The Hellraiser

Intriguing at first glance but disappointing in general

T he Hellraiser movies are one of those horror sagas that started off with the right foot and began to fall down after the third movie. Hellraiser: Judgment is the tenth installment and while there are some people thinking “maybe tenth is the charm” let me tell you this: it is not. Although the Hellraiser franchise has produced great movies (from the first to the third at least), after the fifth installment it started to decay and Hellraiser: Judgment should be the last one to ever come out.

Based on the story written by the first Hellraiser movie director Clive Barker, the tenth installment is directed by Gary J. Tunnicliffe, who also plays a significant and creepy role as The Auditor. His role on the movie was actually one of the best elements of Judgment as well as his make-up. I felt that the script started out all right but turned to boring and predictable quite fast, Pinhead dialogues are the best example. The actor Paul T. Taylor was the responsible of portraying the well-known Pinhead, a mysterious and dark character that works alongside The Auditor (Gary J. Tunnicliffe), doing sinister judgments to sinners and cleansing their bodies in gruesome ways.

The storyline revolves around two brothers, the eldest is Sean Carter (Damon Carney) and David Carter (Randy Wayne) is the youngest. The Carter brothers work as detectives and they suddenly get involved in a case that has Pinhead signature, as seen on the prequels, and Sean knows a lot about the previous cases. Both of them are struggling hard but someone else joins their effort, the Police Detective Christine Egerton, portrayed by the talented Alexandra Harris, who did pretty well on this movie. In overall, the cast and their performances were not too bad but they were not excellent either, mainly due to the lack of creativity in the script.

A movie that is macabre, gore and with a dark background, which is very well presented in obscure settings and through dark characters that I found interesting. Gary Tunnicliffe and John Gulager as The Assessor were the best performances for me next to Alexandra Harris. Paul Taylor was ok and Damon Carney with Randy Wayne could have done a better job, their plotline was predictable and their performances not so strong. Besides that, the movies is not that good, it does not keep you interested, it is not very scary and the twists have been seen in other similar horror movies.

As a last opinion, I feel like Hellraiser saga has come to a dead end, where you will not find heaven or hell just a big wall with nothing on it. Much more was expected from this tenth installment, due to the great success that Hellraiser had when it began but Judgment did not meet the audience expectations. We can only hope that this is the last installment and maybe Gary Tunnicliffe will delight us with other horror movies or maybe a different genre.