Review of Hellraiser: Hellworld (2005) by John M — 27 Mar 2014

Jumping the shark. So Hellworld is a MMORPG, and when a group of former hardcore gamers attend an invite-only house party for players, all might not be as it seems. When you read the plot description and you get to the acronym, you can't help but ask yourself, "Are you kidding me?" Sure, World of Warcraft was becoming wildly popular at the time, but is that really enough to base a Hellraiser movie off of? Hellworld is a parody of the entire series, and not one that entirely fails, but one that falls largely flat.

It takes place in an entirely different universe from the rest of the series, because you have people that are already aware of Pinhead and horror movie rules; this is closer to a Scream movie than it is Hellraiser.

It is as winky and as nudgy as can be, and the one person who I think does succeed in fully grasping this is Henry Cavill; out of everybody here, he's the one who realizes just how ridiculous this is being, and he actually got laughs out of me, which is what I think/hope this was going for.

This is more about ridiculous kills than it is atmosphere, which may be what a Friday the 13th movie is about, but that's not Hellraiser. This may have something to do with Saw being released the year prior, but that doesn't excuse all of the many plot elements that make zero sense.

Honestly, it's about time for Doug Bradley to retire from the role... said the man who is about to watch the infamous Hellraiser 9... I'll let you know if I regret those words in the next review.