Franchises: Hellraiser. Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1988)

The images on the back of the original Hellraiser's VHS box may have scared me but, holy shit, what I saw on the back of the one for Hellbound was even worse. While the cover itself was fairly innocuous, showing Pinhead and the female Cenobite, with blurbs like, "Move over, Freddy. Pinhead is the new horror hero," (which made think he was actually a good guy), the back had an absolutely horrific image of a bloody face with half of the flesh missing. There were two other pics, one of the shot of Pinhead and the female Cenobite in surgery garb from that well-known deleted scene and another of the Channard Cenobite, but that first one really stuck with me. In fact, it freaked me out so much that, while I would sometimes look at the back of the box for the first movie, I rarely ever went back to the second. Unlike the first Hellraiser, I didn't learn much about Hellbound until YouTube and other sites came along. There, I learned it was bigger in scope and more of a very dark and gory fantasy adventure, as well as that there are a good number of fans who prefer it to the first one. Thanks to the special features on the 20th Anniversary DVD for Hellraiser, I also learned that Ashley Laurence didn't think much of the sequel, and that Andrew Robinson didn't care for the script and thus, opted not to be in it. And I wouldn't have to wait too long to make my own judgement about Hellbound, as I got its own 20th Anniversary DVD in the summer of 2010, less than a year after I saw the first one. When I first watched it, I thought it came very close to being just as horrific and freakish as the first, with some scenes and imagery even surpassing that one, and I also felt I'd seen few movies that gory. I also commended it for its fairly big scope, despite still being quite low budget, I enjoyed getting to explore the Labyrinth, as well as learn more about the Cenobites, and I thought Christopher Young did another awesome score. All in all, I thought it was a fun, gruesome ride, and still do, and I can get why some prefer it to the original, especially if they saw Hellbound first. But that said, I've always preferred the intimacy and truly taboo, unsettling nature of the first. Also, while the sequel is definitely well-made, you can tell it's not Clive Barker directing, and the story sometimes feels rather muddled, especially where the character of Kirsty and the latter half are concerned. And while I like seeing Julia become a full-on villain, I also view it as a missed opportunity, seeing as how her character ends here.

After narrowly escaping her depraved Uncle Frank and the Cenobites, Kirsty Cotton finds herself at the Channard Institute, a psychiatric hospital, while the police investigate Larry Cotton's house and make a number of gruesome discoveries. They also find a mattress covered with blood, which Kirsty realizes is where her stepmother, Julia, died. Naturally, Detective Ronson, as well as the institute's director, Dr. Channard, and his young assistant, Kyle MacRae, are skeptical of her claims about the Cenobites and the box, and her pleas to destroy the mattress, lest Julia be resurrected like Frank, fall on deaf ears. That night, after seeing and learning about Tiffany, a young mute patient who has a talent for solving puzzles, Kirsty has a vision in her room of a skinless man who begs for release from hell by writing on the wall in his own blood; she comes to believe that this is a message from her father's tortured soul. The next day, she tells Channard and Kyle the whole story about Frank and Julia's affair, as well as Frank's unleashing the Cenobites, his resurrection, the murder of her father, and her bargain with the Cenobites. Unbeknownst to everyone else, Channard is well aware of and obsessed with the Lament Configuration, having been researching it for years. He bribes a police officer to bring the bloody mattress to his house and later brings over a severely disturbed patient named Browning, whom he manipulates into slicing himself up on the mattress. This resurrects Julia as a skinless undead ghoul like Frank, and she feeds on Browning for energy. Kyle, who sneaked into Channard's home and uncovered his obsession, witnesses the whole thing and manages to flee without being spotted. He warns Kirsty of this and she decides to go to Channard's home and use the box to enter the Cenobites' world and save her father. Meanwhile, Channard brings Julia more patients to feed on and she succeeds in completely restoring herself. They then use Tiffany to solve the puzzle and open the door to the Labyrinth; at the same time, Kirsty and Tiffany enter the other world, and must both escape not only the Cenobites but also Julia and Channard, the latter of whom is himself transformed into a particularly deadly and sadistic Cenobite.

Whether it was during production or shortly after Hellraiser was released depends on who you talk to, but either way, it didn't take long for talks of a sequel to come up, as New World saw this as an opportunity to have their own ongoing horror franchise. But while Clive Barker was all for the sequel being made, with him and producer Christopher Figg pitching the idea of it to New World at Cannes in 1987, he wouldn't be directing this time. Whether it was because he was tied up with other projects, such as his next book, Weaveworld, or, like so many of his peers, he simply wasn't interested in doing a sequel, he would only come up with the initial story outline and serve as executive producer (although, by many accounts, he was fairly heavily involved with the production). To write the screenplay, he brought in his old friend from the Dog Company, Peter Atkins, who would go on to write the next two Hellraisers as well. Initially, however, Michael McDowell, who was working on the screenplay for Beetlejuice around that time, was poised to both write and direct. However, he had to bow out due to both rewrites on Beetlejuice and personal health reasons.

The man who ultimately got the job as director, Tony Randel, was far from a stranger to the world of Hellraiser. An executive at New World at the time of the first film (he'd overseen the reediting of The Return of Godzilla into Godzilla 1985), Randel had been sent over to England to oversee the last bit of principal photography and post-production, and had a major hand in making that movie what it is. He helped out in the editing, having had a long background in it, secured the money necessary to beef up the movie with some reshoots, and suggested Christopher Young as composer. Having aspirations to direct, and already familiar with Barker's mythology and concepts, Randel really wanted to do Hellbound, and Barker and Figg, indebted to him for his help, had no objections to that. But although Randel had more experience in the film industry than Barker did when he made the first one, because he'd never directed before, he, by his own admission, was learning on the job. According to cinematographer Robin Vidgeon in Leviathan: The Story of Hellraiser and Hellbound: Hellraiser II, there was one time where Randel was so nervous that he was hiding in his office and didn't want to come to the set (it also probably didn't help that, during filming, he broken up with his girlfriend). But Vidgeon encouraged him, saying they would all help him, just as they had Barker, and he soon got into his stride. After Hellbound, Randel directed movies like Children of the Night for Fangoria Films, Amityville 1992: It's About Time, Ticks (a gross but very fun creature feature), and a live-action adaptation of the manga, Fist of the North Star.

Ashley Laurence returns as Kirsty Cotton but I've always felt that both her character and placement in this story felt off, somehow. When we first see her after the recap of the first movie's climax, she wakes up in the Channard Institute, already a retcon of how we last saw her and Steve at that landfill, watching the vagrant-turned-demon fly off with the Lament Configuration. We don't know ever learn how she ended up at the institute, why she was seemingly unconscious when first brought there, how the police got involved, or what prompted them to search Larry's house. Also, even though Steve is mentioned, Detective Ronson says they sent him home a long time before Kirsty awakened, and we never see or hear from him again, as if he decided he didn't want anything to do with her after seeing all that freaky stuff. Once Kirsty gets her wits about her, she's initially confused and angry when she wakes up, then saddened when she remembers what happened to her father, and becomes hysterical when she realizes the police have found the mattress that Julia died on and that she could be resurrected like Frank. That raises another question: how does she know how that works? Obviously, she knew Frank was killed by the Cenobites and had been brought back to life, and because she saw Julia's corpse grasping the Lament Configuration, she knows she suffered a similar fate. She also later says that she doesn't know exactly how Frank came back to life, so how does she know that the mattress itself is tied with Julia the same way that Frank was tied with the attic? In any case, after Kirsty tells Dr. Channard and Kyle MacRae everything she knows, her sole motivation for much of the movie is to enter the Labyrinth and rescue her father, whom she believes is trapped in there. This doesn't change even when she learns Julia has, indeed, been resurrected, and once the door has been opened, she wanders about the Labyrinth, seeing nightmarish visions, and eventually discovers that the vision she thought was from her father was actually Frank, who lured her down so he could have his way with her. After that, she becomes motivated to save Tiffany from the Channard Cenobite and help her close the door to the Labyrinth.

Larry Cotton was originally meant to appear in the film, but because he either didn't care for the screenplay or they didn't want to pay him much (he's said both in various interviews), Andrew Robinson decided not to return, leading to a rewrite. Some feel that this makes Kirsty's journey into the Labyrinth entirely pointless, but I feel the twist that it was actually Frank luring her down to him was an effective and tragic endpoint for it. Plus, as Peter Atkins said, it wouldn't make sense

for Larry to be down there anyway, as he wasn't a depraved person like Frank or Julia. My issues with Kirsty stem not from that but what I've already mentioned, as well as because, more so than before, Ashley Laurence's performance isn't the greatest. It mostly has to do with some of the dialogue they give her, like at the beginning, when she tells Detective Ronson, when he tells her not to go into her "fairy tales" again, "My father didn't believe in fairy tales, either... Some of them come

true, Mr. Ronson. Even the bad ones... Do you have a family, Mr. Ronson?" That last part comes off as just random, and is interrupted when Ronson gets a call from the crime scene. After she tells him of the vision she thinks is from her father, Kyle goes to Dr. Channard, saying he can help, and Kirsty retorts, "He got a ticket to hell?" And during the climax, when Tiffany rushes back into the Labyrinth to retrieve the Lament Configuration, which has now become shaped like Leviathan, Kirsty asks her this thud of a question: "Tiffany,

what is this thing? What does it do?" Keep in mind that Kirsty was holding the box when Pinhead turned it into its present form! She also comes off as needlessly bitchy and profane at points, like how, a few minutes into the first scene, she yells at Ronson, "Who the fuck are you?!", or when she intends on going to Channard's house and when Kyle asks, "Are you crazy?", she snaps back, "Well, I don't know, Kyle. You're the fucking expert." He then says, "Look, think about this," to which she retorts, "Kyle, when I think, I hurt," and finally, when he asks why she's going, she shouts, "Because I'm going to get my father!" Some may argue it's natural, given what she's going through, but all of that rubs me the wrong way.

Kirsty's most significant part here is her developing relationship with the Cenobites, particularly Pinhead. While looking through Channard's research, she finds an old photograph of Captain Elliot Spencer, as well as a drawing that hints at his transformation into Pinhead. This comes into play during the third act, when she and Tiffany are confronted by the Cenobites. She shows Pinhead the photograph and says it's him, then tells the others that they were also human at one point. At

first skeptical, this revelation stops them all in their tracks, and seems to make them vulnerable to the Channard Cenobite when he bursts in on them. There then appears to be a wordless but knowing exchange between Kirsty and Pinhead when he's turned back into Spencer and then killed by Channard, paving the way for the next film's story. Finally, despite my criticisms up above, Laurence's performance isn't completely wasted. Like in the first movie, she proves quite good in the emotional

scenes where her father is concerned, like before the third act, where she and Tiffany have momentarily escaped the Labyrinth and she breaks down over being unable to save her father. She also comes off as effectively empathetic towards the Cenobites when she helps them remember their past human lives. And finally, she's still a strong character who doesn't need saving. When she's confronted by Frank, she initially acts as though she's going to allow him to rape her, but then declares, "I'd rather burn," and starts a chain

reaction that reduces him to his skinless form. Similarly, when faced with the resurrected Julia at Channard's home, Kirsty, after realizing she killed and fed on Kyle, angrily rushes her. Even though she gets knocked out in that instance, she's later able to send Julia into a powerful vortex that literally rips her out of her regained skin. And she later actually wears Julia's skin in order to distract Channard, allowing Tiffany to restore the Lament Configuration to its original state and close the gateway.

Tiffany (Imogen Boorman) is introduced early on in her room, playing around with some blocks, while Kirsty watches. Kyle describes her as a "complete mystery," saying she's been at the sanitarium for six months, has never had any visitors or family, and doesn't speak, with the name Tiffany given to her by a nurse, as no one knows her real name. He also notes her knack for solving puzzles, which Dr. Channard feels is her own, private method of therapy. Her true significance, however, doesn't come about until nearly an hour in, when Channard brings her to his house and has her solve the Lament Configuration and open the door to the Labyrinth. After Julia and Channard enter it, Tiffany wanders in out of curiosity and sees some horrific visions, including one of her mother asking someone to help her, only to be murdered. Tiffany then runs into Kirsty, who tries to make her understand that she needs to close the gate with the box; at the same time, when Julia brings Channard to Leviathan, we get a flash of his memories, one of which alludes to him being the reason why Tiffany is the way she is. At one point, when Kirsty comes upon the door to her father's house, Tiffany, sensing danger, tries to pull her away but she insists upon going in, which leads to her getting corned by Frank. Julia finds Tiffany but doesn't harm her, and she and Kirsty are able to escape while Julia gets her revenge on Frank. But when the three of them get caught up in the vortex, Tiffany, seeing that Julia has the Lament Configuration in her hand, takes her arm, and Kirsty then pulls on her, leading to Julia's demise. The two of them make it back to the real world, and there's a tender moment where Tiffany comforts Kirsty, who's distraught over being unable to find her father.

Before they can leave, they're faced with the Channard Cenobite, and the shock of the sight of him causes Tiffany to regain her voice (funnily, her first word is, "Shit!"). Channard begins targeting Tiffany specifically, and she eventually decides to go back and finish solving the puzzle. When she finds it, she and Kirsty then find their way to Leviathan, which completely restores Tiffany's memory: her mother brought her to Channard for treatment because she was obsessed with solving 

puzzles, only for Channard to murder her and then operate on Tiffany to remove her memory. As distraught as she is over this, Tiffany becomes more determined to finish what she started, when Channard attacks again. He comes close to killing Tiffany, but thanks to Kirsty's intervention, she's able to solve it. After Channard is defeated, the two of them escape the Labyrinth and leave the sanitarium.

While he's a little better than Steve, Kyle MacRae (William Hope) is still hardly an effective male lead and gets killed off before the portal is even opened. Skeptical of Kirsty's claims but sympathetic to her plight, Kyle quickly realizes that Dr. Channard is up to something when he overhears him arranging for the bloody mattress to be delivered to his house. After Kirsty tells her story, Kyle sneaks into Channard's house when he's not there and not only finds the mattress, but also throngs of research on the Lament Configuration and the Cenobites, as well as several of the boxes. He witnesses the horrific scene of Channard arranging for mentally ill patient Browning to cut himself up on the mattress, resurrecting Julia. Now a firm believer in Kirsty's story, he manages to sneak out of the house and tell her... but for some reason, he waits until the next day to do so, while Channard arranges for Julia to regain much of her flesh by feeding on some of his other patients. When Kirsty makes it clear she's going to Channard's house in order to enter the Labyrinth, Kyle offers to come with her. But when he leaves her in Channard's home office to check out the rest of the house, he runs into Julia, not knowing who she is because she's now almost totally human again. This gives her the opportunity to seduce and then feed on him, completing her resurrection.

Like most, I know William Hope best as Lieutenant Gorman in Aliens, and his performance there is pretty solid; here, however, for whatever reason, Hope's performance is pretty awful, although that may have to do with Tony Randel's amateur direction and the lines they gave him to say. When Kyle breaks into Channard's house and looks through his office, he inanely talks to himself, saying, "Weird. Fucking weird. Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ." One of those lines would've

sufficed. He then reads an article's title out loud and comments, "Jesus, he must've been into this shit for years." Even though that last comment wasn't the greatest either, especially its delivery, he could've just said that as well and it would've been plenty, rather than all of that other cringe dialogue. Then, when he tells Kirsty about Julia coming back to life, he goes, "She was horrible. She had no skin! No skin." He seems to be trying to process what he just saw and what he's telling Kirsty, but Hope's delivery, again, is awkward. Before that,

when he tells Kirsty that he needs to get her out of the sanitarium, only for her to find that her clothes are not in the locker, he has this gem: "I'll get your clothes. I can do that. I'm a doctor." (Uh... okay.) Even in the lead-up to his death at Julia's hands, he has a "no shit, Sherlock" type of line that feels like something you'd hear in an Ed Wood movie. After seeing the corpses of Julia's victims in the attic, Julia, still acting like an innocent prisoner, asks, "Was I right? Is it terrible?", and Kyle answers, "Yes. This is terrible." And in case you're wondering, yes, he does have that same dopey expression for much of the movie.

As she herself says, Julia has now gone from Kirsty's "wicked stepmother" to "the evil queen," and Clare Higgins is clearly having an absolute ball in the role, now able to be as deliciously evil as possible. Like Frank, Julia is resurrected by spilled blood, only she goes one step further and chases down and feeds on Browning after emerging from the blood-soaked mattress. With Dr. Channard's help, she's able to completely restore herself to human form, with her own skin, with Kyle MacRae unwillingly adding the finishing touch. She meets up with Kirsty, complimenting her on her, "Surprisingly good taste in men," and, after making no pretenses by declaring herself the evil queen in the fairy tale, challenges her, "So, come on! Take your best shot, Snow White!" She manages to knock Kirsty out when she charges at her, and then, Channard has Tiffany open the portal to the Labyrinth, as she and Channard watch through a two-way mirror. Once it's open, the two of them journey inside, with Channard looking around in amazement, while Julia gives him a continuously sinister and knowing side-glance. Right before she takes him to Leviathan, she says the familiar phrase, "Come. I have such sights to show you," alluding to her soon to be revealed true motive. When she brings him before Leviathan, she introduces it as her god: "The god that sent me back. The god I serve in this world, and yours. The god of flesh, hunger, and desire. My god. Leviathan, Lord of the Labyrinth!" Channard is then overwhelmed by it, as it pries into his soul, into his deepest, darkest secrets, and, as he's painfully transformed into a Cenobite, Julia reveals why she was able to be brought back in the first place: "It wanted souls, and I brought it you. And you wanted to know. Now you know. And I wanted everything. Now everybody's happy."

Instead of being seduced, Julia herself is now the seducer. Even when she's walking around skinless or as an ostensible mummy when Channard wraps the gauze around her, she's able to make him do her bidding, and he even kisses her in that state! And, after fooling Kyle into thinking she's being held prisoner at Channard's home, when he's horrified upon seeing the shriveled corpses of her victims, she gets him into her arms, acting all empathetic and sweet, "Oh, you poor boy. You look awful.

Come here. Come to mother," and then, after revealing who she is, literally sucks the life out of him. That's what also makes Julia so fun to watch here: how much she revels in her evil, having completely left behind the troubled, unfulfilled, and longing woman she once was. Nowhere is this clearer than in the scene where she gets revenge on Frank. After feigning falling for his manipulation again, Julia acts as though she's going to kiss him, softly touching his face, but then rips through his

back with her other hand and pulls his heart out, before telling him, "Nothing personal, babe," like he did when he murdered her. After that, when Kirsty is trying to save Tiffany from getting sucked into the vortex, Julia comes up and spitefully rubs it in her face, telling her, "You never could hold onto anything for very long, could you, Kirsty?" And when Kirsty knocks her towards the vortex, she attempts to manipulate Tiffany into helping her, only for Kirsty's intervention to get her literally ripped out of her skin and into the vortex. At the end of the movie, she's seen trapped within the Pillar of Souls, although I must confess that I don't get exactly how that works.

Originally, Julia herself was supposed to emerge from the mattress, setting in motion further movies with her as the main villain, as Clive Barker intended. But Clare Higgins, sensing the growing popularity of Pinhead, as well as having no interest in becoming a female horror icon, as she doesn't care for horror films herself, made those feelings clear early on, forcing a rewrite. That's where the disappointment with Julia in this film comes, as I would've loved to have seen more movies with her, possibly growing in power and becoming more and more diabolical as they went on (who knows, maybe the Hellraiser franchise would've fared better). Instead, we only have a hint of what we could've gotten, with Julia's ultimate defeat very unceremonious and anticlimactic.

One thing's for sure, though: Julia's initial skinless form (Deborah Joel) is absolutely amazing, with Image Animation outdoing themselves and trumping the already amazing work they did with Frank in the first film. Although we don't get to see her go through several stages like Frank, the detail in her design is incredible, which we get to see in all its glory after she's first resurrected, with the exposed bones, muscles, and veins moving in detailed close-up, and accented by a lot of goo and

slime, as well as some wince-inducing wet and crunching sounds. Even when she puts clothes on, she still looks amazing, as well as definitely "surreal" and "nightmarish," as she herself suggests, with the blood staining the crap out of the white shirt and pants she's given. But even more cool-looking than that is when she puts on that dress she wears for the rest of the movie, along with all of the gauze Channard wraps her up in, with only her eyes and mouth exposed (Barker's

admitted personal gruesome version of the Mummy). Even when she feeds on a number of Channard's patients and the gauze is removed to reveal her human guise, she's still not complete, as there's a bit of her back still exposed, but a quick feeding on Kyle fixes that immediately.

Speaking of Frank, Sean Chapman briefly returns in the role, and gets to keep his actual voice this time (he does such a good American accent that it makes you wonder why they had someone dub over the character completely in the first film instead of just letting Chapman do it). When Kirsty finds the door to her father's house in the Labyrinth, she enters, only to be confronted with Frank, who's just as loathsome in death as he was both in life and when he was undead. It turns out that he was the one who created the vision Kirsty saw in order to lure her to him, as he's trapped in a personal hell, surrounded by ghostly women he can never have sex with. Even here, all he cares about is satisfying his endless appetite for physical pleasure, and has sunk to new lows in order to turn his niece into a sex slave. He even cruelly mocks her longing to save her father, telling her, "Oh, come on, Kirsty, grow up. When you're dead, you're fuckin' dead!" His lusting for her is just as skin-crawling as before, as he says, "Oh, Kirsty. So ripe in your confusion, so... luscious in your pain," and, when he restrains her against the wall, "Don't be naughty, Kirsty, or I'll have to punish you first. Huh? Perhaps you'd like that, though! Now, would you like that?" However, while she seems to initially give in to Frank, Kirsty then pushes back in a way that leads to him being surrounded by flames and reduced back to his skinless form (Oliver Smith), just when Julia shows up with Tiffany. Thinking he still has sway over her, Frank attempts to have his way with her instead, saying he was waiting for her and that she belongs to him. But he's in for a rude awakening, as Julia destroys him utterly by tearing his heart out through his back.

When we first meet Dr. Channard (Kenneth Cranham), he's operating on a person's brain while also lecturing to a class, giving a memorable speech: "The mind is a labyrinth, ladies and gentlemen. A puzzle. And while the paths of the brain are plainly visible, its ways deceptively apparent, its destinations are unknown, its secrets still secret. And, if we are honest, it is the lure of the labyrinth that draws us to our chosen field, to unlock those secrets. Others have been here before us and have left us signs, but we, as explorers of the mind, must devote our lives and energies to going further, to tread the unexplored corridors in the hope of finding, ultimately, the final solution." He then drills into the brain and adds, "We have to see, we have to know..." Like the Cenobites, Channard, despite ostensibly being a doctor, is something of an explorer, less interested in helping people than using their minds to satisfy his own curiosity. He puts on an air of friendliness and professional respectability when he walks through the wards of his sanitarium, asking his patients how they feel and bidding them good morning, but then, he descends into the "maintenance" level below the basement, where he keeps the severely mentally ill patients in padded rooms, occasionally looking in on them. Upon talking with Kirsty and hearing her story, which he seemed initially skeptical about, it turns out he was actually quite intrigued, particularly her claims about the mattress where Julia died. He tells Kirsty there is much that must be done, or more specifically, much he must do, and it doesn't take long for us to see what he means. Having secretly arranged for the mattress to be brought to his house, it's then revealed that he's spent years gathering information on the Lament Configuration, and actually has other boxes that he keeps contained in glass jars. Knowing what must be done, he brings one of his severely disturbed patients to his home and has the man slice himself up on the mattress, resurrecting Julia. Becoming quite fixated on her, even when she has no skin, Channard helps her become human again by cruelly letting her feed on some of his patients, hoping that, in turn, she will be his guide through the Labyrinth.

Having kept Tiffany around because of her penchant for solving puzzles, and gathered articles about a possible link between teenagers and psychic phenomena, Channard has her solve the Lament Configuration. As he and Julia watch, she gives him the opportunity to back out, asking if this is really what he wants, but Channard insists it's what he always wanted, adding, "I have to see. I have to know." And once the portal is opened, the two of them journey into the Labyrinth, where

Channard sees visions that appear to come from the deepest, darkest parts of his psyche, clearly disturbing him. Then, when Julia brings him before Leviathan, it peers into his very soul, revealing that he was twisted and obsessed with cutting into and examining the brain even when he was quite young, and also that, when Tiffany's mother came to him to help her, he put her through the procedure we saw him performing on that person in his introduction. It also goes into his desire for Julia,

only for her to reveal that she brought him down there so Leviathan could have his soul. She forces him into a compartment where he's put through the painful process of being turned into a Cenobite. But despite his screams of agony, when the finishing touches are put to his transformation, Channard fully embraces it, saying, "And to think... I hesitated." Now, the monster he's always had within him is fully unleashed, and he goes on a rampage through his sanitarium, massacring his patients, stalking Tiffany, and even successfully

killing the other Cenobites, including Pinhead, as proclaims, "I'm taking over this operation!" That's another thing about Channard: instead of being melancholic like the other Cenobites, he's constantly cackling evilly and making medical-related quips, like, "The doctor is in," "I recommend... amputation," and, "Your case is closed... I'm afraid it's terminal!" During the climax, the full scope of Channard's obsession with Tiffany becomes clear when she remembers that she saw him murder her mother, and then operated on her to make her forget.

Just about every Hellraiser introduces some new type of Cenobite, and while I don't think any of them have reached the iconic level of the original four in these first two movies, there are a number that are quite cool and memorable in their own right, even if only for their designs. The Channard Cenobite is definitely among the latter, with his transformation and final look reflecting the painful medical processes he put others through, with organic hooks piercing into him, syringes jamming

into his flesh and pumping him full of some kind of serum, and an enormous tentacle, with a segmented mouth akin to his surgical drill, attaching to the top of his head. Dressed in the expected black leather outfit, and his voice now much lower, with a disturbing, reverberating quality, he has pale skin like Pinhead and the female Cenobite, with the razor wire embedded into the flesh across his face, and from the palms of his hands sprout long, black tentacles that can produce various objects from their tips, such as fingers, eyes, and even flowers.

Most of the time, they produce deadly surgical instruments that are sharp enough to cut through the other Cenobites' spears and can also shoot spears, which he uses to take out the female Cenobite, Chatterer, and Butterball. However, the sight of him suspended from and hoisted around by that long tentacle, with his arms outstretched, has always looked kind of ridiculous to me, and while the makeup effect is cool, like Julia, his death is kind of lame, in how he gets his bladed tentacles stuck in a platform and his suspension tentacle tears the top of his head off as a result.

Although he doesn't have as much overall screentime as he did in the first film, Oliver Smith actually has three roles in Hellbound: skinless Frank, the skinned apparition that Kirsty sees in her room, and the very disturbing character of Browning, the patient whom Channard uses to resurrect Julia. Browning is constantly yelling, "Get them off me!", as well as squirming and moaning, as he hallucinates that there are bugs, worms, and maggots all over his skin. In reality, he's covered in nasty scar tissue from cutting into himself as a result of it, and after Channard sits him down onto the mattress, he gives him a straight razor, which he uses to absolutely mutilate himself. I'll go more into this scene later but it's one of the most disturbing I think I've ever seen, period, with the grisly makeup effects and hideous visuals made all the worse by Smith's pained, tortured screaming.

Stylistically, Hellbound makes me think of two other sequels. One is Halloween II, with how it begins right after the first movie ends, even starting out with a recap of the climax. Also like with that movie, this immediate continuation, as well as the return of many cast and crew members, particularly cinematographer Robin Vidgeon and production designer Michael Buchanan, makes it the only sequel that comes close to matching the look and feel of the original. This is further reinforced not only with the extensive use of footage from

Hellraiser when Kirsty tells Dr. Channard and Kyle her story but also stuff that didn't make it into the first movie, like Larry and Julia's wedding, with Frank and Kirsty watching from the crowd, and some of the more graphic sex scene between Frank and Julia. The other movie is Aliens, given how Hellbound takes a story that first took place in a singular, claustrophobic setting for the most part and goes bigger in scope and action. And just like how going from one Alien onboard a ship to a

planet colony infested with them was the logical step for the second Alien, setting a movie in the Cenobites' realm was the expected way to go with the Hellraiser sequel. Unfortunately, while Hellbound did have a bigger budget than the first one, allowing them to shoot almost entirely on soundstages at Pinewood Studios this time, it wasn't nearly as big as they originally intended due to New World's financial issues and economy problems at the time. Thus, they had to cut some corners, which is why some setpieces, like the fight between the Cenobites and Channard and the flashback to when Elliot Spencer became Pinhead, feel truncated.

Again, because Tony Randel was able to work with Robin Vidgeon and Michael Buchanan, Hellbound looks and feels very much like the first film. It has that same overall, kind of grimy visual aesthetic, with a lot more brown this time, and while it's not as shadowy, with the Cenobites much more out in the open during their scenes, Vidgeon still manages to make the various sets look really cool, using the classic blue moonlight approach for some of the exterior and interior nighttime scenes, contrasting nicely with the more normal-looking daytime

scenes, bringing out the vivid white of the inside of Channard's home, and, again, contrasting the pleasant, brightly-lit upper floors of the Channard Institute with the dimmer, more rundown maintenance level where the severely disturbed patients are kept. But where the cinematography really looks good is in the summoning of the Cenobites, with the bright white-blue shafts of light that come through the walls and the way they're silhouetted within them, and in the interiors of the Labyrinth, which mostly look muted and gray,

dotted with shafts of light, but there are also spots where you can see bright, vivid colors. There are some noteworthy shots and instances of camerawork, like at the beginning when, following Pinhead's "birth," we cut to a close-up of Kirsty's eye, as the camera slowly pulls back from it (Randel's tribute to the shot of Marion Crane's eye after she's killed in Psycho); a shot of Kirsty framed behind a window as rain pours down it; and some eerie camera pans through Channard's house

when we first see its interior. Also, like Clive Barker, Randel proves to have a real knack for creating imagery that's often disturbing, yet occasionally beautiful. Among them are a close-up of the patient's brain with a syringe right above it during Channard's speech; that unforgettable shot of a skinless man sitting in a pool of blood in the corner of Kirsty's room, right next to her radiator, and writing a plea for help on the wall; the

disturbing close-up of a screaming patient when Channard looks in on him in his padded cell; gruesome shots of the imaginary bugs on Browning's flesh and the entirety of Julia's resurrection; the look of her bright red, skinless body contrasted with both the white interiors of Channard's home and the white clothes he gives her to wear, not to mention the look of her in those bandages; the awesome reveal of her restored flesh after she's finished feeding, complete with flashes of lightning; the horrific imagery of Channard's attic filled with the shriveled, rotting corpses of Julia's victims; all of the hellish imagery we see in the Labyrinth; and Kirsty wearing and then removing her skin during the climax.

Like the first movie, there are instances of very interesting and even dream-like editing found within Hellbound (given Randel's background as an editor, I'm sure he had a lot of say in it). During Kirsty's first night at the Channard Institute, it cuts back and forth from her trying to sleep to close-ups of Tiffany's hands as she's solving one of her puzzles, leading to her actual introduction when Kirsty walks out of her room and goes just down the hall to see Tiffany sitting on the floor in her own room, working her puzzle. During this and

Kyle's telling Kirsty about her, the film continues cutting to her hands doing the puzzle. Then, when Kirsty goes back into her room and, again, tries to sleep, it cuts from an overhead shot of her lying on her bed to an ominous-looking tracking shot across the floor and up to the radiator, the sound of which grows louder, then to a random shot of Tiffany still working her puzzle, and suddenly, to a gruesome close-up of a bloody, skinless hand writing on the wall. It cuts back and forth between this and

Tiffany's hands, as well as Kirsty sitting up in bed with a horrified expression, as the sound transitions into a constant, rhythmic pounding. Finally, it reveals the sight of the skinless figure sitting in a pool of blood in a corner near the radiator, writing the bloody message on the wall. And once it's over and Kirsty now believes it's her father, we cut back to Tiffany, having now completed her puzzle. Tiffany is also the center of a notable edit following the end of Julia's resurrection, as it

suddenly cuts from Julia talking to Channard to a close-up of a completed jigsaw puzzle, illuminated by lightning, which then goes in closer after a cut, and then shows Tiffany fiddling with another puzzle, this one involving cubes that she assembles into a whole one. Needless to say, once the movie enters the Labyrinth, things get especially dreamlike and strange, with one of the most memorable being when Kirsty is first confronted with the Cenobites, and as they talk, their close-ups, in front a completely black background, slowly rotate.

The Channard Institute comes off as a large, elegant building on the outside (this exterior was actually the administration building at Pinewood Studios) and the immediate interiors, while certainly not lovely or vibrant, with a drab color scheme, and each of the patients' rooms being pretty barren, save for a bed, a chair, a radiator, a small locker for their clothes, a shower, and a single window, aren't awful, either... for the most part. However, the maintenance level, as I've alluded to, is like hell in and of itself, with

steaming pipes, dim lighting, and the padded cells housing the hysterical, loud patients. You can also get a sense of the limited budget they were working with in this setting, as we see nothing of the room where Channard gives his lecture while performing the operation on the person's brain, meaning it was likely very small and not much to look at. Channard's actual house also looks perfectly normal on the outside but the interiors are striking in how utterly plain and white they are, 

with any color coming from a strange painting on the wall in one room and an occasional potted plant. The one exception, however, is the room devoted to Channard's research into the Lament Configuration, with shelves filled with books related to the subject, others containing jars and random objects like skulls, lots of bizarre and disturbing drawings and photographs on the walls (one of which looks like an anatomical drawing), a chalkboard with geometric figures and formulas,

several boxes in bell jars, and scrapbook filled with articles, as well as a photograph of Elliot Spencer and a drawing that seems to indicate how he was transformed into Pinhead. Fittingly, this is both where Julia is resurrected and where the portal to the Labyrinth is opened, with Channard and Julia watching the latter through a two-way mirror in the wall. And the attic is turned into a hideous dungeon, filled with the chained and hanging corpses of Julia's victims, and with the back wall having a bizarre, clay-like quality and texture.

Even more so than the first film, there's a lot of confusion as to where exactly Hellbound is set. While Hellraiser, despite all the American accents and that one New York Yankees cap, does seem to be set in England, specifically near London (at least, that's how I see it), in Hellbound, the only British person at the sanitarium is Dr. Channard himself and, when she regains her voice, Tiffany. If the whole movie was set there, it wouldn't be as big of a deal, but as it turns out, the two of them are about the only human characters who are British,

as Detective Ronson is not only American, introducing himself as a "homicide" investigator, which is an American term, but so are the two cops investigating Larry Cotton's house at the beginning, both in their voices and uniforms. I could see an American detective working in England, but two ordinary cops? Not so much. The filmmakers have tried to hand-wave it away by noting how this unspecific setting makes it all feel otherworldly (as was the case with the classic Universal Horrors of the 30's and 40's) but the truth of the matter is that it's, again, due to New World's influence. Future movies in the franchise, however, would be much more clear in their setting.

Speaking of not knowing where you are, I have no idea where Elliot Spencer is in the scene where he solves the Lament Configuration, but it's some sort of unsettling, tunnel-like room, with door-less openings lining its walls and a skylight right above Spencer; honestly, it looks as though he's already in the Labyrinth even before he becomes Pinhead. You can tell that it's set decades in the past, with the old-fashioned radio, the look of his uniform and holster, and items such as a whip and, most significantly, a pith helmet, and it also appears to be somewhere hot and humid, with how Spencer is sweating (some of the other scenes that they couldn't afford to shoot involved showing Spencer at a bazaar, suggesting that he may have been in the same area where Frank finds the box in the first movie), but where it exactly is still anybody's guess.

I have mixed feelings about the Labyrinth itself. One the hand, it's mostly a bland maze of dull-looking corridors, with much more interesting exterior shots showing how it's comprised of numerous levels, with stairways and walkways leading from one to another, both up and down and across. However, those who wander the Labyrinth come across horrific visions that are tied to them in some manner. Tiffany wanders into a ghoulish carnival where, in the Hall of Mirrors, she sees herself reflected numerous times, only to be

replaced by her mother begging Channard to help her. Then, she sees a clown sitting in the middle of a circle of lights as he juggles his own eyeballs, followed by a vision of her mother being murdered and the last time she herself spoke, and the image of a baby sewing up its own lips, likely alluding to how she hasn't spoken since then. Meanwhile, Kirsty, while wandering the maze, suddenly finds herself in a normal, tranquil, and calm house, with the peaceful sounds of a normal neighborhood outside, and then sees photographs of her younger

self and her late mother. But then, blood starts to leak from the photographs, with Julia's image replacing that of her mother, and blood pours out of the cabinets until it falls over, exploding with cockroaches. The symbolism is clear, alluding to how Julia truly destroyed her family. Later, Kirsty wanders through what looks like the front door to her father's house, only to find a stone, tomb-like room full of candles and where slabs move out from these alcoves, housing naked women writhing

underneath these thin sheets, only to disappear when the sheets are pulled back. She also finds a wooden vanity mirror and dresser, covered with rather tacky makeups and powders. When she sees his picture on the dresser, she then learns that this is Frank's private hell, as well as that he lured her down there, as the message her "father" wrote on the wall appears on the mirror. What Channard sees, however, is more vague, as he and Julia walk through a particularly creepy-looking spot in the

Labyrinth, filled with the sounds of crying babies and children, and some vivid colors akin to a Mario Bava or Dario Argento movie in spots. Looking through a hole in the wall, he sees into one of the many private purgatories that dot the place, with two men and a woman having some sort of threesome in a sort of sauna, where steam goes in rather being expelled. While he watches, the woman turns and looks at him, and her face becomes Julia's. This alludes to both Channard's propensity for voyeurism, as we saw when he looked in on Browning and the other patients in their cells, and he and Julia watched Tiffany, and his desire for Julia herself.

Without a doubt, the most significant addition to the series' mythology is at the heart of the Labyrinth: Leviathan, the entity that rules over this world. It takes the form of a gigantic, elongated diamond, with markings on it akin to the Lament Configuration and a black beam going through its center, and hovers and rotates above the Labyrinth's roof, constantly emitting a horn-like sound (created by composer Christopher Young, who did it to the Morse code for "god"). As with the Cenobites in the first film, we don't get much

explanation as to what Leviathan is, whether what we're seeing is its true form or if it can change into something else, if the actual being is inside the diamond, or if the Cenobites themselves don't even know what it is but serve it, nonetheless. There does appear to be some intelligence to it, as it not only turns people into Cenobites but, when its black beam passes over someone, it peers into their subconscious and sees their deepest secrets and desires, which appears to determine whether or not

someone will become a Cenobite. It also develops sway over the real world when the portal is left open, allowing the Cenobites to appear within the Channard Institute, along with their torture chamber with the chains and rotating pillars, suggesting that that is something they bring with them, separate from the Labyrinth itself. Unfortunately, the Labyrinth and the Leviathan wouldn't be seen again until the 2022 reboot, as no other Hellraiser between now and then had the money or ambition behind it to thoroughly explore the mythology. And that one doesn't do much with it either, but we'll get to that.

Not surprisingly, the Lament Configuration is tied to Leviathan in some manner, as Pinhead turns the box into a miniature version of the elongated diamond, which Kirsty has to have Tiffany restore in order to close the gate. What's more, the big chamber where Channard is turned into a Cenobite is a large version of the box, and when Leviathan's influence extends into the sanitarium, Kirsty and Tiffany see patients fiddling with various versions of it, with chains having already dug into their flesh. That leads me into thing about this film that I

didn't get: how Channard had several different Lament Configurations that also open the portal, when I was originally under the impression that there was only one. I know the short answer is because the one featured in the first movie was returned to where Frank found it, they needed another way for the characters to enter the Labyrinth, but in context, I was wondering if Channard made them, maybe piecing together how the original worked and replicating it. I've now

learned that, in this mythology in other sources, there are other boxes, but even then, I feel that takes away the specialness of the Lament Configuration from the original story. In any case, like with Kirsty in the first movie, these boxes are able to sense the person's intentions, as Tiffany isn't harmed when she solves it and opens the gate.

The same also goes for Pinhead, who stops the other Cenobites from harming Tiffany, much to their confusion. Knowing it wasn't her intention, he says, "It is not hands that call us. It is desire," then looks to the shattered two-way mirror where Channard and Julia had been watching Tiffany. However, his and the others' desire for Kirsty has not wavered, as when she wanders into the Labyrinth, she's confronted with them, with Pinhead saying, "We thought we lost you." By extension, he also doesn't come across as severe as before; in fact, he's somewhat playful in the way he speaks to her. When she insists she didn't open the box, he says, "Oh, Kirsty. So eager to play, so reluctant to admit it," and when she then mentions that she's come for her father, Pinhead, after cruelly laughing, tells her, "He is in his own hell, child, and quite unreachable." I honestly think that was a lie to demoralize Kirsty, considering how she not only never finds Larry but, like I said before, there's no reason for him to be down there. Nonetheless, Pinhead allows her to roam the Labyrinth, as, "We have eternity to know your flesh." However, his and the other Cenobites' patience runs out, as late in the film, they trap Kirsty and Tiffany in their torture chamber, with Pinhead ominously telling Kirsty, "Time to play," and when she hesitates again, "No more deals, Kirsty. It is your flesh we want to experience, not your skill at bargaining." But, intrigued when she says she just wants information, he decides to indulge her, while warning her that her suffering will be "legendary even in hell" if she deceives them yet again. That's when she gives him Channard's old photograph of Captain Elliot Spencer and insists it's him. Though initially skeptical, when she presses him, Pinhead does remember, as do the other Cenobites when Kirsty goes on to say they were all human once.

Although the Cenobites have a little more screentime here, they're still very much in the background and not the focus of the story. However, we do learn much more about them, how they came to be what they are, and who they were before, especially Pinhead. Though Elliot Spencer's name and backstory would be fleshed considerably in the next film, we do see the moment where he solved the Lament Configuration himself, got the hooks and chains in him, was pulled into the Labyrinth, and put through the process of

becoming Pinhead, with a grid being sliced into his now completely bald cranium and nails driven in across it. At first in agony, as the process goes on, you see a sinister smile creep across his face, as he starts to relish in the pain, intoning, "Ah, the suffering. The sweet suffering." Unfortunately, there were supposed to be more hints to the backstory sprinkled throughout the movie, such as him actually finding the box, but they didn't have the money to shoot it. Moreover, the flashback to the "birth" of Pinhead feels like something we

should see when he looks at the photograph and remembers his lost humanity; instead, it's randomly placed after the opening credits, and once it's over, we transition back to Kirsty and the true plot. Thus, it doesn't make for much of a revelation when she sees the photograph of Spencer and realizes she's looking at the leader of the Cenobites; instead, we're waiting for her to catch up with what we already know. Regardless, it does have a payoff, as the revelation appears to make the Cenobites

extremely vulnerable to Channard, as well as brings about some humanity within Pinhead even before he's reverted back to Spencer, given his reaction when Channard threatens Kirsty and Tiffany. Then, when Channard reverts him, Spencer and Kirsty share a knowing look. He still tries to fight Channard but is immediately taken out, his throat slashed open.

For various reasons, the Cenobites' makeup designs were altered for the sequel, some in very minor ways and others more significantly. Doug Bradley's makeup as Pinhead was changed the least, as it looks basically the same, albeit much paler than before, which could just be a result of the lighting. Also, his completely black eyes feel more emphasized than before, probably because we see them much more in close-up here. It's also interesting to see both the progression of the transformation at the beginning, with Spencer's

skin suddenly becoming pale, the grid being carved into his face and head, and the nails being driven in, and the reverse when Channard reverts him, going from typical Pinhead to pale skin with just a few nails, then no nails, and finally just Bradley in the leather costume but out of makeup (although, his hands are still pale in the cutaway to him taking out one of his blades to use against Channard, a possible continuity error).

Because she found the makeup and costume unbearable, Grace Kirby, Clive Barker's cousin, opted not to return as the female Cenobite; instead, she's now played by Barbie Wilde, who I actually prefer. She's not as creepy-looking as Kirby, as she has a much fuller, rounder face, is completely bald, with no stray strands of hair, and the rings going through her cheek and opening up her neck are less elaborate, differences that are emphasized because footage of Kirby from the original is used in the opening, but I like Wilde's performance and

characterization more. Her voice may not be the creepy whisper it was before, and she doesn't make those unsettling breathing sounds, either, but I like how her particular desire for Kirsty is emphasized all the more. When Kirsty insists that she didn't open the box, the female Cenobite taunts, "'Didn't open the box.' And what was it last time, 'Didn't know what the box was,'? And yet, we do keep finding each other, don't we?... Perhaps you're teasing us. Are you teasing us?" And when the Cenobites confront her and Tiffany in the sanitarium, the female is more eager to get at Kirsty than any of them, saying, "No more delays, Kirsty. It's time to play." She even has to be held back by Pinhead when she goes to attack Kirsty while he's starting to remember his human life. Like him, she seems quite shaken by the memory of her lost humanity, and is especially shocked at how deadly the Channard Cenobite proves to be. When he kills her, she reverts back to her human form, which is revealed to have been a strikingly beautiful woman.

Unfortunately my favorite Cenobite, Chatterer (Nicholas Vince), doesn't get to do much of anything this time except stand around and look imposing. He does go through a substantial design change, however. When he first appears along with the others, his design is essentially the same as it was in the first movie, although it looks a little thicker, and the wires pulling back his lips are sometimes more plainly visible. However, when he and the other Cenobites reappear in the third act, Chatterer now suddenly has visible eyes, an

alteration sometimes dubbed "Chatterer II," and which was made so Vince could actually see through the face-mask. Originally, you were also going to see the process Chatterer went through to achieve this change, but like so many other scenes, they couldn't afford to film it. Regardless, while I prefer the look from the first movie, I think this redesign is actually pretty cool in its own right, with Vince's eyes looking really threatening when combined with the makeup. But what was even more shocking for me the first time was Chatterer's

death, where he's revealed to have been a child (Kevin Cole) when he was transformed! As for Butterball (Simon Bamford), while he did very little in the first movie, at least he got to briefly threaten Steve near the end; here, he does absolutely nothing except stand around and look creepy, often licking his lips again. Like with Pinhead, his makeup hasn't changed much, although he now has small but very sharp teeth, and you also see that his glasses hook into the sides of his head, where he would normally have ears. His human form turns out to be the least shocking: an obese man.

This humanization of the Cenobites is one of many reasons why a number of real hardcore fans dislike this movie, as they feel it takes away from the air of mystery they had about them in the first (a charge you could label at so many other horror sequels). I know Barker himself not only dislikes that this is when the fan name "Pinhead" officially became the character's name but also isn't crazy about the backstory with Elliot Spencer, something he would make very clear in interviews and when he wrote The Scarlet Gospels decades later. While

I do like how unknowable they are in the first movie, I've also never had a problem with learning their backstories, as I already knew long before I saw any of these movies that Pinhead had once been human. Plus, I think knowing that, and getting a sense of who they once were, makes what they became all the more shocking in hindsight, especially in the case of the female Cenobite and Chatterer. And since this is a franchise I came to much later than many of the others and this, I'm not as deeply invested in it as something like, say, Halloween, it would take something really egregious to get under my skin (and make no mistake, those are coming in the days ahead).

While there are a number of things in Hellbound that I don't quite get, the one that perplexes me the most is the "Pillar of Souls" that emerges from the mattress at the very end, which becomes a major part of the third movie's story. It's basically one of those wooden pillars decked out with chains, hooks, and body parts that often accompany the Cenobites, only this one is an amalgamation of different sights from the Labyrinth, like some of those at the carnival Tiffany blundered into, the struggling, embedded faces of Pinhead and Julia's

skinless form, lots of bones and skeletons, sections of shriveled skin (one of which looks an awful lot like a large penis), barbwire, images of the Lament Configuration, and, most significantly, the demonic vagrant from the first film, complete with grasshoppers crawling across him, and who's more or less revealed to have been the one who sold Frank the box, as he asks, "What is your pleasure, sir?", in that man's voice. A memorable and eerie visual, for sure, but as to how or why that came about, and why Julia is trapped within it when she seemed free enough to pull in one of the moving men moments before, your guess is as good as mine.

As Bob Keen was busy with other work at the time, Geoff Portass oversaw the makeup effects that Image Animation would bring to Hellbound and they would more than match what was done in the first movie. As I've already described, their design for Julia's initial skinless version is a real knockout, and the same goes for Frank when he's briefly reverted back to that form before she kills him (this time complete with a tank-top exposing much more of him), the skinless man whom Kirsty

sees in her room, and the tweaked designs for the Cenobites. They also particularly excel at gruesome imagery this time around, such as the decomposing remains the cops find at Larry Cotton's house, the shriveled corpses of Julia's victims, the gruesome, diseased makeup on Kyle when she sucks him dry and his remains afterward, the brain that Channard operates on in his first appearance and the little bit you can see of the back of the patient's skull being held open, Channard's painful Cenobite transformation, the top of his

head being ripped off after his blades become jammed in the platform he's floating above, Kirsty peeling away Julia's skin after she's saved Tiffany, and one of the moving men getting pulled halfway through the mattress at the end. They also don't skimp on good old-fashioned blood and slashing effects either (especially one scene that I'll go into shortly), like when Channard carves up his own patients and kills the Cenobites, impaling the female, Butterball, and Chatterer with spears before slicing open the now humanized Pinhead's

throat, as well as when all of the picture frames and furniture begin bleeding in that one vision of Kirsty's, and when Julia gets pulled out of her skin, as well as her hollow husk lying on the floor afterward.

But like Frank's resurrection in the first movie, there's one scene in particular where the makeup effects both really shine and yet, at the same time, are very grisly and hard to look at: Julia's own resurrection scene. Like I said earlier, this is one of the most disturbing, wince-inducing scenes I've ever seen, and is definitely a contender for the most horrific and unsettling one in this whole franchise. It starts when Channard brings in the severely disturbed man named Browning, removing his

straight-jacket, revealing the nasty scars and boils on his chest, and sits him down on the mattress. When Browning looks at his arm, we then see what he sees and why he keeps yelling, "Get them off me!": hallucinations of his body swarming with maggots and worms. Channard then gives him a straight razor and Browning begins cutting into himself, slicing across his chest and shoulders, and we get both shots of the real damage he's doing to himself and how he imagines he's slicing through

his bug-infested flesh, all while he's screaming in pain and anguish. It gets to the point where he lays back on the mattress, continuing to mutilate himself, and even drawing the blade across his crotch at one point! By now, the mattress is absolutely soaked in blood, and he keeps screaming, "Get 'em off me!", with Christopher Young's nightmarish music making it all the more surreal in how horrifying it is. And then, just when you think it couldn't get any more gruesome, Julia's skinless arms burst out of the mattress, splashing

Channard in the face with blood, and grab onto Browning's torso, followed by her legs emerging and wrapping around his waist. She emerges completely from the mattress, smiling in evil satisfaction, and the two of them roll off it, covered in blood. Browning tries to crawl away but Julia chases him down, grabbing at him. At one point, he stands up on a rug and reaches for the window, threatening to expose Kyle as he watches all this from behind a curtain next to it. But Julia yanks Browning back down, crawls along his backside,

jams her fingers into the back of his head, and literally bites into him. Seeing this, the terrified Kyle manages to slip out. Once she's done feeding, she flips over onto her back, panting heavily, and begs Channard for help. Despite looking quite disturbed himself, he obliges and pushes the mattress over to where she can crawl on it, with all of the blood giving her enough strength to stand up.

Frank's resurrection may have been really gross and unsettling, but it was also cool to watch; this, on the other hand, is not only the definition of revolting but is disturbing and borders on unbearable. In the Leviathan documentary, members of the crew talk about how appalling it was to watch this being shot, with Clive Mackey, the clapper-loader, saying he had to leave because he felt like he was going to faint, and Christopher Young saying that Tony Randel wanted him to 

score it in a way that played to Browning's sympathies but he just couldn't because of how hideous the scene itself is. I also remember from another source that Peter Atkins said that writing it was one thing but actually watching it made him physically ill. For me, only some of the really gross stuff in Hellraiser: Judgment later down the line matches this scene (and sadly, some of that may even be worse, as we'll get into).

There are a lot more visual effects in Hellbound, and are often much more complex than simple bits of magical energy emanating from the Lament Configuration. There are matte paintings depicting the expanse of the Labyrinth, with Leviathan hovering in the distance, and for shots that look down into its depths; the shots of Leviathan itself, with the black beam going through its center that bathes someone in black light when it gets close to them; optical effects for shots of the stormy sky

above the Channard Institute; some instances of blue screen work, like during the climax on the podium in the center of the Labyrinth; a really impressive visual of the Lament Configuration becoming shaped like Leviathan, and Leviathan becoming like it at the end; and even instances of stop-motion animation for the close-ups of the Channard Cenobite's more intricate hand tentacles emerging and sprouting fingers, flowers, eyeballs, and blades. There are, of course, instances of that rotoscoped type of animation we saw before, like

when Channard regresses Pinhead back into Elliot Spencer and when glowing balls of energy fly through the Labyrinth at the end. Granted, there are some effects that haven't aged too well, like the optical of the Pillar of Souls emerging from the mattress at the very end, and some sequences, like the birth of Pinhead, have a weird filter applied to them that I don't care for, as it creates a reverberating effect, but on the whole, this is some impressive work for such a low budget movie.

While it's not unusual for a sequel to begin with a recap of the previous movie's ending, I don't think I've ever seen another that begins with the previous movie's title, as is the case here. I think the purpose behind it was, when the opening credits actually begin, to get across the notion that this is not just a rehash of the first movie but a beefed up continuation, with the music score becoming much bigger and bombastic accordingly. Also, while these recaps are mostly straightforward, this one is

a montage of random moments from Hellraiser's climax, starting with Frank getting ripped apart (which we actually get to see a bit more of this time), and then showing Kirsty running around the house, trying to solve the Lament Configuration, while encountering the Cenobites and the Engineer (strangely, you don't see Chatterer in this montage), and ending with her managing to banish Pinhead. However, when she later tells her story to Dr. Channard and Kyle, while it was interesting to see unused material shot for the first movie, I think

they go a little overboard with all of the stuff we did see, such as Frank's resurrection, Julia bringing him victims, and Kirsty's deal with the Cenobites. I get that those scenes are more for the audience's benefit rather than stuff Kirsty actually knows or witnessed, but I think it goes on a bit too long, and could've been better if they used any other alternate shots and takes they had available.

One of my favorite scenes in Hellbound is when Tiffany manages to open the portal to the Labyrinth, as it's positively epic and gets across how this is a bigger film than the previous one, especially when you compare it to the scenes there when the Lament Configuration was solved. The more she fiddles with it, the more the other realm's presence comes forward, with a gust of wind blowing through the open window, flashes of blue light, bits of the wall blowing into the air, and the

various specimens Channard has contained in jars in his office coming to life. Once she manages to solve it, the two-way mirror Channard and Julia are watching this through explodes in front of them, as do picture frame and bottles in the room and the window's glass, while a door blows open and books fly off the shelves. Things then get quiet for a moment, only for the door to slam shut by itself, a glass to explode, and then, the portal opens up in the wall behind Tiffany, as it does behind Channard and Julia's hiding spot. A bright blue light pours

through the doorways, and the Cenobites slowly emerge from those behind Tiffany, with Butterball emerging from the one to her right, while Chatterer and the female emerge from the left, the latter sharpening her blades. All of this is made even more awesome by Young's score, especially when they appear, followed by Pinhead, who emerges to stop them from harming Tiffany.

Unfortunately, this is where the storyline basically becomes nonexistent, as this latter half is little more than a series of random setpieces, mostly involving the characters roaming the Labyrinth and seeing a bunch of grisly and disturbing visions: Tiffany comes across that ghoulish carnival; Kirsty finds herself in her house and has the vision of Julia destroying her family (this scene was only added to the movie in later home video releases) before she encounters the Cenobites; Julia takes

Channard to Leviathan and he's turned into a Cenobite; Kirsty meets up with Tiffany and then finds herself trapped by Frank, leading to Julia killing him; Channard emerges as a Cenobite; and Kirsty and Tiffany rush to escape the Labyrinth, only to get caught up in the vortex, leading to Julia's demise. Following that, there is more of a through-line during the last fifteen or so minutes, as Kirsty and Tiffany see that the Labyrinth's influence has spread over into the real world and

are faced with Channard, who proves to be a serious threat, especially when he kills the other Cenobites. Still, it's disconcerting how Julia, who was being built up as the main villain here, is killed off so unceremoniously, and the iconic monsters whom many fell in love with after the first movie suffer a similar fate at the hands of this new big bad. Regardless, Kirsty and Tiffany rush back into the Labyrinth so Tiffany can solve the puzzle, taking the transformed Lament Configuration before Leviathan in order to do so. Channard then

appears and threatens Tiffany, when Julia suddenly reappears and distracts him, giving Tiffany time to do what she must. When Channard realizes what's going on, he tries to kill Tiffany, only to get his blades stuck in the platform and die in the embarrassing manner in which he does. Julia then unexpectedly saves Tiffany when she nearly falls off the edge of the platform, revealing it's actually Kirsty wearing her skin. With that, they both escape before the portal closes, leave the institute together, and we then have that non-sequitur

ending where two moving men (one of whom is the same man among the two who delivered the mattress to Larry's house in the first movie) are taking everything out of Channard's home, only for one of them to get pulled halfway into the mattress and then, the Pillar of Souls emerges from it.

Like with the first movie, Hellbound benefits greatly from another awesome score by Christopher Young, one much bigger and grander in scope. While he doesn't use his original Hellraiser theme all that much, save for the flashback to Frank and Julia's affair, and when you first see Pinhead, where it plays in a big, epic manner, he more than makes up for it with awesome new material. The main title theme, which you also hear when the Channard Cenobite is revealed, and becomes something of a leitmotif for him, is just awesome, with big bombastic horns, crashing cymbals, and vocalizing voices. Young said that Tony Randel wanted it to come off like a "celebration of horror," adding that the sentiment was, "Hallelujah, hallelujah! Blood and guts! Blood and guts!", and it more than accomplishes that feeling. Surprisingly, the other most memorable piece of music from the score is a softer, much more whimsical and wonder-filled reworking of the original Hellraiser theme, which becomes a motif for Tiffany, playing when she's first introduced and when she solves the Lament Configuration, as well as over the ending credits (the absolute last thing you hear is the distant sound of the music from the Labyrinth carnival, which is quite eerie). When she opens the portal to the other realm, the music becomes downright sweeping, as well as otherworldly and unnerving (both these visuals and the music make think of the portal to the other side in Poltergeist), and Young also orchestrates this new theme into an epic guise when the Cenobites appear, as well as near the end, when Tiffany faced with Leviathan. The scene where Julia feeds on some of Channard's patients enough to regrow her skin is done in a similarly grandiose manner, with lots of brass and trumpets, culminating in the first time we see her completely restored. And the scenes between Channard and the skinless Julia are scored with a soft, surprisingly sexual, but still unnerving, sound. But Young still comes up with music to accentuate the horror, scoring Browning's self-mutilation with a very unsettling, low sound, then transitioning into the first bars of the main title theme for when Julia's arms and legs burst out of the music, and going into a frantic rhythm as she chases Browning while he tries to escape. A similar sound is played when we see how Elliot Spencer became Pinhead, while the build-up to that is scored with a sound similar to the Cenobites' chiming bell theme from the first movie. Unfortunately, Young wouldn't score any of the other movies, and while he certainly didn't need to, as his career subsequently took off, the franchise became all the poorer for it, with even his original themes being almost completely discarded after Hellraiser: Bloodline.

Hellbound: Hellraiser II is a flawed but enjoyable sequel, one that may never quite reach the heights of the first film but does have a lot to recommend it, regardless. It goes for a much bigger scale and scope, despite its low budget; it's very well shot, with some memorable settings and visuals; it's sometimes dream-like in its editing and wonderfully surreal in many places; it has some memorable characters and actors, particularly Julia and Dr. Channard; the Cenobites are still cool monsters; the film has more than enough gruesome sights to show you, with some managing to outdo even the most horrific scenes in the first one; there are also some well-done visual effects; and the music score is another knockout. That said, the story isn't as strong as the first one, with the movie's latter half having no plot structure for the most part, some of the acting and dialogue with Ashley Laurence and William Hope range from "ehh" to downright awful, Kirsty's character sometimes just feels off, it's a real shame that Julia's character never went any farther, the movie relies a little too much of footage from the first during its first act, some aspects of the Channard Cenobite are kind of silly-looking, and when it's not full of surreal visions, the Labyrinth is kind of bland. And some may not like the Cenobites' backstories being revealed or Channard easily killing them off. But, all in all, I would recommend giving it a watch if you like the first one.