Review of Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1988) by Allan C — 30 Jul 2018

Best of the many (and mostly bad) sequels to Clive Barker's original film. This was also the last of the Hellriaser films that Barker had a significant hand in the creative process, staying on to write the story as well as producing.

I remember watching this film way back in the day when it first came out on VHS and the one scene that had burned itself into my memory was still as horrifying now as it was then. This sequel picks up right after the events of the first film, with Kristy being brought to a mental institution after the death of her dad and stepmom after encountering Pinhead and the Cenobites (not a boy band).

Unbeknownst to Kristy, the head doctor of the hospital, an excellent Kenneth Cranham as Dr. Channard, is darkly interested in the occult and has been searching for the Lament Configuration for years. He listens to Kristy's account of what happened to her and instead of destroying the bloody mattress she's pleaded with him to destroy, he decides he wants to resurrect Kristy's evil stepmother, Julia.

As with the first film, a resurrection requires massive amounts of blood for a body to reform, which brings us to the aforementioned horrific scenes that was burned into my teenage memory. In order to resurrect Julia, Dr.

Channard takes one of his mentally ill patients who believes he has bugs crawling all over his body and who has to wear a straight-jacket at all times to prevent digging at himself, places the patient on the mattress, removes his straight-jacket, and hands him a straight razor to slice at his imagined bugs crawling over his skin.

That scene was just as unsettling now as it was 30 years ago, which is saying something in a post Takashi Miike and "Hostel" horror film world. Beyond that one shocking scene, the story involves Channard seeking the Hellraiser puzzle box and Kristy tying to again escape Channard, Pinhead, the other Cenobites, and hell itself.

Without spoiling anything, this film reveals more about the Cenobites history and origin, which is interesting and also feels canon since Barker was part of the story (more was told in the subsequent sequel, but Barker had little to no part in those films).

Although his film lacks the interesting visual style Barker brought to the first film, with it's dichotomy of beauty and blood, director Tony Randal does and effective job of building suspense, horror, and a fair amount of visual style to the film.

Similar to the first film, both good and bad, the gory practical special effects are top notch and wonderfully (and horrifically) executed, but the other special effects look like they were done with Magic Marker.

The super imposed images of Hell are visually striking, but not even close to looking as if the characters are really in this location (it's super fakey looking). Despite those shortcomings and although "Hellbound: Hellraiser II" is not a classic horror film, it is a worthy sequel to the original Clive Barker classic.

On a side note, rewatching this film mostly made me wish that Barker can somehow regain the film rights to his creating and have the opportunity to reboot the franchise, just as James Cameron is getting to do with his Terminator franchise.