Hellraiser: Inferno
2000
The Cast
This is a good idea but a badly structured story... and it's this which lets the film down, greatly.
Detective Joseph Thorne (Sheffer) is not a good man. On the first case, we see him investigate a dead man he bullied in high school, he steals the deadman's drugs and later the cash from his wallet, which he uses to procure a prostitute for the night. The following morning he leaves her in the motel room... alive. Later that day, he receives a distressing call from her. When he and his partner, Tony Nenonen (Turturro), turn up at the motel they find she's been slaughtered. Thorne takes it upon himself to frame his partner for the crime... should he decide not to help him find the killer. A man they later believe to be called "The Engineer".
It's not until the end of the film, when all the twists have unravelled, that you fully understand and realise just how good this story is. However, you have to suffer some really bad scene construction to get there.
For the most part, this is basically a thriller with gore, which isn't even up to the standard of the original series. Another thing that isn't on par with the originals is the imagination or atmosphere. There's a couple of dream sequences which are badly directed and acted, There's no tension, which should have been oozing out of the screen at these points, and there's definitely no fear. Even, when the Cenobites appear (for a Hellraiser film you don't get many Cenobites for your dollar), we are not in awe of them... we are not in fear of them... These should, at least, have a presence about them, as they did in the first four films, for these are Daemons to some and Angels to others. Beings to be worshipped and feared. It's a good thing that Bradley brings his own persona with him as Pinhead is the only eerily creepy daemon on screen. If it weren't for Pinhead this would be a massive flop. However, this is down to the straightforward, nothing new, basic direction. I do believe that the better horror films are the ones where the director tries to create something new. It's like Derrickson, didn't want to scare anybody.
Sheffer is okay as the bad cop but his acting skills show their flaws every now and again, especially in the dream sequences (as mentioned before). It's Turturro and Remar that add strength to the cast, along with Bradley. It's actually nice to see Remar in a more subtle role as the Psychiatrist-come-Reverend. Though I couldn't help believing, he would have been a much better choice for the lead, It may even have been good to see Turturro stretch his acting wings in the role, as he's been a solid actor in everything I've seen him in.
What this film needed was to clean up the story, add a better structural skeleton to the story and film, more Cenobites, more atmosphere, more Cenobites, more tension, more Cenobites, more fear, oh, and did I mention more Cenobites.
I would recommend re-watching the original four movies rather than sitting down with this... though if you really want to... it's worth one watch... just!
I give this Precocious Blood Letting Failure a Sin of 4 out of 10.
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