Hellraiser: Hellworld (2005) — Triskaidekafiles

HELLRAISER: HELLWORLD

WRITERS: Story by Joel Soisson

Screenlay by Carl Dupre

DIRECTOR: Rick Bota

STARRING: Lance Henriksen as Host

Katheryn Winnick as Chelsea

Christopher Jacot as Jake

Khary Payton as Derrick

Henry Cavill as Mike

Anna Tolputt as Allison

Victor McGuire as Police Officer #1

Doug Bradley as Pinhead

QUICK CUT: Students who lost a friend seek solace in the online world of Hellraiser. I’m sure this’ll be fine.

THE MORGUE

Chelsea - Someone who was once drawn deep into the world of online gaming, but pulled herself out once a close friend died. She’s badass, intelligent, and not having any shit.

Mike - Chelsea’s wannabe boyfriend, and he’s mostly a nice guy, who tries a bit too hard, but also needs to be the centre of attention.

Derrick - A fun loving guy who is into the ladies, a bit of debauchery, and still loves the online gaming world. Loyal, and mirthful.

Allison - The closest thing to a bad girl we get. She’s flirty, a bit sultry, and maybe just a pinch gothy.

Jake - Not exactly a friend of the rest, but a friend of a friend, and he is still bitter after their mutual acquaintance, Adam, killed himself.

The Host - A mysterious figure who knows everything about Hellraiser, the lament configuration, and the Cenobites. He’s a polite host, up to a point, but he has a bit of a trickster to him as well.

TRISK ANALYSIS: Welcome back, Triskelions! Summer heat, time for Hellraiser, let's burn together. You know the drill by now. I realised with this, I am up to the eighth Hellraiser movie, Hellworld, and I had to go back and double check. That just does not seem possible I've been doing the franchise this long. This time around, we have a baby Henry Cavill joining the show, Lance Henriksen, and Katheryn Winnick, and a few more. This is gonna be FUN. Or a disaster, in which case it will be fun!

After watching someone dig a pit and then scream into the void, we cut to a funeral, so that's always a fun start.

This is where we meet all our main characters, as they mourn the loss of their friend Adam, and set up the eeevils of online gaming through the strawman of Hellworld, a game based on the Hellraiser mythology.

Of note is Jake, who blames the rest of the group for doing nothing to help Adam during his time of need. He walks off, and a few seconds later the shot whip pans to an empty space between two of the gang, to reveal him sitting behind them, and it is the most hilarious bit of drama I've seen in awhile

Chelsea goes up to the coffin and opens it to see Adam's charred face one last time, and his corpse grabs her, causing her to wake up. Burnt guy grabbing from inside a coffin, and IT WAS ALL A DREAM?? Wrong franchise!

There is a knock on her door, and when she opens it up, there's a Cenobite telegram standing there. But she instantly can tell it's just Baby Henry Cavill wearing a Chatterer mask.

Oh, sure. THIS disguise people see right through and recognise him.

Chelsea has given up playing Hellworld, but the rest of the gang still play, and they've all scored invites to a Hellparty. And I am just gonna say, the game is seriously ridiculous. They don't show much, wisely, but it's pretty silly. Ever play a point and click browser game? Yeah, it’s worse.

We get to the party pretty quickly, and, much like the game, for something based on Hellraiser, it's pretty tame. The most notable thing in it is the giant spinning Lament Configuration, taken from the office building in Hellraiser 4, and if I remember correctly, the very end of 3. I do appreciate the little connections like that.

Jake also arrives at the party, and shortly thereafter we meet our host, Lance Henriksen. He greets the newbies, and offers them a drink and some private one on one time, and that is not at all suspicious, no.

And of course, someone plays with a tarot deck and OH LOOK pulls the Death card. Because of course. Sigh. Can we stop this cliche?

Lance gives them the nicodemus tour, and gives them the history of the house, and you can probably guess the long spiel of horrors and depravity. Sounds like a better Hellraiser party than what we got.

And much like me, Chelsea is unimpressed with it all, and she says she wants something more. So Lance offers her pain with her pleasure, and it's the teeniest of tiny steps in the right direction, as he jabs a pin into her arm.

Pinhead appears for half a second to take back his pin, and tell Chelsea that "Adam was right" in her pain enduced daze, before the rest of the group brings her back to reality.

They head back upstairs and are offered masks and cellphones, so they can communicate with people and have random hookups and pleasure "that only flesh can bring" in anonymous debauchery. This is a pinch more in the right direction for Hellraiser.

Those Nokia phones are the only thing that will survive the movie.

We spend some time doing the party and debauchery thing as the characters settle in, and Allison sneaks into a room marked Keep Out.

She finds a torture chamber chair that she foolishly sits down in, so it can strap her down, and threaten her with a pair of saw blades that inch closer to her neck. Torquemada himself shows up to tell her all about it, like a good host.

30 minutes is a criminally long time before our first real death in a Hellraiser movie, but at leas the party can now get started.

WHAT IS THE POINT OF CALLER ID ON AN ANONYMOUS SYSTEM??

Meanwhile, Chelsea is being harassed by a guy who she very quickly nearly breaks the arm of to get him to keep his hands to himself. You do not mess with the viking queen.

Chelsea somehow hears Allison's screams over the din of the party, but before she can find her friend, she sees someone she thinks is Adam and follows him into a room. A room she quickly gets locked inside of.

We spend a little time with Jake, and it starts to look like everyone is ignoring him, and oh no, are we going for "showing them their worst nightmares"? That's very not Hellraiser.

Elsehwere, Derrick is partying with some ladies, when his asthma kicks in. He drops his inhaler, it skitters down a grate, and he has to scurry before he chokes to death. Yep, greatest fears. Sigh.

Chelsea calls Clark to get some help, and he decides to ignore her pleas, since they're having a bit of a tough time. Well, that is most unSuperman of him. And most hilariously, he is getting a BJ from one of the other partygoers, and says Chelsea shouldn't have blown him off. Ah ha ha.

Anyways, Derrick rushes down into the basement and finds himself back in the lab with all the experiments in jars they were shown earlier on their tour, and recovers his inhaler.

He takes a moment to catch his breath (Sorry), and Pinhead shows up to relieve Ezekiel of his crown.

This isn’t how I imagined Clark meeting loi — This isn’t how I imagined Clark meeting Lois…

While Jake hooks up with the girl he thinks is his internet girlfriend (Or not, it's a Hellraiser party), Chelsea gets a call from Allison, which is nothing more than screams for help.

So someone, Chelsea, finally has the brilliant idea to use their phones to call the police, but they don't seem to hear her. The cops still show up tracing the call, and even though she tries to get their attention from the window, they can't seem to see her.

That's actually a pretty cool idea, and it comes off pretty well, playing nicely with just what the heck is going on with reality.

Although I will say, having your main character stuck in a single room for half the movie, staring out the window like she's a Victorian era heroine, it feels like something has gone wrong. Or was filmed during the Covid era.

But the good news is, the door finally opens, so her plot can move forward finally!

First however, we go back to Mike who is dragged down to the basement by the girl who was blowing him, and she shoves him into the lab to hang out with his best bud Derrick.

A cenobite handily shows up to finish him off, which, much like Pinhead behind Derrick, just feels wrong at how dirty they are getting their hands in this.

Pinhead also shows up to declare that "this is merely the beginning" and no, sorry, we're about two thirds of the way through.

Chelsea escapes, tries to flag down the cops, but they're pulling off. She continues to be the smartest one in the room, and tries to get her car running. But unsurprisingly, it is out of gas.

Jake is wandering around, and seeing some candles makes him flashback to events he never saw, of Adam dousing himself in gasoline and setting himself on fire. It's actually a very well done scene with nice intercutting.

Back with Chelsea, she's running through the woods and finds a cop, but just as he's calling dispatch, Pinhead shows up and dispatches him instead.

She gets a call from Jake begging for help, but we next see it's actually Lance somehow impersonating him, and luring her back to the house.

Chelsea runs into the house, which is now COMPLETELY empty, and I continue to be absolutely unimpressed with this Hellraiser party!!

A door opens, and she runs into Chatterer, and it's a nice callback to the Mike scene at the start. But this time it's real, or at least not Mike, as he's behind her, his face all sliced up and stitched together.

He chases her around, Allison shows up too with a missing throat and handy voicebox, and they chase her around into the attic. Oh great, she's gonna spend the rest of the movie in THIS room now, huh?

She gets a call from Lance, whom she thinks is Pinhead, but she is having none of it. She pleases me to no end, and does what I would do with my deep knowledge of lore, and challenge him on how wrong all of this is.

Once she gets off the phone, she rolls her eyes, mocking her friends pushing her, come to the party, come to the party, we'll have a few laughs...

Meanwhile, Jake is raiding the library looking for clues, and Chatterer sneaks up behind him. Jake spins and stabs the Cenobite...but instead he has stabbed Chelsea in the chest.

It was Jake, in the study, with the letter opener.

She dies in his arms, while his phone rings, and when he picks it up, it's Chelsea on the other end. His accidental murder is just another mind game of this twisted house.

Jake is still in shock, and says she just died in his arms. Huh, must've been something she said.

The two try and puzzle box out what's been going on, and Chelsea postulates, what if they're already dead and in Hell for not saving Adam? And I swear, if that's what's going on, I'm gonna flip tables.

Fortunately, Jake doesn't believe that, doesn't believe they deserve a trip to Hell for not helping, and good news is, that's not what's going on.

In the attic, Chelsea is going through some papers, and hears Adam calling out to her. She finds him beneath the floorboards and reaches in.

Lady, did you learn nothing about the last time you put your hand where Adam didn't want it?

Jake hears her screaming, and thanks to stuff he figured out in the library, he tells her to not be afraid, this is all in her head.

The two reunite, compare notes, and surprise! Lance is Adam's dad! If not for a few lines setting up that his father was always traveling, I'd question how no one recognised him, and I am STILL dubious. But it's a solid twist.

So they try and run off, and of course run into Lance. And BWAHAHA, Chelsea spin kicks him over the railing and he falls down through the open balcony to the entryway below. THAT was sudden.

I told you, do not mess with the viking queen.

As they run past his body though, surprise again! he sits up, so they run faster. They head down the front stairs outside and...right into Lance again, who gives them a good fright with a laugh.

Look, say what you will about this movie, yes, every time it pulls you in, it does something ridiculous, but at least Lance is having a blast.

They come across several piles of dirt, and Chelsea asks what they are. Graves, Chelsea. They are graves. Pretty easy to discern that.

And this is where we get the big exposition dump.

We were called to the forest, and we went down…

This was all a setup by Adam's dad, revenge for his death, and the idea was given to him by Jake himself, still bitter over his friend's death which he blamed on the rest. Oh, and he gave all these ideas to Lance, who was posing as a woman to become Jake's internet girlfriend to pump him for info, and lure him in.

Can you imagine being catfished and it turns out to be Lance Squawking Henriksen??

So everyone got drugged along the way, through drink or touch, or like stabbing Chelsea in the arm earlier. And every single person has been in a grave, with a cellphone so they could communicate and be manipulated into this fake reality from Lance.

And suddenly Jake and Chelsea are in their boxes underground, as realisation hits them.

And I can’t even get cell reception in my house.

Daddy Exposition says there were a few unexpected casualities along the way and uh, what was your plan then?? Just to give them a good scare?? Anyways, Allison clawed her own neck out, Derrick died from his asthma, and Mike died because he was buried next to a Kryptonite rock! Who knew??

Lance finishes up his exposition dump, tells Chelsea to go see his son in Hell, and begins bashing into her coffin. But that's all just how her mind is interpreting what's happening in reality, as the cops have actually arrived, and are trying to dig her out and rescue her, since it turns out she actually DID call them!

Miraculously, her and Jake have survived, and all my problems with the movie, everything that made this not a Hellraiser story was...intentional plot holes and clues to what was going wrong, and was meant to be wrong. I both love and hate that, but we'll get their in a bit.

They say if you go seeking revenge, to dig, uh, five graves?

The cops say they almost gave up on finding her, but they traced a call made earlier, and no one is really sure who made it, or why, but the implication is that Adam's ghost saved his friends. Well, two out of five.

Lance escaped, and he's holed up in a trashy motel, and he's messing with a puzzle box. So we do get a brief five seconds of Actual Pinhead, to make this an Actual Hellraiser movie, as the wicked get punished. This is still dodgy use of the rules, but it's a cool death, and I'll allow it.

So the movie ends with our two survivors driving off into the sunrise...until they see Daddy Lance in the backseat, and he lunges forward, grabs the steering wheel, and tries to crash the car.

He fails miserably, so this was just one last chance for a silly scare.

The good news is, Chelsea hasn't been in a car accident in awhile. The bad news is, SHE'S ABOUT TO.

TRISK ASSESSMENT

Video: Not too too bad, but it does get very dark at times, and I think we lose some finer detail.

Audio: No complaints, could’ve used more.

Sound Bite: “Why did you do this?” “Revenge.” I appreciate that kind of blunt simplicity.

Body Count: Not bad, percentage wise.

0 - Before the movie begins/during the credits, Adam dies.

1 - 31:30 and Alison gets her neck gashed into

2 - Pinhead beheads Derek

3 - Mike hangs out with a random cenobite.

4 - We finally get to see Adam self-immolate

5 - Pinhead spikes a random cop.

6 - Fake Chelsea gets stabbed with a letter opener.

7 - Lance gets sliced and diced

Best Corpse: Gotta go with Lance getting sliced and diced. A good effect, and pretty unique.

Blood Type - B+: A very solid amount of blood and gore here, with room for improvement. Again, the end gag with lance is aces. There’s a bit too much CGI, but it’s not too overdone.

Sex Appeal: The party may be tame, but there are boobs aplenty lurking around.

Drink Up! every time someone says Hellworld

Movie Review: In a shocking twist, I actually really enjoyed this movie. The story is pretty good, it has some good twists, and thanks to a cast who would go on to bigger and better things, most of the cast is great, and elevate the movie considerably. It’s not very Hellraiser, but that’s almost by design. As we’ve discussed, and most people know, this and a few other movies in the series were separate scripts that Hellraiser stuff was stapled onto. And it largely works here, as they lean into that very nature. But it also largely means this isn’t a Hellraiser movie, until it is. It’s an enjoyable enough movie in its own right, with great acting, and an always enjoyable Lance Henriksen. But it’s a terrible Hellraiser movie, so the rating here is gonna be weird. I give it 3.5 torture chairs out of five for it’s own merits. And it also gets two headpins out of five for a Hellraiser movie.

Entertainment Value: There are some good kills and effects here, and despite being a solid movie, with good acting, it does get pretty ridiculous, and it’s just fun to watch the silliness unfold. Four out of five open graves.