Review of Hellraiser: Hellworld (2005) by Mike B — 03 Feb 2013

Five friends find themselves in a fight for their lives when a popular role-playing game based on the Hellraiser movie series comes to life and starts killing them one by one. HELLRAISER: HELLWORLD comes from the same breed of low-end pop Slashers that gave us films like HALLOWEEN: RESURRECTION and STAY ALIVE, trying its hardest to be hip and edgy while failing at both. Lance Henriksen stars as the mysterious millionaire that gathers game players for the annual Hellworld party, but unlike in PUMPKINHEAD 3 and 4, he actually manages to have some fun with the tired old material. Although certain artifacts and elements from the video game are taken from Barker's world, the inclusion of Pinhead and the Cenobites seems incidental to the plot, as if the characters have just been plugged into some other generic script with the HELLRAISER name slapped on it. What it lacks in depth, HELLWORLD at least makes up for in gore, but even the deaths and special effects are tame when compared against series that spawned it. The sappy ending shows just how little the writers know or care about the source material, tying a cute pink ribbon around the film that reassures us that everything is going to be OK.

-Carl Manes.

I Like Horror Movies.