Franchises: Hellraiser. Hellraiser (2022)

Since I tend not to keep up with what's going on in the film industry, except on a very general level, with what I see on IMDB's home page and other such sites, I had no idea that anything else was being made after Hellraiser: Judgment. I knew they'd been planning to do a big budget remake of the original for a long time, but with how Dimension kept dragging their feet on that project, to the point where, twice in a row, they had to make another low-budget, direct-to-video film to hang on to the rights, and also knowing from various sources that the franchise was owned by people who didn't care to let it fulfill its potential because that wouldn't be mainstream enough for them, it seemed like Hellraiser was destined to remain in direct-to-video purgatory. Then, during 2020 and 2021, I began hearing rumblings that a new film was being made, and that it would feature a female Pinhead. At the same time, I also heard rumors that, like just about every major horror franchise, Hellraiser was heading to television, with David Gordon Green, hot off the 2018 Halloween reboot, developing it. The most concrete evidence of this that I saw came during Cody Leach's review of Judgment in late 2021, which he started off by celebrating his reaching the end of his series of reviews on the franchise, and then showed internet articles on both of these potential projects. So, if nothing else, it seemed like there was something Hellraiser-related coming within the next year or so. And then, next thing I know, I learned that this film was playing at Fantastic Fest in September of 2022 (again, thanks to Cody Leach), and would be debuting on Hulu the following month. As that's one of the only two streaming services I'm subscribed to (the other being Disney Plus), I was fairly interested in checking this out, especially given the very enthusiastic endorsement that Cody gave it. In fact, I checked it out one night not long after it premiered that October.

All in all, in my opinion, it was pretty damn good. It's certainly not superior to the original, but it's also definitely among the best films in the franchise (low bar, I know), coming off as one of the most pure Hellraiser films we've seen in a long time, and easily trumping all of the previous direct-to-video films, including Judgment. Besides restoring the franchise to its truly dark, grisly roots, I also thought it was interesting how it brought new elements to the mythology, which were desperately needed at this point, and also how, instead of retelling the story of both the original film and The Hellbound Heart, it came up with a completely new one. Plus, it had the budget necessary to effectively tell its story, featured some terrifying Cenobites, both new and familiar, and I liked the new take on Pinhead, or "the Priest," as he's referred to here. It's not perfect, as there are parts of the plot that I find kind of convoluted, some of the characters could've had a little more to them, and it's not as taboo as the first two and some of the other movies, but, overall, I'd take this over a number of the previous ones any day.

In Belgrade, Serbia, an exchange is made between a mysterious man named Lorenz and Serena Menaker, the lawyer for American millionaire Roland Voight. During a party at Voight's mansion in Massachusetts, a sex worker named Joey is allowed to meet with him. While waiting, Joey spies an elongated puzzle box sitting on a podium, and when he meets Voight, he insists that he try to solve it. Joey manages to do so, only for a needle-thin spike to deploy from the box, puncturing his hand. Before he can escape, he's trapped within the room, and chains suddenly appear, hook into him, and raise him into the air, as Voight prays to a deity he calls "the Leviathan." Six years later, Riley McKendry, a recovering drug addict, is living with her brother, Matt, his boyfriend, Colin, and their roommate, Nora. She's also dating a man named Trevor, whom she met during a twelve-step program. Since Riley's job is leaving her virtually broke, Trevor mentions a warehouse he's made deliveries to that used to house expensive items, and that the last shipment wasn't picked up. Thinking it may valuable, he offers her a cut of the profit if she assists him in stealing it. On a stormy night, they break into the warehouse and, inside a safe, find a wooden box containing Voight's puzzle box. Riley opts to take it but, when she comes home late, Matt, thinking she's either drunk or high, throws her out. After taking some pills left over in her car, she takes the box to an empty park and fiddles with it. It deploys a blade, but she manages to avoid cutting herself. Just as the pills begin to kick in, she's visited by frightening, humanoid figures who demand she either come with them or choose someone else. Awakening from a nightmare, Matt goes looking for Riley, and finds her passed out in the park. While helping her, he cuts his hand on the box's blade, and goes to a nearby restroom to clean his wound. Inside, something strange begins to happen, and Riley sees the box working itself into a new shape, before she hears Matt scream. Running inside, she finds that he's completely disappeared. Unable to make the police, Colin, or Norma understand, Riley, believing it has something to do with the box, tries to learn where it came from. Her investigation leads her to Voight's mansion, where she learns who these beings are, and that she has unknowingly entered into a pact that must be fulfilled.

I've mentioned in previous Hellraiser reviews, as well as in the introduction here, about how rumors of a remake or reboot had been circulating throughout the 2000's, but development continually stalled due to Dimension rejecting every single pitch, as they wanted it to be as mainstream as possible. Although some of the filmmakers who were momentarily attached had intended to do another adaptation of The Hellbound Heart, when Patrick Lussier and Todd Farmer were attached as director and writer, they decided to tell a completely new story, and came up with numerous concepts, including a prequel; it was also during this time that the notion of Pinhead being played by a woman first came up. After they left the project, Clive Barker himself said in 2013 that he would be directing and writing, with Doug Bradley returning as Pinhead, but by the time he delivered his screenplay in 2017, they had to make Hellraiser: Judgment in order to retain the rights. Once Halloween 2018 became an enormous hit, Dimension became intent on making more Hellraiser films, but by the next year, Spyglass Media had gotten a hold of the property, likely due to the collapse of the Weinstein Company in the wake of Harvey Weinstein's numerous sexual assault allegations. Moreover, in 2020, Barker himself finally managed to regain the rights to Hellraiser and, with this new film, would officially return to the franchise as a producer for the first time since Bloodline.

After David S. Goyer wrote the story with two other writers who then went on to do the actual screenplay, the film was directed by David Bruckner, who began his feature directing career by co-directing 2007's The Signal, along with Dan Bush and Jacob Gentry. He also directed segments of the first V/H/S movie and Southbound, along with 2017's The Ritual and 2020's The Night House, the latter of which was written by Ben Collins and Luke Piotrowski, the writers who went on to do the screenplay for this film (Goyer was also a producer on that film). While I haven't seen any of the other movies he was involved with, save for V/H/S (and even then, I couldn't tell you what his segment was about, as I only saw it once), I think Bruckner did a more than capable job with Hellraiser, and I'd be interested to see what he does next, including a possible sequel to this.

While not all of the characters are well-developed, and none of them are amazing, I feel the movie does give you some likable protagonists to follow. Our lead, Riley (Odessa A'zion), is believable as a recovering drug addict who's trying to get her life back together, but is stuck in a less than ideal living situation with her brother, Matt, whom she feels is overprotective and ashamed that she's a junkie. She also gets aggravated when he admits he doesn't like her boyfriend, Trevor, whom she met during a twelve-step program, and continues seeing him despite promising Matt that she won't. Since her job isn't paying well, and she's tired of Matt having to cover for her every month, she decides to go along with Trevor's plan to steal something potentially valuable from the warehouse district where he makes deliveries. The only thing they find there is a puzzle box, which doesn't seem valuable, but Riley decides to take it with her, while Trevor says he'll do some research to see if it's worth anything. Sneaking into the apartment late that night, she and Matt get into a fight when he accuses her of being either drunk or high, and she, in turn, accuses him of needing something to fix. With that, Matt throws her out, and despite his boyfriend, Colin, trying to convince her to stay, Riley leaves and goes out to her car, where she takes some pills she had left over. She then decides to fiddle with the box, and avoids getting cut when it deploys a blade while she's moving the pieces. At that moment, the pills hit her, and she also first encounters the Cenobites, who tell her the blade was meant for her. She's also told that she must choose someone else to be taken in her place, and that's when Matt comes looking for her, finds her, and is taken after cutting himself on the box's blade. Not knowing what happened, unable to explain it to either Colin or his and Matt's roommate, Nora, and with the cops saying there's not enough evidence to launch an investigation, despite there being blood in the sink, Riley goes to Trevor. The two of them find the missing Roland Voight's lawyer, Serena Menaker, in a clinic, and she tells them that the box is dangerous and that it was locked away in the warehouse so it couldn't harm anyone. And when Riley reveals that it's been opened, Serena confirms that the beings she saw are the same ones that Voight did.

Riley does research on Voight, learning about his sordid past and interest in the occult, as well as his mysterious disappearance six years earlier. Upon learning that Serena has now disappeared like Matt, and that several people did so before Voight also vanished, she deduces that they're connected with the box. But when Trevor proves unwilling to help her find out, and tries to get rid of the box behind her back, she goes to Voight's old estate by herself. Once inside the mansion, she finds her way to his old study,

looks through his research, and learns about the Cenobites, Leviathan, and how the Lament Configuration works; she also sees a grisly vision of Matt, asking her to bring him back. Trevor, Colin, and Nora then show up to bring her home but she refuses to leave. She tells Colin what she's learned about the box's different configurations and how, once the final one has been set, the one possessing it is allowed an audience with Leviathan, which will grant them their deepest desire. Naturally, she plans on using it to 

bring Matt back. But things become complicated when Voight not only proves to still be alive but intends to complete the configurations for his own purposes. They also become stranded there when they try to escape, only for Trevor's van to get wrecked, and Nora to be taken by the Cenobites after she's marked by the box's blade. Feeling guilty about the predicament she's put everyone in, Riley attempts to throw the box into a river, only to be stopped by the Priest, who tells her that only two more sacrifices are necessary, and then she'll be able to resurrect Matt. He

suggests Colin and Trevor, but when Riley refuses, he sees to that she herself is cut by the blade, forcing her to either sacrifice herself or pick someone to take her place. She and the others become trapped in the house, as it's surrounded by the Cenobites, and also learn of Voight and his plan for them and the box.

Though he's the one who sets everything in motion by his suggestion that they take what's in the warehouse, Trevor (Drew Starkey), for most of the movie, comes off as a decent enough guy, and also attempts to be the rational one for Riley. When he first comes up with the idea for the robbery, he immediately backpedals on it, saying he doesn't want to ruin her chances of getting her life together, and gives her one last chance to back out right before they go through with it. Once they break into the warehouse, find the safe, and open it to reveal the Lament Configuration, Trevor, disappointed that there wasn't something more valuable, allows Riley to keep it for the time being. But after she messes around with it, is visited by the Cenobites, and Matt disappears, Riley goes to Trevor, first for comfort and then to tell him what happened. He tries to help her figure out what's going on and why she keeps seeing the strange beings, but when they track down Serena Menaker after seeing her name on the warehouse's deed and she starts talking about the box being dangerous, that it could end their lives, as it did Roland Voight's, Trevor tries to get Riley to leave immediately. Later, after learning that Serena disappeared following their visit, Trevor attempts to get rid of the box behind Riley's back, much to her anger, which prompts her to go check out Voight's old mansion by herself. That night, Trevor brings Colin and Nora with him to the mansion, and, again, tries to make Riley leave immediately, only to be frustrated when she insists on talking to Colin by herself. After Nora is marked, they try to escape the grounds with her, only for the Cenobites to take her and Trevor to crash his van in the process. They try to get back to the house, and on the way, Trevor is badly bitten on the arm by Chatterer, losing a lot of blood, as well as injuring his leg.

This is where we get into a twist in the tale that I don't like at all: not only is Roland Voight alive but it's revealed that Trevor has been working for him. He was supposed to supply the box with victims until it went through all of its configurations and allowed Voight another meeting with Leviathan, so he could hopefully undo what the Cenobites had brought upon him. He intended for Riley to be the first victim, and probably hoped that her friends would fall prey to it as well, but then, as he tells Voight when he confronts

him in the mansion, things got out of hand. Not only does this make things more complicated than necessary, but it's also one of those instances where everything had to perfectly fall into place in order for us to get to this point. Trevor's various attempts to dissuade Riley from messing with the box, as well as his trying to talk her out of going through with the robbery to begin with, also really fly in the face of the ultimate revelation (Trevor tells Riley, "I tried to stop you," near the end, as a way of acknowledging it, but it still doesn't work), and I think it would've been

better had the movie progressed the way it was going and just have it be Voight's lucky day that it all led Riley to his mansion, along with the nearly complete box. In any case, when Trevor's relationship with Voight is revealed, he does seem conflicted about having deceived Riley, and is angry when Voight stabs Colin to make him the Cenobites' final sacrifice. That doesn't stop him from letting the Cenobites in and trying to keep Colin from escaping, as per Voight's orders, and Riley, in the end, stabs Trevor with the box's blade, making him the new final sacrifice.

Riley's brother, Matt (Brandon Flynn), whom she lives with, comes off as well-meaning but overbearing in his attempts to keep her from slipping back into her old ways. We never get a sense that he's ashamed of her, as she thinks he is, but he does tend to act more like her parent than her brother. That includes not caring for Trevor, whom she met on a twelve-step program, as he fears Trevor might relapse and drag her down with him. Thus, when Riley comes back to the apartment late after she and Trevor steal the Lament Configuration, Matt thinks she's been either out popping pills or getting drunk. Following a heated argument, he tells her to get out, saying he can't deal with her anymore. But later that night, when he has a horrific dream after she first summons the Cenobites, he goes looking for her, and finds her passed out in the deserted park. While helping her up, he cuts himself on the box's blade, unknowingly marking himself. The Cenobites then come for him while he's in the restroom, washing the cut on his hand, and his disappearance sparks Riley's investigation into what the box is and where it came from. During the movie's latter half, she begins seeing visions of Matt, asking her to revive him, and motivating her to go through the other configurations so she can have her desire granted.

Matt's boyfriend, Colin (Adam Faison), initially stays out of his and Riley's arguments, but after Matt kicks Riley out, he tries to stop her from going, saying she's going to regret it if she leaves. He turns out to be very right, and after Matt disappears, Colin really lays into Riley, trying to get her to remember what happened after Matt found her at the park, and all but blames her, too, telling her, "I told you not to leave." This prompts her to storm out and go to Trevor, but Colin later calls her, wanting to come pick her up, as he

feels they should be working together to find Matt. During the film's latter half, Trevor brings Colin and his and Matt's roommate, Nora (Aoife Hinds), to Roland Voight's old mansion, and Riley shows Colin everything she's learned about the box and the Cenobites. He, however, has a very hard time processing what she's talking about, especially when it comes to solving the configurations and possibly resurrecting Matt. There's not much to say about Nora, as she's just something of a neutral third party in all this and doesn't have much of a personality all her own. At one point, Voight stabs her with the box's blade, making her the fourth sacrifice to the Cenobites, who take her while she and the others are trying to escape the grounds. Late in the movie, Voight also stabs Colin, intending for him to be the last sacrifice, and the Cenobites come close to claiming him, but at the last minute, Riley is able to replace him with Trevor.

Like in the original Hellraiser, the Cenobites, as disturbing and frightening as they are, are not the villains; in this case, it's Roland Voight (Goran Visnjic), who's sort of a combination of Frank Cotton and Dr. Channard. An extremely wealthy businessman, he's also a massive hedonist whose debauchery was something of an open secret that made it into the press. Like Frank, Voight, having experienced everything a person possibly could, craved more. Thus, also having an interest in the occult, he sought out the box and worked it through its multiple configurations, feeding it six victims, in order to have an audience with Leviathan. When the time came for his gift, he chose that of "sensation," hoping to experience extreme pleasure, but what he got was a device that was shoved into his body and which continually pulls on his nerve endings, stopping momentarily to keep him from growing numb. He's spent the last six years in unending pain, and hired Trevor to find more victims for the box so he could eventually meet Leviathan again. He's also taken steps to trap the Cenobites in the house in order to force Leviathan to do as he wishes. Though he finally succeeds in trapping them, Riley escapes her own confinement and frees the Cenobites from theirs. Voight is confronted by the Priest and he begs for the "gift" to be taken away, and is told that, while it can't be taken back, it can be traded for another gift. Even though he knows that whatever the Cenobites offer will be twisted around from what one expects, something he even tells Riley, Voight decides to go with it, saying that anything is preferable to this agony. The Priest offers him the gift of power instead of sensation, and Voight is freed from the device and his wound healed up, only for Leviathan, which appears above the mansion, to impale him with a chain and take him away. At the end of the movie, he's transformed into a Cenobite himself.

Unfortunately, Voight is anything but the most interesting non-Cenobite villain we've had in this franchise. After the opening, where he completes the final configuration by tricking Joey into cutting himself on the box, we don't see him again until after the halfway point, where he's revealed to be watching the characters from within his mansion's walls, and even then, he doesn't come into play until well into the third act. Unlike with Frank and Channard, we only learn of his heinous acts and grotesque liftestyle

secondhand, from what Serena Menaker tells Riley and Trevor, and online articles that Riley looks up. Though it does give us a sense of how monstrous he apparently was, especially in hindsight, when we learn Joey, a sex-worker, was the last in a line of people he sacrificed to the box, he's still not as effectively loathsome as those who inspired him. Before the third act, the only horrible thing we see him actually do is sacrifice Joey to Leviathan, and then, he, again, disappears from the movie for a while, and you're even led to believe he's dead for

most of it, so you're unlikely to even think about him that much. The many automatic doors in his mansion, which can trap people in numerous spots and rooms, as he did Joey, and which he uses to try to hold the Cenobites hostage, are another hint of his sadism, but only when you really think about it, as well as when he himself calls the place a cage. 

During the third act, Voight is honestly more pitiable and desperate than anything else, as we can see the constant agony he's in, and then learn how the device works, which is a really horrific notion, as is the flashback of him trying to remove it, and the thought that he's had to endure this for six years. Moreover, he tells Riley that the Cenobites will never ever give her what she expects, saying, "All they have to give... is pain. It's a trick. All of it," which influences her ultimate decision at the end of the movie. And when 

he's confronted by the Priest after Riley foils his plan to trap him and the other Cenobites, Voight is in such agony that he pleads for the device to be removed, even saying that he wants to die. Thus, when the Priest offers to trade "gifts," Voight is more than happy to accept anything, thinking nothing could be worse. The Priest decides to appeal to his ego and eternal hunger for more and give him the gift of "power," which leads to Leviathan taking him away and later turning him into a Cenobite. But, as striking as those last visuals are, and as painful as the process seems, since we don't get to see him in action like Channard, it doesn't amount to much, either.

I don't get why Voight felt it was necessary to come up with the plan involving Trevor, when he could've had Serena Menaker (Hiam Abbass), his lawyer, and someone who took care of and arranged all of his affairs, do it. Since she already likely sent the initial spate of sacrifices to their doom, as we know she did with Joey, it wouldn't be inconceivable to think that Voight would force her to do it again, likely by holding something over her head. Even in the movie as it is, I have a feeling that she may have known the truth about Voight's fate and simply said he was dead in order to divorce herself from everything involving him, as well as lock away the Lament Configuration to keep it from hurting anyone else. In any case, after getting the box for him and sending him the last sacrifice, the next time we see Serena, she's in a medical center, dying of lung cancer. When Riley and Trevor come to her, she warns them of how dangerous the box is, as well as how sadistic and monstrous Voight was, and when Riley shows her the box, which is in its second configuration, she realizes it's already been set in motion again. She attempts to take the box from her, but the two of them fight over it, and Serena cuts her hand, marking herself as the next sacrifice. Sure enough, that night, the Cenobites come for her and take her away.

Unlike the mysterious and clearly supernatural Puzzle Guardian character from previous movies, Voight receives the Lament Configuration from a bedraggled man in a black and white suit known only as Lorenz (Predrag Bjelac), whom Serena has a covert meeting with in a rundown spot in Belgrade. He only appears at the very beginning, and we learn nothing of who he is, where he comes from, and what his connection is to the box, which he's paid very handsomely for delivering, but he does seem to know of its deadly properties, telling Serena, "It's not to be taken lightly." He also says he's disappointed that Voight didn't come to take the box the himself, and Serena tells him, "He never does anything he can get someone else to do for him."

From a visual standpoint, the movie has a rather dark, desaturated quality to it, with the cinematography ranging from a murky, greenish look in scenes like many of the night- and daytime interiors, and some of the nighttime exteriors when there's a streetlamp, to truly dark scenes that take place outside at night, like when Riley and Trevor steal the box and the sequence on the grounds of Roland Voight's estate, as well as when Nora gets locked up in a tunnel within the mansion's walls. There are some instances of vivid color, such as deep blue when the Cenobites come for

Serena in the hospital, accompanied by lots of flashing light effects that portend their presence (in general, they're filmed in a manner that makes them come off creepier than they've ever been), an icy blue for when Riley sees visions of Matt, and a room in the mansion that's lit in very bright red, and some of the daytime exteriors are kind of pleasant-looking, but for the most part, the film's visual aesthetic reflects its dark mood and tone. As for the camerawork, David Bruckner and cinematographer Eli Born don't get too 

fancy with it, though there are some interesting shots here and there, like one of Serena framed through some handrail bars when she first sees the Lament Configuration, one that follows Joey from the front as he walks through Voight's mansion, another focusing on Voight while Joey is strung up by the chains in the background, an overhead view of him looking up at his glass ceiling when Leviathan appears above his mansion (both here and during the climax), a similar one of the drugged Riley lying on a spinning merry-

go-round, and her whirling POV from it when she first sees the Cenobites. But the most creative bit of camerawork is how they both show the box for the first time and also reveal that it works differently in this film. When Joey enters the large room where it's kept, the shot from his POV shows the box from straight on, where we can only see one of its faces, the design of which we're very familiar with by this point. But then, as Joey gets closer, the camera goes around to its side, revealing that it's an elongated shape, rather than the simple square we know.

Though only the opening actually takes place in Belgrade, Serbia, and gives a sense of how harsh and unforgiving a place it can be, due to the weather and Serena meeting Lorenz in a very rundown-looking spot, the entire movie was shot there. Since it's supposed to be set in America, it doesn't venture too far beyond the confines of Matt, Colin, and Nora's apartment, Trevor's slightly more low-rent but still nice loft, and the city streets, with a few exceptions: the clinic where we find Serena during the present storyline (which looks a lot better than most such

places you typically see in movies), and Voight's mansion in Massachusetts (actually the White Palace in Dedinje), which is the setting for the movie's entire second half. We see it in the opening, where it's a lovely, elegant place, filled with partygoers, but when Riley arrives at it later on, it's been abandoned for many years and has obviously seen better days. The most notable room is an enormous one at the center which has several podiums displaying rare pieces, which is where the Lament Configuration is first revealed; a control panel that operates all of the doors

and lights throughout the house, as well as sections of special metal framework on the both the outside and inside, which is how Voight manages to stop Joey from escaping at the beginning and also how he briefly traps the Cenobites during the third act; and a skylight with numerous sections of it that can keep Leviathan at bay. Another memorable room is Voight's old study, which Riley finds filled with piles of research on the box and its different forms, the Cenobites, and Leviathan, and which is decorated

with some disturbing pieces of artwork. The red-lit room is full of bondage gear and other devices meant to cause pain and torture, and also has spots where someone can be trapped with automatic doors, and there's a bar area with its own set of switches, one of which opens the door to a tunnel within the walls, a tunnel that leads to that display room and is where Voight is hiding initially. Finally, the grounds themselves turn out to be an eerie and unsafe setting as well when the characters find themselves trapped on the estate at night, with the Cenobites roaming about.

Although the story and characters are completely different, the film's tone is very similar to that of both the original Hellraiser and Hellbound, in that it's a straightforward, serious, dark horror film, with a somber mood and very little humor at all, and ends on a downbeat note where, even though the survivors have escaped the evil, they're not unscathed by any means. But where it's also different is in its themes and subtext. Instead of the corrupted family values, infidelity, lust, and sick, unhealthy relationships that we had in the original Hellraiser, this one is more

about guilt, regret, addiction, and being careful what you wish for. In terms of addiction, there's not only Riley's literal dependence on drugs but also how she seeks solace from her problems in sex with Trevor. She also becomes addicted with learning what happened to Matt and about the Lament Configuration's origins, as well as possibly resurrecting Matt using her wish from Leviathan. And when the others come to stop her, i.e. an intervention, her actions result in their deaths, just as they did Matt, a metaphor for how addiction affects a person's loved

ones, as well. Similarly, Roland Voight is, like Frank Cotton, addicted to experiencing every kind of stimulus a person can, which leads him to the box and his willingness to sacrifice six people to it in order to summon Leviathan. That, naturally, leads into the theme of being careful what you wish for, as being attached to a device that has him in constant pain is hardly what he expected when he wished for sensation. And at the end of the movie, he's so desperate to have it removed that he's willing to

exchange it for another "gift," despite knowing it will likely not be anything akin to what it sounds like. Sure enough, when the Priest offers him power instead, Voight is impaled by Leviathan and taken away to later be put through the painful process of becoming a Cenobite. Because of this, Riley knows better than to ask them for anything when it's her turn. But, again, she doesn't leave the movie unscathed, as when she chooses nothing, the Cenobites tell her that she will now live a life of regret over everything she's   

done and everybody she's hurt. Before, she clearly felt guilty in playing a part in what happened to Matt, to the point where, when Colin all but said it was her fault, she had to leave and seek refuge from it with Trevor. After Nora's taken, she blames herself for it, as well as for also putting Trevor and Colin in danger by forcing them to come to her aid. But, as much as she would love to resurrect Matt and undo at least one of her mistakes, she knows that those visions she's been having aren't really him and only offer false hope, so she turns the Cenobites down and decides to accept his death. And yet, when she and Colin leave at the end of the movie, Colin asks if she made the right choice, and Riley is unable to give him an answer, and likely never will.

Like Hellraiser: Judgment, the reboot brings some welcome new aspects to the mythology, specifically in how the box and Cenobites work. First, the box itself looks noticeably different. The design is still the same but, while at first glance, it feels like it's carved from wood, when you get a closer look at it when someone works it, you can tell it's actually made of metal, and the patterns are etched into it rather than lacquered on. The corners can also be moved, something that had been incorporated into the box in previous movies, and while the one side still has what

looks like a button, another has a hole with a hidden button in the center that causes two of the faces to pop loose. This leads into the revelation that the box goes through a series of different configurations, each of which has a blade hidden within it that marks someone as a sacrifice to the Cenobites when they're cut. After the Cenobites claim their victim, the box absorbs their blood and works itself into its next form. It goes from the familiar square-shaped Lament Configuration to the eight-sided "Lore" form, the pyramid-shaped "Laliderant" or "Lauderant," the 

double-trapezoid "Liminal," the rectangular "Lazarus," and finally, the elongated diamond shape of the "Leviathan," a form that we saw back in Hellbound. Once the box reaches the final configuration, the person holding it is allowed to meet with Leviathan itself and ask for a wish related to the box's six shapes: life (Lament), knowledge (Lore), love (Lauderant), sensation (Liminal), resurrection (Lazarus), and power (Leviathan). However, as is always the case in this mythology, the "gift" is  

always twisted and perverse in some manner. Voight first asks for sensation, only to get that device impaled through him that keeps him in constant pain, and when he later asks for power instead, he's taken away by the Leviathan and turned into a Cenobite. Again, having seen this aspect firsthand, Riley decides, when it's her turn, to simply choose life. Though this doesn't come with any obvious consequences, the Cenobites tell her that she will be forever haunted by a sense of guilt and loss.

Although they're not explored much further than they were in Hellbound, it's nice to finally see both the Leviathan and Labyrinth again. Like in that film, there are hints that Leviathan may be a conscious being, whether living inside the enormous shape we see or is the shape itself, as it produces the device that impales Voight and also skewers him with a chain and takes him away. We even possibly get to see inside it, during the final scene of Voight being turned into a Cenobite. We also get to actually see it in our world this time, hovering above the skylight in Voight's

mansion, and turning the area around it into the Labyrinth, showing how it has influence in both its realm and ours. And speaking of its realm, while we only see glimpses of the Labyrinth there, in the earlier scene where the Cenobites come to claim Nora, and when a portal to it opens on the grounds, as well as in a drawing of Leviathan hovering above it, this brings the franchise back to the feeling of ambiguity it had at the beginning, where it was unsure if this realm that the Cenobites come from is actually hell or is a nightmarish dimension that feels like it.

Knowing the kind of world we live in nowadays, I wasn't surprised to learn there was a bit of outrage over the news that Pinhead would be played by a woman in this film, with the terms "woke" and the like thrown around like nobody's business, I'm sure. As for me, while I was a bit surprised, because I knew the character was meant to be androgynous and even more than a little feminine in the original novella, I came to view it as more accurate to its roots than Doug Bradley's portrayal actually was. When I saw pictures of Jamie Clayton in the makeup in a horror magazine I looked through one day at Barnes & Noble, I felt they'd made a good choice, and that was confirmed when I saw the movie. Though they have much more of a role in the overall story than in the original, the Cenobites are still, for much of the film, a threat that's lingering in the background, biding their time until their next sacrifice is marked. The Pinhead character, here referred to simply as "the Priest" (likely due to Clive Barker's dislike of the "Pinhead" name), is first seen fairly early on, around 26 minutes in, after Riley first plays with the box. Like his and the other Cenobites' first appearance at the beginning of the original Hellraiser, he's mostly shrouded in shadow, although you can make out more than you could before, and after this initial appearance, where he tells Riley to either allow herself to be sacrificed or choose another, he isn't seen again until the Cenobites come to take Nora. Here, rather than the melancholic, business-minded portrayal in the original film, this incarnation of the Hell Priest, while still very calm, proves to be rather sadistic and eager to experience the pain and suffering of others. After stringing Nora up with chains, when he hears her saying a prayer, he asks, "What is it you pray for?" She answers, "Salvation," and he remarks, "And what would it feel like? A joyful note? Without change, without end? Heaven? There's no music in that." He then removes a pin from his head and sticks it all the way through Nora's throat, saying, "Oh, but this. there is so much more the body can be made to feel. And you'll feel it all before we're through," before turning her over to Chatterer.

Shortly afterward, when Riley tries to dispose of the box by throwing it into a river, the Priest stops her, saying, "Accept the pain you have wrought. Greater delights await. We wish to see you proceed." Riley asks him what they are and he answers, "Explorers in the further regions of experience," adding, "Of sensation's rim. Our gifts are boundless." She says she doesn't want their "gifts," but the Priest insists that she does, saying, "Our God awaits. You know what it can offer... Your brother's ending was exquisite... Would it bring you comfort to see him again?"

Hearing Colin and Trevor calling for Riley from nearby, he encourages her, "Two more and he is yours. Feed it. Their pain. Their blood. Unlock the next configuration. and then the last." Riley's insistence that she's done enough is met with the Priest asserting, "'Enough' is a myth." He then uses his influence to cause the box to cut Riley herself, probably the first time the Cenobites have ever actively marked someone for death, and warns her, "We will not be denied. Your blood is in our hands now. Ours to claim at any time." He gives her an

ultimatum, telling her, "If not you, another. Choose," and he and the other Cenobites begin actively pursuing her and her friends, trapping them in the mansion. Instead of trying to break in like the zombies in Night of the Living Dead, the Cenobites, after being locked out by the metal framework, wait until they're allowed in, like when Riley attempts to mark another of them for sacrifice like she did earlier with Chatterer. During the climax, they're all allowed in, but are momentarily trapped by Voight so he can 

force them to remove the device that's tormenting him. But the Priest remains calm and confident, even seemingly flattered that Voight built an elaborate trap for them. After they're allowed in by Riley, the Priest confronts Voight about his unhappiness with their "gift," telling him it can only be exchanged for another. Deciding that he's been looking for conquest and power rather than sensation, he offers Voight the Leviathan Configuration, which he accepts. But when Leviathan itself impales Voight with a chain and hoists him up, the Priest, telling him that their power of dominance will now be his, says the immortal line, "We have such sights to show you."

At the end of the movie, when it's Riley's turn to make a choice, the Priest tempts her into choosing Lazarus with another vision of Matt, begging her to bring him home. But Riley, having seen how things never turn out well when a deal is made with the Cenobites, turns the offer down, and the Priest notes that she has chosen Lament, "A life of regret, knowing everything you've done, everyone you've hurt... You choose to live, to carry that weight, bitter and brief." Though he doesn't seem happy about it, he allows her to have her way and disappears, while the box reverts back to its original form.

One of the most disquieting things about this film's depiction of the Cenobites is how the filmmakers eschewed the classic BDSM look, which they felt had become too much of a mainstream aesthetic to be disturbing anymore, in favor of their bodies being deeply lacerated and stretched to where they make outfits out of their own flesh. In the case of the Priest, he has the classic Pinhead look about his head, just more polished, with the pins' heads noticeably glowing slightly in the dark, but everything else is totally new, with the deep cuts and grooves in his

pale, albino-like flesh exposing the musculature in patterns that make it look like clothing. Like before, the Priest does seem to be wearing a type of skirt, made out of cloth, the flesh on his throat is almost completely gone, with what looks like a pair of brass dials inserted in a vertical row into the very center of the esophagus, and his fingers alternate from virtually untouched to almost completely flayed in order to create the impression of the gloves that the Cenobites wore in the past. The body and face are done in such a

way where it's hard to determine whether the character is male or female (I'm referring to him as male just to keep in line with the previous depictions and to make it simpler), and the same goes for the voice, which has a depth to its pitch but also a rather female cadence. And whenever the Priest, as well as some of the other Cenobites, are onscreen, the light on them is constantly shifting and moving for an added otherworldly feeling.

No joke, these are, by far, the freakiest Cenobites to me, managing to be much more disturbing than the already unsettling classic four in the first two movies. The one known as the Gasp (Selina Lo) is, design-wise, like a cross between the original female Cenobite and Angelique from Bloodline, with her open neck wound attached to the ends of her split open, nun's habit-like scalp. She also has pairs of pins stuck into both of her cheekbones and the bridge of her nose, and speaks in a distorted, wheezing, rattling voice, hence her name. She does some of the dirty work, as she and a couple of other Cenobites come for Serena, whom she tells when she begs for forgiveness, "Save your breath for screaming," and also prepares to take Colin, stringing him up with razor-wire. She's the one who Riley makes the trade with, opting for Trevor to be the last sacrifice rather than Colin. And at the end of the movie, when Riley makes her choice, the Gasp tells her that, as a result, her suffering has only just begun.

This film's version of Chatterer (Jason Liles) is definitely the most aggressive, as he chases after Nora when Voight marks her, and after the Priest has strung her up with chains and put a pin all the way through her throat, he finishes her off in a really grisly manner. He also traps Riley and Trevor by pinning them against a gate and a wall, and bites a big chunk out of Trevor's arm. And this is also his most horrific design, with how everything below his upper torso is carved up, his mouth and lower head are completely flayed, and everything above his chattering jaws is

just a mass of flesh, with few details except some grooves. Most of the other Cenobites don't do much of anything, but they're no less horrifying. One, called the Weeper (Yinka Olorunnife), is called that because she weeps blood from her eyes, but that's the least disturbing thing about her, as she has long pins and rods sticking out of various spots on her body, and her eyes are apparently the heads of pins themselves, as the Gasp takes one from her and puts it in Serena's mouth. The Weeper's hands also split open right down the middle, between her four main fingers, and she is

able to speak, though her voice is just as wheezing and distorted as the Gasp's. The scariest one for me, the Asphyx (Zachary Hing), walks around in a shambling motion, its arms tied fast to its torso from wires produced by a device sticking out of there (said device looks very similar to the one impaled through Voight), and no face, as the flesh is stretched tight across its head and attached to brass pipes running out the back of its head and down the middle of its back, where the flesh is ripped open to expose its spinal

cord. Worst of all, it makes these loud, very disturbing wheezing sounds, akin to the Kothoga creature in The Relic, and can only track its victims through sound. The scene of it stalking Serena in the dark medical center is really creepy, and it's also the Cenobite that Riley lures into the mansion to make it the final sacrifice for the box. When she does, it proves to be far more dangerous than expected, as it suddenly frees its arms and quickly chases after her, 

getting trapped in-between one of the place's automatic doors in the process. It continues struggling to get at Riley, the flesh peels off its face to reveal its mouth and tongue (which makes it look even uglier), but in the end, the Asphyx seems to collapse and die after being stuck there for so long, as it takes no part in the climax.

There are two other Cenobites who appear briefly during the third act but do nothing other than stand around and look creepy (I actually forgot about them for a little while). One is the Masque (Vukasin Jovanovic), the sole Cenobite who's clearly male, as he speaks in such a voice, and who we first see when they come for Nora. What's most freaky about him is that his head is completely hollowed out, with only the base of his neck and his face, propped up by stitched in wires and with empty eye-holes, left, along with lots of other stitched up sections on his body and

arms. The other is called the Mother (Gorica Regodic), so called because she has a heavily swollen, pregnant stomach, as well as a pale, mutilated body, like all of the others. While the Masque is in a small handful of shots, the Mother only appears in one, being the third Cenobite to cut Colin off while he's trying to escape, following the Masque and the Gasp respectively.

As I said before, David Bruckner and his cinematographer often shoot the Cenobites in a manner to make them look so damn creepy and unsettling. The first time Riley sees them, when she's lying on the merry-go-round, they come of as eerie figures in the distance that then appear and disappear around her, with the Gasp popping up right behind her. That leads into our first look at the Priest, who's backlit and slowly working the box, telling Riley to choose someone else to take her place. The scene where the Cenobites come for Serena in the medical

facility is a truly terrifying one, with the Asphyx wandering around in the hallway behind her and then passing by her in the darkness, making that unsettling wheezing sound. She tries to escape, only to run into the hallways, which are now almost totally dark, with otherworldly, flashing lights coming through the windows, and find the other Cenobites approaching her from all sides. The shots of them emerging from and walking around in the darkness, with the flashing lighting making them go back and forth from silhouettes to brief glimpses of what they look like,

are pure nightmare fuel, especially with the Asphyx's breathing and the Weeper making unearthly sobbing sounds. It culminates with the Gasp walking up to Serena and doing whatever it is that she does to her. Even scarier than that it is the scene where Nora is stuck in the hidden passageways within the mansion's walls and, after Voight stabs and marks her, she sees a dark figure standing at the end of the tunnel across from her and it runs at her (it's like the first time you see the Engineer in the original Hellraiser, only much  

scarier). And then, you have the scene where the Cenobites come for Nora, all the shots of them during the sequence that takes place on the mansion's grounds, including the very unsettling ones of them standing around outside the house itself, waiting to be let in, and the shots of the Gasp in the red-lit room when she prepares to take Colin.

Another thing this movie does really well is create that feeling of the Cenobites' world bleeding into ours, with everything becoming unearthly, subtly at first but then in more pronounced ways. When Riley first encounters them at that park, a breeze picks up, followed by mist, and beams of that otherworldly blue light, and when the Priest works the box, blood appears on Riley's chest in a pattern akin to one of the box's faces. After he tells her to pick someone to take place, there's a vision of Riley getting knocked back, with hooked chains emerging from the bloody

pattern, and in a cut, they descend down towards Matt, who's in bed with Colin. They hook into him and yank him up, but then, he's sitting up in bed, perfectly fine, looking as if he just bolted up from a nightmare. This prompts him to go find Riley, who's passed out on the merry-go-round when he does, suggesting that what we saw was her unconsciously calling to him in order to take her place. After he accidentally cuts himself on the box's blade, he goes into a public restroom to wash the bleeding wound, when we see his vision is becoming distorted and he

seems to feel strange, both of which will carry over to the others who are marked. Then, he looks at himself in the mirror, sees blood beginning to bubble up from the drain and into the sink, and a door opens in the wall across from him, all while the box changes shape by itself outside. Serena sees the same thing after she's taken to the infirmary at the medical center, followed by the fairly well-lit room and outside corridors suddenly becoming very dark, lit only by that otherworldly, constantly moving blue light that

makes it all feel like a surreal nightmare. When she first stumbles out of the room to escape the Asphyx, she sees a vision of the Labyrinth, with a rotating flesh pillar at the end and what looks like bloody, bands of flesh attached to it. Before that, when Riley and Trevor are having sex, she sees Chatterer standing nearby, watching them, a moment that proves these Cenobites are even creepy in a normal environment. And later, when she's alone in Voight's mansion, she sees a Vision of Matt looking at himself in a mirror, with hints of that blue light around him, alluding to how this isn't as benign as it may seem.

One of the most creative transitions from the real world to the Cenobites' realm happens when they come to collect Nora, as Riley, Colin, and Trevor are trying to drive off the mansion's grounds. As she lies in the back of Trevor's van, the sound of those up front arguing fades away, and she watches as both the back of the van and the image of the passing scenery outside pull away. She sees the same thing when she looks ahead of her, and when they've both disappeared into the dark void, she finds herself in the Labyrinth. The corridor is then filled with that

familiar light, and she sees the Weeper and Chatterer emerge in front of her, with the Priest appearing behind her, leading into her gruesome fate. Riley is able to see what happens to Nora in the rear-view mirror, though when she and the others actually look back there, all they see is the blood left behind from her back being flayed open. Shortly afterward, the Priest opens a stairway in the ground that seems to lead from the Labyrinth up into the real world, from which Chatterer emerges to pursue Riley after she's marked. And during the climax, we see how Leviathan's arrival in the sky above the mansion pretty much turns it all into the Labyrinth itself.

While the movie doesn't go as deep into the sorts of uncomfortable subject matter you've come to expect from this franchise, with only mentions of Roland Voight's debauchery and hints of Riley's past history with drugs, it definitely gets into the series' familiar themes of pain and sensation, showing it to you without mercy. Less than ten minutes in, we see Joey try to solve the box, only for a thin blade to deploy from it and stab through the palm of his hand and out the front. When he tries to get away, Voight traps him in the room, the Cenobites are summoned, appearing

offscreen, and impale his leg with a chain, creating a really gnarly-looking wound in the process. We see him get strung up in the background, all while he screams in absolute agony. Matt's fate occurs offscreen, though the sight of his back's flesh having been flayed off in those visions gives us a hint at what the Cenobites did to him, with the Priest later telling Riley that his death was "exquisite," and the same goes for Serena, as we only see the Gasp put a pin in her open mouth. Going back to the notion of their being marked by the box's blades, all of the wounds

they receive are really painful-looking and bloody, and Nora's fate is among the hardest to watch. When she ends up in the Labyrinth and is confronted by the Cenobites, the Priest hooks into her shoulder-blades, pulling up big chunks of bloody flesh, her Achilles tendons, and her front, then strings her up in a way that causes her back to arch and her legs to bend backwards in a manner that hurts just to look at it. The Priest makes it even worse by bending her even further back to look at her, then removes a pin from

his head and sticks it all the way through her neck, as we watch it puncture its side, go straight through the inside of either her voice-box or windpipe, and out the other side of her neck. All the while, Nora lets out some tortured screams, her voice becoming distorted and higher due to the penetration into her vocal cords (it's akin to how, in Day of the Dead, that one guy's screams became higher-pitched as the zombies pull his head off and stretch the cords), before the Cenobites finish her off by ripping the flesh off her

back. After Colin is marked during the climax, the Gasp strings him up completely with razor wire, which really makes me squirm, and even though he's not that likable of a character in the end, seeing Trevor get a chunk of his arm bitten off by Chatterer and his own arms snared by razor wire, to the point where the flesh on his arms starts flaying off, is still wince-inducing.

Voight's situation is truly horrific, as when he wished for the gift of sensation, he got a device impaled through him that pulls on his nerve endings in random cycles, and momentarily stops just long enough to keep him from becoming numb to the endless pain. Not only is that a hideous notion in and of itself, as is the idea that he's had to endure it for six years, but we see a flashback of him trying to remove it, only to cause himself even more agony, and we also witness how it stops and then starts again, causing him to gasp and shudder each time. By the time his plan to

capture the Cenobites to force them to remove it has been foiled, Voight has reached his breaking point and tearfully begs for the Priest to take it away so he can die. Though he manages to get him to agree to an exchange, the device's removal seems to as painful as its implantation and the way it operated, as it falls apart while Voight is doubled over on the floor, groaning and gasping, as well as spitting up blood. After it's been removed, you see the wound repair itself, which also seems to be painful, given how he almost starts hyperventilating. And just when he's

feeling good again, Leviathan shoots a huge chain down through the skylight, impaling him through the torso, and hoisting him up. Right before the credits roll, we see Voight being put through the process of becoming a Cenobite himself, with his pale, nude, hairless body placed on something akin to a table that raises him up into the crucifixion pose, followed by long strands of his flesh getting ripped off at various spots, a line of four pins inserted into either side of his throat (along with others we then see on his body),

and the skin around his mouth being removed and tied around to either side of where his head is resting. The movie's final shot, after a close-up of his eyes becoming like those of the other Cenobites, is a pullback to reveal what his body looks like after this process and, in a way you'd expect from Clive Barker himself, it's horrific yet has a strangely angelic look to it at the same time.

In case you couldn't already tell, the makeup effects work in this film is absolutely excellent. Not only do the Cenobites look awesome and disturbing, but the shots of the nasty wounds people receive after being stabbed by the box's blades and the close-ups of their getting impaled and strung up by the Cenobites' chains are much more painful-looking than they've been in quite a while. The same goes for similarly gory effects, like when Riley embraces a vision of Matt, only to feel and then see in a mirror that his backside is completely flayed, revealing the bones,

spinal cord, and musculature; Nora's torture at the hands of the Cenobites, especially when her own back gets ripped off; Chatterer biting a big, bloody chunk out of Trevor's arm; Colin and then Trevor getting strung up with the razor wire; and the effect of the device impaled through Voight's torso. Speaking of which, a truly incredible sequence is when, after the device is removed from his body, you see the damage being repaired, with the spinal column and organs pushing back into place, and the torn flesh sewing itself up and reforming, the latter of which we see in

great close-up. It seems like that might've been done 100% practically, but there's also the possibility that it was through a well-executed mixture with CGI; either way, it looks great, and the same goes for Voight's transformation into a Cenobite at the end, both in how they make him look beforehand and the shots of his flesh being stripped off in ribbons, as well as his eyes changing. Unfortunately, while visual effects and CGI are used well enough in some places, like in the

transitions from the real world to the Cenobites' realm, and in those big wide shots of Leviathan entering our world from the sky, there are also some effects involving digital chains and wire, as well as CG blood for when Chatterer is pulled apart, that don't look that great. But they're used sparingly and, often, very quickly, so it can be forgiven.

Like the original Hellraiser, this is a fairly slow-paced movie, especially the first half, which focuses mostly on Riley and her relationship with the people around her, with occasional instances of horror, like her first encounter with the Cenobites and Matt's disappearance, as well as when the Cenobites come to collect Serena. The second half, set entirely at Voight's mansion, also starts out at a leisurely pace, with Riley first arriving, searching the house, and pouring over everything she finds in Voight's study

about the Cenobites and the box. But it slowly ratchets up, with her seeing the vision of Matt that turns grotesque, and Nora getting trapped in the corridor within the walls, wherein she's stabbed by Voight and is then chased by Chatterer. She ends up back in the large display room, where the others find and try to help her. Realizing she's been marked, Riley says they need to get her out of there immediately. They take her outside, put her in the back of Trevor's van, and drive off back down the 

place's enormous driveway, but when they do, a part of the road behind them opens, signaling the Cenobites' impending arrival. They get lost in their scramble to get off the property, with the road suddenly becoming hard to navigate, even though they'd driven through it not that long ago. Arguing about how they missed the turn, Trevor goes in reverse and tries to head back down the alternate path, with an opening appearing in the road in front of them. As Riley, Trevor, and Colin argue about where they should go, the Cenobites collect Nora in the

backseat, with Riley seeing them in the rear-view mirror and bringing it to everyone's attention. By the time they turn around, Nora has disappeared, with only a splatter of blood on the floor of the van. Distracted by this, Trevor runs into a ditch. Unable to get the van loose, and with no other options, he tells Riley and Colin that they need to get back to the house, and while he and Colin argue about it, Riley grabs the box and runs off to get rid of it. That's when she has her first formal meeting with the Priest, who eventually marks her and tells her to either allow herself to be sacrificed or pick someone else.

After the Priest disappears, they head back to the house, but on the way, Riley gets the same feeling and blurry vision as everyone else who's been marked. The Priest appears across from them, and opens up a hole in the ground from which Chatterer emerges. Riley and Trevor run for the gate, but Colin is so shocked that he just stands there, unable to move for a few seconds. He then runs to them, as they climb the gate, but he trips and stumbles. By the time Riley and Trevor make it to the other side of the gate, Chatterer

is almost on top of Colin. But because he's not the one's who marked, Chatterer ignores him and goes for the gate. He grabs it, manages to snap the lock loose, and pushes it open, trapping Riley and Trevor between it and the wall, the latter's leg getting caught between the edges of the wall and gate. Chatterer reaches through the bars, grabbing at Riley, then turns his attention to Trevor and grabs him. As Trevor struggles with the Cenobite, Riley looks through an opening in the wall and sees the Priest standing

nearby, watching expectantly. Trevor tries to push Chatterer's head back, only for his arm to slip through the bars and Chatterer to bite hard into it, tearing out a big chunk of flesh. Seeing this, Riley takes the box and stabs Chatterer through the bars. He immediately freezes in place, and after she pulls the blade out, he slowly backs away, until the Priest summons the chains, which pierce into him from both sides, then rip him apart, splattering Riley and Trevor with blood. After Trevor screams at the sight of this, and the box shifts into the Lazarus Configuration, Colin comes in,

moves the gate, and tells them that other Cenobites are coming. Riley looks and sees that the Weeper and the Asphyx have joined the Priest, and the three of them quickly run back to the house, with Colin having to help Trevor due to his injured leg. Once they get inside and close the doors, Riley quickly hits the buttons that activate the metal framework on the outside of the windows and doors. This is a barrier the Cenobites seemingly can't pass, and they stop right outside. Riley and Colin then see to Trevor's badly bleeding arm, and everything slows down for a bit.

Eventually, Riley comes up with the idea to mark another Cenobite as a sacrifice. After activating the Lazarus Configuration's blade, she and Colin get Trevor up and place him down by the controls so he can open and close the doors and bars after they've lured one inside. She and Colin walk to the door, open it, and have Trevor deactivate the bars. Once it's completely open, Riley walks out the door and down the small flight of steps, facing the Priest, who's standing directly across from her. She also sees the

Gasp to her right and the Weeper to her left, and tries to get them to come at her, telling them to take her. The Weeper acts threateningly towards her, but the Asphyx is the one that starts to approach her, also from her right. Colin gets Riley to come back inside and they slowly creep up the stairs, as the Asphyx walks up towards them, followed by the Weeper and the Gasp. Once they've walked back through the door, Trevor hits the switch in time to where the bars close just after the Asphyx has walked through and entered

the house as well. It stumbles a bit on the step, then has trouble finding them when they stand absolutely still, but they see when they bump a table behind them that it reacts to sound. As it stands there, wheezing, Riley tries to approach it as quietly as possible to stab it, but when Colin whispers for her to be careful, the Asphyx suddenly breaks free of the wires restraining its arms and runs at her. She lets it chase her from the foyer into the display room, with Trevor closing the bars behind it. Riley runs into another room across the way but stumbles and drops

the box. She backs across the floor, as Trevor hits another switch, closing the bars and trapping the Asphyx in between them. It's secure enough so it can't get at her, but continues struggling to the point where the mass of flesh on its face starts to rip off, revealing its mouth and tongue beneath. Telling them how she dropped the box, Trevor lets Colin in so he can stab the Asphyx, but he can't find the box in the spot where Riley says she dropped it. While he's distracted, Voight suddenly appears, grabs him, and stabs him in the torso, then runs the blade up. He removes it and shoves him aside, before placing the box on a podium and waiting for Leviathan and the Cenobites to come.

The box then works itself into the Leviathan Configuration and Voight places it to where its pointing upwards at the skylight. He orders Trevor to flip the switches to allow the Cenobites in, as well as to open the metal framework on the skylight. Despite Riley and Colin begging him not to, he flips does so. Riley frantically yells at Colin to get out and, despite how badly injured he is, he gets to his feet and tries to escape, bleeding on the floor. Voight tells Trevor to keep Colin close by, while Colin sees that the front

door is open and the Priest is watching him from the courtyard. He tries to find another way out, with Trevor, despite his own injuries, getting to his feet and chasing after him. Colin's blood drips and then runs upward from the Configuration, pooling against the skylight. As a result, Leviathan emerges from the stormy sky above the mansion and slowly descends towards the skylight, as the Cenobites watch outside. Elsewhere in the house, Trevor tries to stop Colin from escaping, only for Colin to run into the Masque,

who tells him that they're already there to collect him. Colin backs away in terror, then sees the Gasp watching from nearby. He tries to skirt around her, only to run into the Mother, forcing him to duck into another room. He's followed into the red-lit room by the Gasp, while Leviathan reaches the top of the mansion, prompting the Priest to head on inside. Before he can reach the display room, Voight throws a switch that traps him in a small hallway between it and the foyer; at the same time, he stops the Gasp from getting at Colin, traps the Masque elsewhere,

and even closes the framework on the skylight to prevent Leviathan from reaching him. While Voight confronts the Priest, demanding that the device be removed from his body, Riley slips between the ajar door to the room she's trapped in, as well as between the still struggling Aphyx's legs, and grabs the Leviathan Configuration. She also runs to the control panel, allowing the Priest and Leviathan in to get at Voight, who's unable to stop her because the device starts up again, pulling on his nerve endings; however, she also allows the Gasp the opportunity to

get at Colin. While the Priest walks towards Voight, who begs for the device to be removed, the Gasp wires up Colin's arms and wrenches them up, followed by his legs and torso. Riley rushes to find him, following his screams of agony, as Trevor finds his way down to the room and is himself quite horrified when he sees what's happening.

At the same time that Voight begs for the Priest to remove the device, Riley, after reaching the room where Colin is being tortured, begs the Gasp to stop, saying she never chose him. Just as the Priest suggests that Voight would prefer another "gift," the Gasp suggests Riley choose another sacrifice. Riley, holding the Configuration, intends to stab Trevor. He tries to talk her down by reminding her that he tried to stop her from getting mixed up in this and tells her to put it down. When she refuses, he lunges at her, and

she jams the blade into him. Both of them, shocked at what she just did, stagger backwards, Trevor falling against the circular couch there, as the Gasp releases Colin. At the same time, after the Priest offers him power instead, the device inside Voight comes apart and falls out of him, and the hole in his torso is healed up. Once he gets over the shock, he laughs in relief, when Leviathan deploys a chain that shoots through the skylight and impales him; at the same time, Riley removes the Configuration from Trevor. Razor wire shoots up through the cushion and ensnares his neck

and arms, flaying the skin off the latter. Voight is hauled up towards Leviathan, as the Priest tells him, "You will know our finest gift... Oh, yes. We have such sights to show you," while Trevor is dragged through the cushion, down a huge, stone shaft leading to the Labyrinth, his screams echoing on the way down. After that, the movie wraps up with Riley rejecting whatever the Cenobites have to offer, and Voight being turned into one himself. (Personally, I find this climax more satisfying than the original's kind of lackluster one.)

For the music score, David Bruckner brought in Ben Lovett, who'd scored many of his previous movies. Lovett's music fits very nicely with the tone of Hellraiser, and from the very beginning, he establishes a flavor very similar to Christopher Young's original work, with the same sort of somber darkness and bell-like sounds akin to the Cenobites in the original film. But what's really great about the score is that, 26 years after Bloodline, the original Hellraiser theme finally returns to the franchise. Though it's only subtly hinted at first, when Riley first enters Voight's study, Lovett brings in a soft version of the Hellbound theme, played on a flute, and when Riley looks through the notes and sees the word "Cenobite," then reads up on the different configurations that the box can go through, you hear the Hellraiser theme, played on somber strings. Moreover, when both Voight and Trevor are claimed by Leviathan and the Cenobites respectively during the climax, you hear the actual big, orchestral version of the theme from the original movie, followed by the softer, slower main theme for the aftermath and a reprise of the Hellbound theme for Voight's transformation into a Cenobite. I can't stress enough how cool it was to finally hear that music again after so many mostly forgettable scores for the direct-to-video movies. The rest of Lovett's music also works very well, especially during the more action-oriented and epically frightening moments during the movie's second half, but bringing back those old themes is where I give the highest marks.

It's a shame that Hellraiser 2022 went straight to Hulu rather than theaters, as I think it might've done fairly well on the big screen. While not exactly perfect, as it does suffer from some of the characters being underdeveloped cannon fodder, a human villain who isn't as effective as he could've been, a twist in the story that I don't care for, and not going into the taboo like the first two and some other movies did, it's still the shot in the arm that this franchise needed after so many years of mediocrity. It nicely tells a completely different story from the original or its literary source, most of the characters are well-acted enough to where you can invest in them, the movie is shot in a manner that goes well with its dark tone and makes the Cenobites come off as effectively scary, the Cenobites themselves are very disturbing in concept and design, the new, androgynous take on the Pinhead character is an interesting one, the makeup and gore effects are effectively painful and wince-inducing to look at, you can tell they finally got an acceptable budget to work with, the music score is not only fitting but also brings back the original themes, and, above all else, the movie nicely expands on the mythology. Some may be turned off by how different it is, as well as its fairly long running time of two hours, but for me, this makes up for the fair-to-downright crappy direct-to-video flicks that preceded it.