Review of Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1988) by Gilles B — 23 Oct 2009

While being able to keep up the pace with it's predecessor in terms of the amount of gore, Hellraiser II lacks a story that really sticks. The plot revolves more around the exploration into what the cenobites are, and solving the mysteries of what pandora's box is, then actually making a coherent storyline. Usually i'm not a sucker for a storyline but this film was looking to make something complex and mind bending. All it ended up doing though, was snowball with it more and more plot holes and things that simply did not make sense the further it went into the film. Maybe i'm just a dumb schmuck and they were just leaving room for expansion in the third one (which I have yet to see).

Pinhead plays less of a role in this film and the cenobites seem to be less frightening of a force in this second film. In the first Hellraiser, the most frightening part of the film WAS the appearance of the cenobites and the force they carry with them. In this film, they make a few appearances here and there, but don't carry with them the same kind of force they have on the audience as they did in the first. That's another downpoint, as it is obvious that the fans would want to pay to see more Pinhead, seeing as how this was made in 1988; The height of the slasher genre and the beginning of the second wave of horror movie icons.

I wouldn't say what they did was a mistake, it just wasn't well followed through on account of keeping up with the original.