Hellraiser as a concept

First of all, it's is truly amazing that this movie got made. Understandable, yes - because it's a money making franchise and cinematographer turned director Rick Bota got hired to make yet another terrible follow up to what once was a great concept.

Part 3 already was moving away from what Hellraiser has been about and it only got worse after that. Some of the sequels at least tried to be dark - but they still never got it. To me, the concept was about flesh versus mind: how far would someone be willing to go to discover the ultimate thrill. As a result, often enough the cenobites (apart from Dr.Channard) couldn't be considered the most evil - after all, they just replied to a call. Usually, it was obsession that made people malicious and narcissistic.

The whole "Angels to some, demons to others." concept was abandoned in part 3 but at least they explained it as the "evil side" of Pinhead manifesting itself. Considering the fact that Dr.Channard had also shown himself as a truly purely evil cenobite, this somewhat saved this particular sequel.

All other follow-ups have always just been about one things: making more money from a franchise. Pinhead lost his "Dracula factor" as in the first two movies, he acted as a host not a villain. With it, due to extremely bad writing, he also lost his way of expressing himself. When cenobites entered all mystery was removed, the psychological aspect of the movies was erased and with part 8, what was left was yet another "teen versus monster" movie. Apart from that, after part 3 they apparently lost the license to Christopher Young's score and while some composers still tried, some also got it incredibly wrong.

Every single thing about this particular sequel was bad: horrible acting, writing, casting, camerawork, music - but first and foremost a complete lack of understanding.

If they ever "reboot" this series or make a part 10, I hope they finally realize that you *can* still make an actual horror movie based around this concept. You just have to do what the original did back in its time: get rid of all cliches and just make something that genuinely is fresh to the genre.

Right now, part 1 and 2 are the only real Hellraiser movies. 3 is trying, 4 has the history parts which are "ok" but not convincing, 5 is only fun because Craig Sheffer of Nightbreed-fame is in it, 6 (Hellseeker) is the only truly interesting sequel after 2, 7 isn't a Hellraiser movie at all, it just stole some rough ideas and 8 is one of the worst horror movies ever made.