DAY 4: Hellraiser: Inferno (2000)

"The Terrifying New Chapter In The "Hellraiser" Legacy!"

RATED- R

RUN TIME- 99 MINS

WRITER(S)- PAUL HARRIS BOARDMAN AND SCOTT DERRICKSON

STARRING- CRAIG SHEFFER, NICHOLAS TURTURRO AND JAMES REMAR

DIRECTOR- SCOTT DERRICKSON

Synopsis taken from IMDb

A shady police detective becomes embroiled in a strange world of murder, sadism and madness after being assigned a murder investigation against a madman known only as "The Engineer".

My God, this movie was painful to watch! This hit a new low for this series and there's still 4 more to go. The quality of this film felt exactly like watching an after hours soft core porn on the Cinemax channel. It was cheaply thrown together and the acting is the scariest thing to come out of the series thus far. And to think that Scott Derrickson did this film! For those of you who don't know, Derrickson is responsible for such horror films as "Sinister" and "The Exorcism of Emily Rose", both films I thoroughly enjoyed.

This installment of the Hellraiser saga is more like a really boring detective movie. It's like they just wanted Pinhead to make a cameo so they could title it under Hellraiser. Thing is, I doubt it was intentional, but the whole movie is completely predictable. Once you're about 25-30 minutes into the film you've put it together, yet you have to wait a whole other damn hour just for them to get to what you already discovered on your own. I almost fell asleep during the film and had to find myself texting and checking email's in order to stay awake and focused on the film.

When the lead, Detective Thorne (Craig Sheffer) discovers the box and opens it he begins to experience some hallucinations. They overuse the living hell out of the dreams. Every other scene is something screwed up happening, something gory and twisted, just to discover it's a dream. Oh, and then something else gory and brutal happens and guess what? A dream as well. I've never seen the dream within a dream sequence done so many times in one single film. 

Christopher Nolan's "Inception" wasn't full of as many dreams as this film. And after a while you just stop caring and want the movie to be over. The special effects were nothing new, there was nothing that stood out about them. "The Engineer" looked absolutely stupid and embarrassing. It looked like a cheap Cenobite, only without the normal tortured look and wasn't disturbing or scary in the least bit. It looked like a mummy. 

Pinhead plays a very minor role in this movie and while I'd like to say that's what hurt it, I think him being in the movie at all is what completely kills it. Only because when you see him reality sets in and you realize that this is actually supposed to be a Hellraiser film. And that's just depressing. He shows up at random times for a few seconds at a time until the end when he explains to Thorne what's been happening, but as I said earlier, you already knew where this was going. So ultimately his role in this film is null and void. 

This Hellraiser madness week has turned into the Hellraiser bashing week. I'm sorry to all of you reading, I really don't mean to be a sour puss but my God, these films are bad. Some of you feel my pain. Others, I hope are learning from my pain and know not to go near this series other than the first 2. And to think I have 4 more films to go! I have to laugh at my situation, I had no idea what I was getting into, although I was warned. I do know that I'm not going near this series or even the first 2 films for a long time after this, I'm burned out and have a bad taste left in my mouth.

THIS FILM GETS 1 REAPER SKULL OUT OF 5