Hellraiser: Revelations (2011)

HELLRAISER: REVELATIONS

WRITER: Story and Screenplay by Gary J. Tunnicliffe

DIRECTOR: Victor Garcia

STARRING: Steven Brand as Ross Craven

Nick Eversman as Steven Craven

Tracey Fairaway as Emma Craven

Sebastien Roberts as Peter Bradley

Devon Sorvari as Sarah Craven

Sanny Van Heteren as Kate Bradley

Daniel Buran as Vagrant

Jay Gillespie as Nico/Pseudo

Stephan Smith Collins as Pinhead

QUICK CUT: A pair of teens head south of the border in this coming of age drama, until things go horribly wrong.

THE MORGUE

Steven - A young man, bored with life, and being dragged by his best friend to try and discover new things. That should go well, right?

Nico - He’s so unhappy with life, he makes Steven look content, by comparison. He wants out of his small town, with the same people, and he will do anything to experience life to its fullest. Well, sad to say you’re in a Hellraiser movie, where that’s the worst wish to have.

Emma - Steven’s sister, and Nico’s girlfriend. She got left behind by the pair of them, and is feeling lost and rudderless, having lost the two most important people in her life.

All the parents are pretty much your average parent characters, with their own circle of drama going on before this movie even starts. It’s all so poorly developed in the film though, it all feels like background detail.

TRISK ANALYSIS: Welcome back, Triskelions! Another day, another review, and once again, the puzzle box has been opened, and Pinhead has been summoned. That's right, time for Hellraiser: Revelations, the first in the franchise to not feature Doug Bradley as Pinhead. So let's get into this.

The movie opens on a pair of kids driving around, filming themselves, and making their way to Tijuana, to get drunk and laid. Not necessarily in that order.

It is filmed VERY found footage style, but I have good news; this is not a found footage film. Although not gonna lie, found footage Hellraiser is an intriguing idea.

These pair of kids lose their car pretty quickly when it's stolen, and almost immediately have a puzzle box in their hands and have it opened up. Someone is trying to do the Leviathan speedrun challenge.

Awww, they think they’re the first movie.

Pinhead makes a very early appearance, and Pinhead 2.0 does a very bad take on the classic line, "The box, you opened it, and we came."

We pull out as Pinhead comes for the kids, to reveal this was being watched by Steven's mom. His sister Emma, comes in to tell her it's time for dinner, and we learn this is not the first time mom has watched the tape. Emma keeps asking to see the tape, but her parents won't allow it, for understandable Cenobite reasons.

Meanwhile, the Bradleys arrive to the Cravens' house and...oh. This movie is gonna be loaded with horror name references, huh? Fine.

Perfectly normal casual wear to have family dinner with.

Everyone gathers around, and you can tell things are strained with the missing and presumed dead boys, and Emma just dives head long into it. She accuses everyone of acting like everything is fine, and that, and the necessity of a plot, forces the conversation.

Being a teenager, Emma eventually storms off because everyone is angry and repressing, and ends up in her brother's room. Where she finally gets a chance to watch the tape.

Is this The Ring, or a Hellraiser movie?

This time, the tape jumps in to some time before they have the box, to fill in the blanks. Look, I know in media res is a time honoured storytelling device, but this movie is doing it SO awkwardly.

It's also, fortunately, not all found footage style, even though they have to make sure the kids are always holding the camera.

Anyways, the boys spy an attractive Mexican woman who doesn't speak English, and long story short, Nico sneaks off with her, despite Steven CLEARLY being into her (And Nico dating Emma), and bangs her in the skanky bathroom. I apologise for that incredibly long sentence.

Steven can't quite take it, and has had a lot to drink, so passes out on the bathroom floor. When he comes to, Nico is eager to beat feet and eat. However, Steven lingers long enough to see the woman is still there, only to discover her bloody head bashed on the toilet.

Is 11 minutes a new record for how long it takes us to have our first death in a Hellraiser movie? I digress.

Emma is, to put it mildly, not taking the knowledge of her boyfriend being a lech very well. But the video camera isn't the only thing the authorities recovered, and she eventually finds the puzzle box in the gym bag.

She overhears something the adults are saying that she doesn't like, and heads outside for some fresh air. She recalls Pinhead's line from the videotape, and starts working on the puzzle box. Something apparently not a single other person was inspired to try.

We get a brief flashback to Nico being hooked up and pulled at, much like Frank was in the original. Fair warning, get used to that phrase. But it cuts away before we get a good "Jesus wept" at least. A modicum of restraint.

She gets startled, and we cut to her dragging her brother, Steven, into the house, much to everyons's surprise and joy. Despite him being covered in blood. Nico's mom rushes outside to see if her own son has returned, but no luck.

The phone is out, so they can't call anyone for help, and the cars have suddenly disappeared, so no one is going anywhere.

While the families hunker down for fear someone is fucking with them, we keep getting shots of Pinhead messing around with an even newer Pinhead.

Great, not only do we have Diet Pinhead, but also Pinhead Zero.

Back in the real world, Emma is playing with the puzzle box some more. Her parents are angry she went looking in Steven's things, and Nico's parents recognise it from the video.

As she solves a chunk of it, an earthquake hits. Well, if you call a gateway to hell creaking open a bit more an earthquake, sure.

Once the 'quake' stops, Steven has wandered outside, muttering about vagrants and Cenobites, and we get another flashback to how the kids got the box; thanks to a grimy man basically giving it to Nico, following their little murder.

And I will give the movie this much...they almost mostly get this right. The box is presented to Nico as "an epxerience". A form of ultimate arousal, a temptation of the extremes of pleasure and pain. Too many of these movies forget that the box is the goal of people seeking experiences, and Nico qualifies.

So the boys take the box, and we cut to Nico shirtless surrounded by candles, once again trying to open the box, as we circle back around to a big chunk of the start of the movie.

We jump forward from there to after Steven escaped, wandering the streets of Tijuana. He found a hooker, had a good time with her, but the puzzle box told him to kill her, so he did. If a puzzle box told you to jump of a cliff, would you do that too? Please??

Much like in the first movie, the spilled blood is used by Nico to start returning to the real world, in a bloody, gooey mess. But he's jut kinda reaching out of the mattress, and there is no cool reconstitution sequence. Bummer.

Also, you would think that the bureaucrats of Hell would have patched over that little loophole after 25 years.

If I had a quarter for every time someone used spilled blood to rebuild their body from the ground up, I’d have three quarters.. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird it happened three times.

Back in the present, Steven warns the Cenobites are coming to dinner, and he passes out. He has a nightmare or flashback of being skinned alive, as the Cenobites teach him lessons of carnality.

Everyone else is trying to figure out the puzzle box, but Emma explains that while it wants to open, you have to want it too, which is another decent way of putting it.

She starts getting REALLY into it, while looking at Nico's dad with lust in her eyes, and starting to pant like she's in ecstacy. At least, until her mom stops her, and sends her to bring her brother a bowl of soup.

Emma! What have we told you about no orgasms at the dinner table??

The siblings hang out, drink soup, and have a chat about why the boys left. Oh, and then they start making out.

Hellraiser: Revelations wants SO SO BADLY to be the original movie, trading on all kinds of things, and even delving into its own kind of forbidden love. But instead of a wife cheating on her husband, this time it’s INCEST! But just wait, this movie can’t even land THAT bit of sleaziness.

The adults remember that weird shit is going on, so they decide to check outside and see if anyone is around, or if this stuff is just...happening. Just as they're about to come in, the Vagrant appears.

Peter shoots at the vagrant, but he shrugs it off and hacks off a chunk of the man's face as repayment for his audacity. Peter doesn't survive long once he's on the tile floor.

Steven has woken up, and calmly wanders in with the shotgun. His dad warns him it's loaded, and so the kid shoots his dad.

His mom asks why, and Steven goes off on a rant about how he hates it here in "Generica", how boring it is, and how they needed to get away, and experience new things.

All right, everybody be cool, this is a robbery!

Ross points out his son isn't acting like himself, and he could not be more correct. We get a series of flashbacks to Steven plotting to kill another hooker to feed his bed friend. But when he hears a baby crying, he can't do it, realising this is an actual human being, with a family.

So, Nico takes the initiative and kills her and the child, bringing him that much closer to being a real boy once again.

But since Steven is starting to wuss out, Nico decides to just up and kill his best friend, and take his skin. So yes, we have actually been watching Nico under the skin. Just like the first movie. Because of course.

Which means the Cenobites are looking for Stico, but he isn't really up for an eternity of torture, he's having too much fun. So he thinks he can offer them pure sweet Emma as a trade to get out of it.

So the box is opened, the Cenobites and Pin-meh'd show up, and they are not interested in any sort of trade Nico has to offer.

Before he can be dragged off though, Steven's dad shoots him in the gut, killing the imposter, again?, and sparing him that eternity of torment. And since they are now one soul sort, Pinhead take his wife, Emma's mother, as payment to keep things balance.

TRISK ASSESSMENT

Video: It looks good…it just doesn’t look like a MOVIE. Lookit those images. It looks cheap. It looks like a soap. It doesn’t look bad, but the production values are lacking.

Audio: Solid enough.

Body Count: A decent enough amount of carnage, at least.

1 - Mexican girl is dead and bleeding in the bathroom about 11 minutes in.

2 - Stephen kills another hooker

3 - Peter dies from the Vagrant slicing his face up.

4 - Nico kills yet another hooker.

5 - And then her baby.

6 - Nico kills Steven and takes his skin

7 - Nico's mom gets her neck ripped up.

8 - Ross shoots Stico with the shotgun

9 - Emma's mom is dragged off for torment

Best Corpse: I almost want to tell this category to go to hell, because we see almost NO ONE die in this movie. It happens between scenes, or just off camera, or we HEAR it, or it’s threatened, or or or. But there are some exceptions, and Kate getting her neck ripped open kinda rocks.

Blood Type - B: Look, if you give me a bloody skinless corpse walking around, I am required to give the movie a passing grade. It’s nowhere near as good as the first, or even the second, movie, but it’s done well enough.

Drink Up! Every time someone shouts Tijuana!

Movie Review: I…I don’t hate this. One of the big problems it has, is that it is trying to play off the first movie. It wants to be that movie so badly. But it is lacking the courage, the balls, and the bite to stand by its convictions. If this movie existed without any other Hellraiser movie, it would be all right, it might even have a cult following. But it pales SO much to many of the other movies. And yes, I am very aware what I am doing when I say a Hellraiser movie would fare better without any Hellraiser, without a touch of irony. The movie actually has several interesting ideas, teasing a bunch of things it could play with, like the boys’ ennui of living in middle class white boredom safety, or with Emma seductively flirting with her boyfriend’s dad. It’s got a lot of ideas like that constantly bubbling all over the place throughout the movie, but nothing ever comes to a full boil, that could have made this a more interesting movie, with more depth. It is downright criminal that I can accuse a Hellraiser movie of playing it safe, which is the one thing this franchise should never do. It can’t even commit to incest. BUT despite all the flaws, it’s still well made, and makes sense, even if it feels like such a safe, watered down, take on a Hellraiser movie. Two out of five bowls of soup.

Entertainment Value: This isn’t so much a BAD movie, but it’s just kinda…there. Short, derivative, and forgettable. The deaths aren’t creative, they’re not memorable, the torment isn’t tailored for the person, even what little we see. It is such a nothing burger of a movie. It is aggressively average. It’s not even bad enough to really laugh at, which would be something. Pinhead isn’t threatening or entertaining, and doesn’t even have a fraction of the gravitas or presence of Doug Bradley. Which could be worked on in the future, but if this was the very first we ever saw of any character named Pinhead? He would be instantly forgotten, like much of the rest of this movie. And the few moments that ARE intriguing, that pique your interest, just go nowhere, because the movie doesn’t commit to anything. Two out of five kitchen table orgasms.