"Hellraiser" (2022) Review

Hellraiser marks the eleventh entry in the Hellraiser franchise. Beginning with the 1987 Clive Barker film also titled Hellraiser, the franchise quickly became one of the most popular horror franchises of the late eighties and early nineties. Like most franchises, it slowly faded into obscurity. The films slowly progressed into low-budget, straight-to-DVD releases that received poor reception from both fans and critics. However, this 2022 film attempts to breathe new life into the franchise through the ever-popular requel (sequel that serves as a soft-reboot of the franchise). Hellraiser follows in the footsteps of the “Halloween”, Texas Chainsaw and the Scream franchise with this requel. Hellraiser was released exclusively on Hulu on Oct. 7, 2022, becoming the first streaming-exclusive film in the franchise.

When one thinks of the Hellraiser franchise, they think of the iconic antagonist, The Hell Priest (colloquially referred to as Pinhead by fans). Unlike the previous 10 films, Pinhead is played by a female actress. Though it is a bit jarring to see the gender swap, I don’t think it matters at all. Actress, Jamie Clayton, is used quite sparingly in the film, a decision that I do like. When she is on screen, she is quite solid. However, I much prefer the overall design of Pinhead in the original.

Pinhead as well as the Cenobites (Pinhead’s demonic henchmen) look pretty good here. Though I wouldn’t say that they look as good as they did in the original, they look solid. The makeup and effects team did a very good job all around. The gore is also pretty convincing albeit a bit tame at times for Hellraiser standards.

Despite a good performance by Odessa A’Zion as Riley, it’s extremely hard to root for her as a character. Riley is a bad person making bad decisions; it’s honestly hard to have sympathy for her or any of the characters for that matter. Everyone is either boring, cliche caricatures or downright annoying and morally corrupt.

My overall experience watching Hellraiser was simply fine. The film looks fine, the actors are doing fine, the effects look fine and the story unfolds fine. However, in a year where we are getting great horror movies seemingly every month. Fine does not cut it. Sure, it’s better than the seemingly endless number of films in the franchise. However, I don’t think this film does enough to revive it. Though there are great films that come out on streaming quite frequently, this feels like a film that was destined to be on streaming. It’s good enough to pass two hours, but that’s about it. Speaking of two hours, it has no business being as long as it is. A tighter edit could have easily cut off 15-20 minutes of nonessential, meandering runtime.

I think the main issue is that the film plays it way too safe. There are a few instances of bloody and grotesque visuals. However, when you are sharing the name with the original that has downright disturbing yet poignant use of gore, you have some big shoes to fill. The shoes are not filled here.

Hellraiser is simply an okay-enough film. Nothing too particularly good or bad is present, making the overall viewing experience quite boring. It doesn’t do enough to set itself apart from the endless slog that is the “Hellraiser” franchise, and it surely does not hold a candle to original 1987 film. In a year filled to the brim with sensational horror films, Hellraiser fades to the background. Unless you are a Hulu-subscriber looking for two hours to kill, I recommend skipping this one.

5/10