Oh how the mighty fall, and only 2 sequels into the ‘Hellraiser’ franchise we find our first solid bump in the road with ‘Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth’ a film that seemingly REALLY wanted to be a ‘Nightmare on Elm Steet’ movie, but only had the rights to Pinhead…So they made do. Apathy is the flavour of the day in this entry, as the budget comes tumbling down and Cliver Barker agreed to a nice payday to slap a ‘Presents’ credit in his name on the opening of the film, we shed pretty much any of the etheral interdimensional strangeness of the first two films in place of a fairly generic supernatural slasher film thats all gore and no substance.

The plot picks up an unknown period of time after the events of ‘Hellbound’…it’s to be assumed that its around the same amount of time as it took between sequels…so around 3-4 years. and a rancid little upstart named JP is tipped off that a hip cool and EXTREME piece of art is hanging out at one of his hip gallery spots, and that he should go and grab it as soon as possible. It turns out that this ‘unique’ piece is in fact the totem from the end of ‘Hellbound’ set in some kind of ceramic or metal, in hibernation. JP buys it to make the latest feature of his grunge inspired nightclub ‘The Boiler Room’.

JP is a bad egg all round, a womanizer, mysoginist and murderer, he runs the club like his own personal playground. and from here things are going to get twisted.

We’re then introduced to Joey, Joey is an upcoming newslady DESPERATE to get the anchorwoman spot on primetime, but forced to do the ‘local’ stories that dont matter and noone cares about. Shes reporting on a story at their local hospital when a man is rushed into the operating theater covered in chains and screaming. When the surgeons get the OR up and running the chains go taught, fly into the air and electricute everyone in the theater, before blowing up the guy.

Joey has NO idea what she just saw, but the guys friend Terri arrives just as the carnage settles down and, without a place to stay, Joey offers her a place to sleep for the night. While getting friendly, Terri reveals that her friend was screwing around with some random statue in ‘The Boiler Room’ when a chunk of it fell off, and next thing she knew he was covered in chains and bleeding all over the place. Terri roots through her bag and produces the puzzle box, still sealed.

Meanwhile back at the Boiler room, JP has just pulled a woman off the floor of his nightclub for some ‘private’ time, and on completion, he basically tells her to sod off, she gets upset AND somehow the art installations been moved into JPs bedroom, Pinhead wakes up and promptly devours the woman gaining strength off her. Pinhead manages to convince JP to bring him more souls to help him get stronger and JP agrees.

Meanwhile Joey and Terri begin to look deeper into the origins of the Totem, the puzzle box and its history, using her connections, Joey even manages to pull some interviews from Kirsty under the observation of Dr. Channard…and she figures out that, whatever that box and Totem are…they’re evil and need to be gotten rid of…leading Joey on an adventure through time and space to stop Pinhead from being awoken, and plan to send him back to hell before he brings Hell to Earth.

What can I say, its a significant step down in almost every measure. There are TWO rules when it comes to films like ‘Hellraiser’ that you need to abide in order to keep the sequels interesting and engaging:

1 – The more you share about the Cenobites, their history and how they function/live, the more interesting they are in the moment, and the less interesting they are forever more.

and 2 – The more you make the Cenobites talk, the less mysterious they are, and the more annoying they are.

The first Hellraiser had Cenobites for all of 8 minutes, they said MAYBE a paragraphs worth of lines all together, we had no idea where they came from, who they were or why they did what they did. In many ways, they actually UNDERsold on the promise. but certainly piqued curiosity.

Hellbound expanded on the Cenobites massively, introducing a whole other dimension they hail from, the concept of gods and demi gods, and while they talked more in that movie, they still kept the dialogue fairly brief and they didnt bother to overexplain anything. The first film garnered a ‘What they HELL are they?!’ response, the second film very much gave a ‘OH CRAP! THEY’RE BACK!’ response.

This film? Pinhead will NOT SHUT UP. They basically overtly tell you his entire history and how to kill him in this movie across the runtime, and anytime he’s on screen he will NOT STOP monologuing. its absurd. most of his lines sound like rejected Freddy Kruger lines. and they’ve tried to pivot the character (who, for the most part is flying solo here) into a more manipulative and callous figure, whereas previously he was malevolent, cold, quiet and waiting for the right moment to strike. I dont come to ‘Hellraiser’ films for stuff like this, and as soon as he started blathering on to JP, trying to convince him to join forces with him, I kind of knew we wernt dealing with the same calibre of the previous films.

The script itself feels like a rejected low budget 80s slasher with supernatural elements got fished out of the reject pile and had Pinhead inserted into it. The pacing is slow and plodding right up until the final 30 minutes when the production CLEARLY realised they’d only spent about $100 on the film, and so they crammed the remaining budget into stunts and explosions for the remainder of the runtime with mixed to poor results.

The tones all off in this one, we’ve shifted from two films that felt mysterious, etheral and somewhat sophisticated…to lowest common denominator sleaze and gore. It really does feel like the people behind this film watched the first two, and all they really took away from it was the sex scenes with Julia and the gore scenes…So they decided to make a movie about that. Its playing much more tongue in cheek than the last two films and MUCH more blunt and literal. Theres no metaphores here, no deeper subtext. The Cenobites here have gone from Interdimensional demonic beings who link the chain between pleasure and pain, tormenting the sick people who search them out for all eternity for the pleasure of their gods. To BDSM leather artists with a bloodplay fetish. Its sanded off any deeper meaning leaving…just a kind of boring time honestly.

The actual plot itself is kind of dull too, I think there could have been an interesting grain to the plot of Joey using her journalism skills and the privilages that brings with it to uncover the puzzle box, Pinhead and the other world…kind of in an ‘Outsider lets themselves in for more than they bargained for’ way…But instead the Boiler room plotting and JP take center stage for most of the first two acts, and past the opening act, Joeys journalism skills go out the window as she just becomes a woman wandering into situations where shes given a hint on how to stop Pinhead, and then wandering out of that situation directly into ANOTHER situation and ANOTHER hint. In fact, from around the halfway point right up till about 5 minutes off the end of the film, thats all that really happens. Just Joey wandering about occasionally being fed hints. The film loses interest in its own characters by the end.

The pacing starts off a little slow, and ramps up a good steam till around the opening of the 2nd act when it starts to slow a bit and then from that point up to the end it just becomes more and more labourious till the actual finale feels less like a planned ending, and more like a set piece for trailer and promo fodder. making huge swathes of the film feel glacial. I STILL to this day think this films an hour and 45 minutes long every time I put it in…its just over an hour and a half with SUPER long end credits…

Non of the characters are particularly interesting. Joey is probably the best, and shes a solid enough lead character…but not as good as Kirsty, she spends a lot of the film being given information, rather than finding it for herself…and shes a JOURNALIST. the rest of the cast are just…not really all that great and not fun to be around. Terri is kind of fine, but I didnt really enjoy the fact she spends most of the time on camera tyring to make excuses to leave. JP is insufferable and not particularly great fun to hang around with for extended periods of time, as this film seems ADAMANT to want to do, I’ve already gone into detail about the character change for Pinhead. and the rest of the supporting characters are either SUPER dull or have one charictaristic that gets exploited till they’re gone.

Theres one scene in this whole film i’d save if I could, and its as blunt and rediculous as this movie is, but I found it funny. And thats a scene near the end of the movie when Pinhead enters a Church looking for Joey who’s sought sanctuary from a priest. The father grabs a crucifix to do the ol’ ‘Exorcist’ routine, but Pinhead melts it in his hands causing serious burns and then, with his hands welded together, he forces the priest to take communion using his own demonic flesh and blood. THAT. was VERY on the nose, but I laughed.

The direction and cine are probably the strongest element of this film, they have moments across the runtime, just little flickers here and there of creative expression, good composition or an attempt at double meaning and visual subtext…but for the most part? this feels like low budget, direct to video fodder…and the assumption is, given that both Hellraiser 1 and 2 thrived on home video, that was kind of what they were aiming for. Like; its not actively BAD…but the cheapness of the whole production really shines through with the little things, like all the nice colour grading and moody lighting getting taken away, Pinheads makeup looks significantly cheaper, the other Cenobites that appear look less intricate and cheaper looking, shots are clearly framed for 4:3 to accomodate TV broadcasts. Its a film that has MOMENTS…but its not a pretty film inherently.

Performance wise, its a bit of a mixed bag. Doug Bradley as always is fun, but the script really doesnt serve him well here. He tries his best…in lesser hands this would have been MUCH worse. Terry Farrell as Joey is fine enough leading lady material, but again, the script isnt really her friend and while she puts her ALL into trying to bring the character to life, it really just left me wishing she’d got to work with material of the same quality as the first two films. Kevin Bernhardt is wonderfully sleazy and unpleasent as JP. But this film falls into the trap of spending TOO much time with a deeply unlikable character, you want to spend enough time with them to make the audience happy when they die…But not SO much time with them they feel like they’re trapped in a lift with a fart. He’s REALLY good at being evil…to the point that he overstays his welcome. which is a testimony to his performance…but a problem in equal measure.

And the soundtrack? its a rehash of the last 2 films, but now the producers have discovered rock, grunge and metal…so we get occasional snatches of that gorgeous orchestral hellraiser score intercut with Ozzy, Motorhead and bands of that ilk. I like those bands, I think theyre great. But putting rock and grungy metal into a horror film is THE most generic thing you can do…and I just…REALLY got tired of it pretty quick…

‘Hellraiser III’ feels like the rights to a great series got put into the hands of someone whos only ever made low budget slasher movies before, and because of that, it feels like they didnt really know what to do with it…so they tried to cram a great IP into a one size fits all mold with mixed to poor results. I dont enjoy watching this entry, It has a handful of moments that I enjoy, but otherwise its just kind of dull and cheap looking. Definitely one to avoid, and if your new to the series. Start with the first two and give this one a swerve.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/hellraiser-iii-hell-on-earth/