Movie Details
| Title: | Hellraiser | |
| Director: | David Bruckner | |
| Year: | 2022 | |
| Genre: | Horror | |
| Times Seen: | 1 | |
| Last Seen: | 11.10.22 |
Other Movies Seen By This Director (0)
| Date Viewed | Venue | Note |
| 11.10.22 | Internet | This Screening is part of event: DVRfest 2022 To wake myself up, I started this last movie with a screening of Nine Inch Nails' controversial long-lost "snuff film" made in conjunction with the Broken EP. I remember back in the day there were always rumors like that where the FBI opened a case on the Down In It video or something and this film was too intense for release since it had footage of "supermasochist" bob flanagan. It was on bootlegs for a time but I guess Trent or someone with an official copy released it on the Internet several years ago so now it's available. I was about as big a fan of NIN as you could imagine back during this time so I'm familiar with the videos MTV played for Wish and Pinion which was all of 60 seconds long. Then when NIN released their "Closure" VHS box set with all the videos I finally got to see the video for Happiness in Slavery and it was indeed pretty intense. I think the videos for Gave Up and Help Me I am in Hell were also on there although I don't remember Gave Up being so graphic. That's probably the most intense moment in the movie with all the blood and guts of a horror movie. The rest of the "new" footage is just a few minutes of random choppy footage. It's mostly the videos. But still, glad to officially check that one off the list and it's on to the last movie of the night: Hellraiser. Why is this movie two hours long? I made it halfway through before passing out. But now that I'm done... why is this two hours long? There's not exactly a ton of story to get through and while the cenobite designs and make-up are pretty great, they don't have much screen time. I think this is the right call but most of the first hour dragged pretty hard for me. The second hour picks up a bit... I think they wrote themselves into a corner by having the puzzle box have like 7 configurations. I appreciated the deep exploration of exactly how the box works (I don't know if they've gotten into that in previous movies or not), but that box is like the star of the movie. Now, it should be mentioned that I haven't seen any of the shitty sequels past 4 so I don't know how bad the series has really become. I don't think this movie is terrible by any means, and it's probably a joy for Hellraiser fans to finally have a new movie with some kind of budget made by people who don't hate the franchise (thanks, Daniel for that phrase). So the fact that it's a half hour too long is trivial compared to what it could be. And it's worth calling out a second time how great the cenobite designs are. In particular I loved the dude with the flat face like a callback to the wooden pillar in the first/second films. So there's plenty to like here... but it does have the vibe of a tired sequel that's more interested in the gore and novelty of monster design than something fresh and deep. Can't be avoided I supposed, but they're never gonna top the first film. So that concludes day one (technically). Following DVRfest tradition, day two will be devoted to Criterion Random Roll, so I have no idea what's up next. I am down to 12 titles in the pool though, and I remember last year had some tough rolls. I think there are still a few mines in the field here but mostly it's good stuff I'm excited by so... let's see! |
