Review of Hellraiser: Hellworld (2005) by Al M — 25 Jul 2010

The "Hellraiser" has once again spiraled downwards since the impressive "Inferno" leading into this eighth installment entitled "Hellraiser: Hellworld". Although the concept of the puzzle box and mythology of the hell it raises becoming an online video game fad might seem interesting, the film comes off as a rather stale and poor attempt to intertwine the "Hellraiser" universe into a low brow slasher.

A group of late teen/early twenty year olds find themselves addicted to a new online computer game called Hellworld. This game is based on the puzzle box of legend and when these youngsters finally finish out the computer game, they get a special invitation to a Hellworld party hosted by an illusive expert (Henriksen) on all things puzzle box oriented. Soon though these young people find themselves at the mercy of hell like visions of demons and are slowly getting knocked off one by one.

Originally the script for "Hellworld" wasn't meant to be a "Hellraiser" film and its pretty obvious that the rewrites adding in Pinhead, his cohorts (whom we only see briefly), and general story line threads to the series are kind of just thrown in. In fact, this film feels more like a poor haunted house story than it does a "Hellraiser" film at all. Throw in a few Pinhead shots and we're good right? Not this time guys. It may have worked slightly better last time, but you can't fool me twice.

Throw on top of a poorly pieced idea a script that rarely makes sense (although the ending 'supposedly' takes care of any continuity fuck ups but ends in more questions than it actually answers) that has some sincerely poor dialogue and even worse acting from our main stars. Henriksen excluded since he always carries some charisma of sorts. The directing is your average point and shoot style based on the teeny-bopper slashers of the 90s and we rarely feel like we are descending into the Hell we should be, but just a Hell of direct to video suck.

"Hellworld" is a film that couldn't decide what it wanted to be. Its a "Hellraiser" film. Its a haunted house film. Its a revenge film. Its a slasher. It just never blends any of them together in any way that makes sense and ends up a jumbled up mess.

BONUS RANT: What's with all the random nudity and sex in this film? Its seriously thrown in for shits and giggles in this film and really has no place in a film that should be taken seriously. It gives new meaning to needless padding for the sake of being 'edgy'.