HELLRAISER (2022) – Review

So, we’re now officially a week into October. Ready for a spooky flick? Well most hardcore “horror hounds’ are game any time of the year, but this month is…special. And what better way to get “in the mood” than revisiting some iconic and shocking characters in a big reboot, though their creator calls this a “re-imagining” (um, okay). Oh, and we’re not reaching back to the Universal icons of the 30s, 40s, and 50s. They skip a few decades to get into the scream kings (and queens) of the 70s and 80s. It just feels like all of them have gotten a nice new coat of gore. Hey, even Michael Meyers will be back in a week for his final rampage (heard that before). And much like Chucky, these horrors spring from a toy, a puzzle box specifically. As we learned 35 years ago, and over ten flicks, when you solve this puzzle you don’t get a prize because it’s a real HELLRAISER.

This “new take” begins on the streets of Serbia as a woman named Menacker (Haim Abbas) does an exchange in a dingy alley, handing over a briefcase full of cash for a nondescript box, which its former owner warns her not to open. Cut to the impressive mansion of a pleasure-seeking reclusive billionaire named Voight. There’s a party in progress, clothes optional. Menacker meets a handsome young man at the bar and invites him to a private audience with Voight, in his secret gallery. Inside a case, he spots a detailed puzzle box, the Lament Configuration. Voight appears (Goran Visnej) and instructs his guest to solve the puzzle. When he does a spring-triggered needle pops out and punctures his hand. The box seems to suck up his blood which initiates a portal to another dimension that shoots out long chains with sharp hooks that dig into his flesh before hoisting him up. From there the story shifts to a grungy bedroom as Riley (Odessa A’zion) and her new beau Trevor (Drew Starkey) enjoy each other’s company. As they leave the sprawling apartment they’re confronted by her straight-laced brother Matt (Brandon Flynn) He’s angry that she’s dating somebody she met while in rehab and thinks she’s using again. Oh, and she’s behind in her share of the rent. Back at Trevor’s place, he suggests a way to make some quick cash. He makes delivers to a warehouse owner by some “rich dude”. They could use the security code and take something in his safe. And they go through with it, acquiring, yup that deadly puzzle box. Later, when it whisks away Matt, Riley is on a mission to find out the secrets of the box and rescue her sibling. But will she along with Trevor and their friends become victims to the box and the other-worldly demons known as Cenobites?

In an interesting spin on your typical horror heroine. or scream queen, A’zion as Riley is a woman who seemingly has her hands, and mind, full battling her own inner demons, let alone some true terrors from another dimension. And she’s up to the challenge even as the script has her screeching in her opening act like a spoiled petulant pre-teen. But her missing bro forces her into detective mode and A’zion is a formidable force as she slowly uncovers the truth about the “box”. Starkey has a low-key seedy charm as the tempting “bad boy” of many fantasies. But he’s a piker compared to Voight who is given a sinister grinning snarl by Visnej, whose leading man looks mask his perverse machinations. And making a mark (in more ways than one) is Jamie Clayton as The Priest (often referred to as “pinhead” which irks its creator), her passive aggressive delivery, much like one of those home AI devices, clashes with the sadistic punishments it unleashes.

So, has director David Bruckner (THE NIGHT HOUSE) delivered a terror trek that surpassed the 1987 original? Well, there are a few new interesting spins (the attire of the Cenobites particularly), but there is little of the campy fun of that trippy late 80s flick that surprised us. And the new script from Ben Collins, Luke Piotrowski, and David S. Goyer (yup, it took a trio) doesn’t deliver new shocks, but rather tepid variations on familiar scary set pieces inspired by the Clive Barker classic. It’s amusing that Voight’s mansion itself is also a puzzle box, but its contrivances just feel…contrived, though the art direction is done well. This is something like the tenth film in this series, but it just might be time to put that nasty puzzle box in storage until someone can twist and turn it until it becomes a truly horrific HELLRAISER.

1.5 Out of 4

HELLRAISER is now streaming exclusively on Hulu