more complex and rounded, effects are better, there are several really memorable scenes, and Pinhead got a bigger portion of the screen-time than in the past, which allowed Doug Bradley to shine. The movie, of course, has its drawbacks, such as a meaningless slaughter in the nightclub, that conflicts with the rules set in the previous films, but I think that on the beam scale quality side heavily outweighs the one with flaws.7,5/10

"Hellraiser III: Hell On Earth" came out four years after "Hellraiser II: Hellbound" which is a bit strange considering that "Hellraiser 2" came out a year after the original was released. As a viewer, I'd be more skeptical of "Hellbound" when it came out considering the quick turn around, but with a four year gap between films, surely they've used that time wisely to craft a great story and film right? "Hell on Earth" picks up sometime after the events of the second film, when we are introduced to a young, swaggering asshole named J.P Monroe who purchases the "Pillar of Souls" that was briefly shown at the end of "Hellbound" from a random homeless man in an art gallery. Pinhead and the box are trapped within the pillar, and while as a piece of art, it's quite exquisite, it's not exactly something you'd really want in your living room.thanks to special effects by Bob Keen, who did everything from EVENT HORIZON to THE NEVERENDING STORY. For example, when Pinhead finally -- and expectedly -- becomes free to make people suffer horribly at J.P.'s club The Boiler Room, he slaughters the entire club, laughing himself silly while doing so. (At least the guy enjoys his work.) The effects here are excellent.Terry Farrell really shines as Joey. The role is a pretty standard nosey reporter just looking for that big scoop but for whom nothing ever works out. As clichéd as the character's setup is, somehow Farrell makes it work. She sounds sincere and thoroughly innocent, which obviously works nicely to contrast the pure evil.What really makes HELLRAISER III stand out is the sheer messed up nature of it all. The violence. The gore. The anarchy of death left in Pinhead's wake. That's shown in graphic detail when one of J.P's bimbos get her skin ripped off like a piece of meat. The music by Motörhead's "Hellraiser," written by rock gods Lemmy, Ozzy, and Zakk Wylde. That alone makes it all worthwhile.0

Of all the horror franchises to devolve into mindless slasher nonsense, I find the Hellraiser series to be the most depressing. Whereas there's only so much you can do with the simple set-ups of films like Halloween and Friday the 13th, there was something edgy and elegant about the first two Hellraiser films. While they were certainly as gory and titillating as their slasher counterparts, they had a little more going on under the surface, and were just as interested in their characters as they were in their violent set-pieces. This is mostly due to Clive Barker, the writer and director of the first Hellraiser, whose poetic and shocking horror novels remain benchmarks in the genre. Even starting from Hellraiser II, however, certain slasher tropes were starting to creep in, such as corny one-liners and gratuitous death scenes. Even so, they both never forgot their primary aim, which was to present a seriously disturbing horror film geared towards adults; even Hellraiser II doesn't showcase its few one-liners with winking irony. Starting with Hellraiser III, though, several things went horribly wrong: the studio began to meddle, Clive Barker found himself increasingly unwelcome as a creative consultant, the budgets grew smaller, and Pinhead became the primary antagonist of a series which increasingly lost its footing. It's difficult to say exactly where it all went wrong, but somehow the stars aligned to make a Hellraiser III so ludicrous that it seems to come from an entirely different planet than the first two.This entry, scripted by Barker's long-time friend Pete Atkins (also the screenwriter of Part II), finds Pinhead (again played by the brilliant Doug Bradley), still trapped in the Pillar of Souls after his battle with Dr. Channard. The Pillar is purchased by the gloriously reprehensible douche bag/club owner J.P. Monroe (Kevin Bernhardt), who soon discovers that he can free Pinhead by feeding him souls. Meanwhile reporter Joey Summerskill (Terry Farrell) stumbles onto the story of a lifetime when she witnesses a man torn apart in the E.R. by the power of the Lament Configuration (i.e. the box used to summon the Cenobites). Her investigation leads her to J.P.'s ex-girlfriend Terri (Paula Marshall), and the two try to figure out exactly what the hell is going on.It sounds okay on paper, but Hickox unintentionally turns it into a hilariously overwrought parody. Given Hickox's previous horror comedies such as Waxwork and Sundown: The Vampire in Retreat, I assumed this might be the intention, but Hickox insisted in interviews that he was attempting to make a serious psychological horror film in the vein of Jacob's Ladder or Angel Heart. Instead he directs his cast to deliver corny, unmistakably nineties dialogue in an alternately stilted or over-the-top fashion. Only Doug Bradley really escapes with his dignity intact (the man can make even the lousiest dialogue sound like Shakespeare), but I must admit I enjoyed Bernhardt's absurdly sleazy turn as J.P. He looks like the sleazy American cousin of Rupert Everett, and I love how transparent his attempts to sweet talk women into his bed/into Pinhead's stomach(?) are. Only those two really help to sell the ridiculous goings on. Our two female leads are likable enough, but they're not nearly as convincing as Ashley Laurence is in the previous films, though it doesn't help that they're confronted by the most ridiculous Cenobites in the whole series. After the film's most ambitious set-piece (a massacre in a crowded nightclub), Pinhead mounts his attack on humanity with the following soldiers of Hell: there's Camera-Head, whose head has been fused with his news camera, and who spouts one-liners like "That's a wrap!" and "Are you ready for your close-up?"; CD-Head, a DJ whose head is pierced with CDs and who…throws CDs at people; and the Barbie Cenobite, a bartender whose head is wrapped in barbed wire, and who uses a cocktail mixer filled with gasoline to wreak havoc on some cops. It's jaw-droppingly stupid, and completely undermines the pain/pleasure dynamic of the first two entries. If Hickox was aiming to emulate Alan Parker or Adrian Lyne, he's way off the mark - instead think Sam Raimi, if Sam Raimi was a moron.To be fair, though, the movie looks very good, apart from the corny, early-nineties CGI, and some decent dialogue actually trickles through now and then. I particularly enjoyed several of Pinhead's lines, such as "Down the dark decades of your pain, this will seem like a memory of Heaven," and "I will enjoy making you bleed, and I will enjoy making you enjoy it," which briefly touches on Clive Barker's original intentions for the character. Unfortunately this film, by turning Pinhead into a Freddy Krueger-esque slasher front-man, set the series on the wrong path for good. Atkins and director Kevin Yagher attempted to put things right with the ambitious Hellraiser IV: Bloodline, but studio meddling would turn a potential masterpiece into a complete disaster.

I guess they must get Mtv down in Hell, huh? Because without doubt, if there's any way to describe director Anthony Hickox's "Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth", it's this: This is the 90's alt-rock, music video variation of the franchise. It's practically oozing of all things early 90's. Over-stylized, kinetic visuals where the cameras zoom and flow about like an over-caffeinated bird. Odd transitional fashion trends that feel like the dying throes of the 80's. Amusingly dated optical and early digital effects that would look out of place just a couple years later. So much grunge. Jaded punk- rock mindsets of rebellion against "conformity." And on-the-nose visuals and commentary that seem jarringly out-of-place.Yes, this is certainly a "Hellraiser" from the early 90's.Some time after the events of the previous film, the mysterious "Pillar of Souls" is purchased by spoiled-brat nighclub owner J.P. Monroe (Kevin Bernhardt), who soon enough realizes that it houses the eternal evil of the demonic cenobite Pinhead, once again portrayed with delightful depravity by Doug Bradley. As Pinhead manipulates Monroe to bring him sacrifices so that he may be freed, reporter Joey Summerskill (Terry Farrell) begins to piece together the backstory of Pinhead, realizing that his soul has been fractured into two pieces... the evil and unrestrained Pinhead and the much more sympathetic British Army Captain Elliot Spencer. And thus, Summerskill must go on a dark and twisted journey to stop the now-freed Pinhead, and reunite the two halves of his spirit in order to restore balance and stop him.Written by Peter Atkins and Tony Randel, the script is a bit of a tangled swarm of notions and ideas that on paper may sound fascinating and hard-hitting, but don't come together as any sort-of cohesive whole. At times, the narrative is lost in what feels like a swirling storm of half-baked sequences, where story and character development takes a backseat to action-oriented set-pieces and buckets of blood. You really do get the feeling that somewhere behind-the-scenes was a producer standing over the two, forcibly making them eject key sequences from the script and demanding the insertion of new scenes specifically modeled after music-videos and video-game advertisements... all in a desperate attempt to appeal to the youth demographic who might have found the previous films "boring." I really can't imagine it happening any other way, especially after their much strong, earlier work on the second film in the series. And it all comes down to a story that feels like it was created to sell soundtrack albums and novelty t-shirts for High School students first... and to tell a compelling story second.Director Anthony Hickox seems a bit in over-his-head here. While I'm not overly familiar with his previous work, his guidance of scenes and character feels a bit too "off." Like he's easily distracted. This is especially true of the slower and more deliberate sequences of dialog and character development, which feel very disjointed and sloppy. I can't help but get the feeling he's afraid of losing his audience, so he instructed everyone to over-emphasize their words and move in big, broad motions. It's frankly bizarre at times. One of the more amusing sequences being a key scene where Pinhead is first revealed to Monroe, which feels both boring and over-the-top all at once. Only later in the film when things really start to go crazy does he start to get a handle on things and seem more confident in his visual choices... but he's still far too blatant for his own good, lending to a feeling of disconnect from the intended horror. It's too much like you're watching a low-budget action-picture... it stops being scary when every scene has the camera zoom or turn to a dutch-tilt or end with a quippy one-liner from our villain.Outside of that, the rest of the production really is a disappointing mess. Outside of Bradley, the performances are all uniformly bland, with far too much over acting and smart-alec dialog for you to really care. The new music cues by Randy Miller are very forgettable, with only the returning themes composed by Christopher Young standing out. The editing is jarring and gives you a sense of whiplash, as it's cut with lightning faces pacing- again in an attempt to make this a "Hellraiser" for the Mtv crowd. And even the cinematography seems a bit uninspired. It's just... sub-par in essentially every way conceivable.Still, all of that being said, I can't help but feel this is still worth watching for series fans. It may sound paradoxical after all of my droning complaints above. But there's just such a fun and frenetic sense of entertainment value on display that I can't completely dismiss the movie. It's bad... Oh, it's bad! But it's bad in that way that you'll still have a big grin on your face while you scoff and roll your eyes over how stupid it all is. And I think a lot of that has to do with the delightfully dated quality it has as an early-90's release. It's never boring. The aesthetic style and camera-work can be a lot of fun to watch. You'll certainly get a lot of laughs from the misplaced humor and wildly over-the-top characters and gore effects. And there are a select handful of scenes that do work in their own silly, demented ways. It's not the high art of Clive Barker's iconic original. Nor is it the twisted labyrinthine puzzle that was "Hellbound: Hellraiser II." No, this is just plain-old "dumb fun." Filler fluff that's good for a gasp and a laugh on a slow, rainy day when you don't have to go to work and wanna just veg-out watching some visual junk-food. It gets the job done."Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth" easily earns its score of 3 out of 10. It's a bad movie. Quite bad, actually. But it's a fun bad movie.