Hellraiser? I hardly know ‘er!
For me, this is a solid “not bad!” By the same token, one man’s “not bad!” is another man’s “not good!” Hellraiser 3 is enjoyable enough while you’re watching it, but if it shut off in the middle for whatever reason, like if the power went out, you’d just shrug and go, “I accept this fate.”
It has a decent look and is decently shot with very dynamic camerawork. The edit, though, is incredibly amateur, and the acting and dialogue are garbage with some faint charm. It helps massively that the protagonist is absurdly gorgeous. There’s the occasional campy flair here and there.
It famously dilutes the fantastical, quasi-literary identity of the franchise with some familiar slasher tones and structures, but that doesn’t entirely remove the special sadomasochistic edge. Those slasher vibes moderate the bleak hellishness to make it much more palatable for a sneak-watch at a tween sleepover circa 2003.
One scene set in a church did strike me with an unsettling level of blasphemy. Felt the urge to look away. However, outside of that, it’s a lot of goofy slasher kills with flying chains and CDs in cool settings powered by a cheap, clumsy plot, especially in the third act. Just nonsense.
Doug Bradley (Pinhead) is really hit-or-miss for me in this franchise. He’s no Art the Clown (drink if you guessed I’d bring up Terrifier somehow). Honestly, I’d say he mostly doesn’t work, but the visual look is strong enough to carry and a line of dialogue will occasionally go really fucking hard. Sometimes his voice is otherworldly like Darth Vader, and other times it feels so much smaller and more pedestrian than his visual presence would suggest, like what Darth Vader’s voice sounded like originally, pre-James Earl Jones. IYKYK. Plus the whole damn movie is ADR-freaking-city.
The franchise already had a “rules” problem going into this film, but this one pretty openly admits that many of its scenes are made for the trailer, aiming to get as much money on the opening weekend as possible without much concern for an enduring narrative. And yet the franchise endured for eight more films on account of the aforementioned specialties. It’s a truly one-of-one franchise with a clear mission.
When Pinhead said, “We have such sights to show you,” he was talking about people smoking cigarettes in movies. What a glorious forbidden pleasure.
Hellraiser? I hardly know ‘er!
For me, this is a solid “not bad!” By the same token, one man’s “not bad!” is another man’s “not good!” Hellraiser 3 is enjoyable enough while you’re watching it, but if it shut off in the middle for whatever reason, like if the power went out, you’d just shrug and go, “I accept this fate.”
It has a decent look and is decently shot with very dynamic camerawork. The edit, though, is incredibly amateur, and the acting and dialogue are garbage with some faint charm. It helps massively that the protagonist is absurdly gorgeous. There’s the occasional campy flair here and there.
It famously dilutes the fantastical, quasi-literary identity of the franchise with some familiar slasher tones and structures, but that doesn’t entirely remove the special sadomasochistic edge. Those slasher vibes moderate the bleak hellishness to make it much more palatable for a sneak-watch at a tween sleepover circa 2003.
One scene set in a church did strike me with an unsettling level of blasphemy. Felt the urge to look away. However, outside of that, it’s a lot of goofy slasher kills with flying chains and CDs in cool settings powered by a cheap, clumsy plot, especially in the third act. Just nonsense.
Doug Bradley (Pinhead) is really hit-or-miss for me in this franchise. He’s no Art the Clown (drink if you guessed I’d bring up Terrifier somehow). Honestly, I’d say he mostly doesn’t work, but the visual look is strong enough to carry and a line of dialogue will occasionally go really fucking hard. Sometimes his voice is otherworldly like Darth Vader, and other times it feels so much smaller and more pedestrian than his visual presence would suggest, like what Darth Vader’s voice sounded like originally, pre-James Earl Jones. IYKYK. Plus the whole damn movie is ADR-freaking-city.
The franchise already had a “rules” problem going into this film, but this one pretty openly admits that many of its scenes are made for the trailer, aiming to get as much money on the opening weekend as possible without much concern for an enduring narrative. And yet the franchise endured for eight more films on account of the aforementioned specialties. It’s a truly one-of-one franchise with a clear mission.
When Pinhead said, “We have such sights to show you,” he was talking about people smoking cigarettes in movies. What a glorious forbidden pleasure.
