Review of Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth (1992) by Jesse O — 17 Oct 2015

Not as terrible a movie as I would've anticipated. Of course it's not as good as the first sequel, which actually ended up being pretty good. I've always thought that Pinhead, as a horror icon, and I've already written this in my review for the second film in this franchise, has always been treated far more seriously than the Freddys, Jasons or Michaels.

I'm not saying that the sequels were better in quality than some of the sequels in any of the aforementioned franchises, but Pinhead is infinitely more effective as a horror villain than because he's treated as someone that people actually fear since he will pretty much bring about, I apologize for this terrible usage of the film's title in the review, hell on earth if he does get his way.

Let's just get this out of the way from the get-go, the acting in this movie is, honestly, absolutely awful. It's not like Hellraiser 2 had Oscar-quality acting, but Hellraiser 2 is Breaking Bad to Hellraiser 3's the Twilight franchise.

I'm obviously overstating the point, but the acting from everyone that isn't named Doug Bradley is horrendous. Doug Bradley himself is pretty great as always, I mean the character is pretty one-dimensional itself, but this film, at least, tries to incorporate some of backstory, involving who Pinhead was before he back the leader of the Cenobites.

It's weird, because it's obvious that Pinhead is a pretty nefarious and evil individual, but Doug Bradley brings a certain elegance and class to the Pinhead character, it's the strangest thing.

It's not even the fact that he's well-spoken and eloquent, it's all about Bradley's presence that makes the character work even if he's not as over-the-top or as goofy as Freddy Krueger.

The character designs for some of the Cenobites, not all, is excellent. Some of them are a little goofy, to be fair, like the Cenobite with the camera sticking out of one eye is pretty goofy, as is the Cenobite that spits out CDs.

I think those are the ones that I liked the least, the rest of them are really well done, in my opinion. The film, leading up to the climax, honestly, isn't anything special. I mean there's some B-movie qualities to the film, you can at least laugh at the shitty acting and some of the obvious audio flaws, like trying to fit in voice overs even though the lip syncing isn't up to par.

Once the shit hits the fan and Pinhead, and the other Cenobites, make their way to earth then the film really picks up. Like there's some really strong visuals here. Like Pinhead doing the christ pose in a church in front of a window with cross on it while he says 'I am the way'.

That scene is probably the best scene in the entire film, but it's the type of scene that the religious conservatives will be offended by. Then again, what reason would a religious conservative have to watch this film.

But, as an atheist, I have no such qualms and I thought it was a pretty awesome visual that is bound to get a reaction. I thought that if the film had been as consistently good as the climax was, then it would've been a better film.

The film has some real cool moments and some surprising backstory, but I don't think there's enough 'hell on earth', so to speak, to make the film good. Not to mention the acting is fairly atrocious.

With that said, honestly, I thought this movie was perfectly fine. It's watchable but not necessarily mind-blowing. I'm sure that it's considerably better than some of the later sequels, though.