Presenting a new take on an old favorite, Hulu’s Hellraiser is the first truly competent chapter for the franchise in decades. Setting a different course than Clive Barker’s original, David Bruckner turns the story inward and puts the Cenobites and their puzzle box center stage.
New movie reviews will not contain spoilers.
Hellraiser
Directed by David Bruckner
Screenplay by Ben Collins and Like Piotrowski
Starring Odessa A’zion and Jamie Clayton
Hellraiser (2022) Review
Billed as a reboot of the Hellraiser franchise, Hellraiser could just as easily have been called a sequel. It’s understandable why they didn’t push it as such. Depending on your love of the franchise, one could argue that the series went off the rails anytime between the second and the fourth chapters. Whenever you mark it, it never found its way back on track. This is the eleventh movie. No one can blame the filmmakers for wanting to separate what they’ve created from the mess that came before them.
Recovering addict Riley (Odessa A’zion) solves the infamous puzzle box resulting in her brother’s disappearance. Cenobite leader Pinhead (Jamie Clayton) offers Riley a bargain. Sacrifice enough people for the puzzle box to reach its final configuration and she can have her brother back.
Hellraiser sets its sites completely on the lore of the puzzle box. As a result, we get a lot more Cenobite screen time than we did in the original movie. Eschewing the leather of the originals for a torn flesh clothing aesthetic, the new Cenobites prove to be worthy successors. Of course, this being a Hellraiser movie, the Cenobite everyone cares about is Pinhead.
Jamie Clayton steps into the role made iconic by Doug Bradley through 8 movies of varying quality. It’s a testament to Bradley that his take on the character remains so beloved. He was handed some bad movies later in the franchise. Clayton is the third person to fill the nail covered face of Pinhead since Bradley last played it in 2005. The previous two attempts ranged from eye rolling to unmemorable. Clayton has finally given us a lasting portrayal. Delivering a fully in control, captivating performance that highlights the film.
A’zion’s Riley must do the heavy lifting in the movie and is up to the task. The dialog could be better but her strained relationship with the other characters adds to the stress of her situation. 2013’s Evil Dead did a better job with the recovering addict final girl story, but Hellraiser uses it to good effect adding a layer to her relationships with the other characters.
A few interesting twists and turns in a mostly straight forward story keep the momentum heading towards the final configuration we are promised. The Cenobites stalk the people marked by the puzzle box to deliver their trademark version of pleasure and pain. There are some good gore and room shifting effects at play, but oddly most of it is filmed in an overly static fashion. A lot of horror movies could benefit from a more patient camera…but director David Bruckner favors an uninteresting frame far too often in Hellraiser.
Your mileage on Riley’s investigation into the puzzle box will vary based on how much you care about the lore of the series. It’s well done and gives us more answers than any of the sequels were able to make sense of. It could be a bit of a slog, however, if your interest is just in Cenobite design and gory fun. Thankfully, Hellraiser also delivers plenty of that too.
Scare Value
Reboot/Remake/Reimagining/Sequel…call Hellraiser (2022) whatever you want. What matters is David Bruckner and company finally cracked the hardest puzzle of all. Making a good movie in the Hellraiser universe again. Hopefully we will see more stories with this crew of Cenobites, led by Jamie Clayton’s winning performance taking over the iconic role.
Check out our review of the original Hellraiser
3.5/5
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