☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
(Liked It)
Netflix Synopsis: While cheating on his wife, a sleazy LAPD detective opens up the dreaded puzzle box, which sends him into his own murder- and monster-filled hell.
The Peeps: Scott Derrickson (writer, director); Paul Harris Boardman (writer); Craig Sheffer
Quick Run Down: Tense Thriller, Violent, Completely Different Than You'd Think
Worth the Watch?: I'll be damned - It Really Is!
Hellraiser: Inferno is a tense thriller that follows Detective Joseph Thorne (Craig Sheffer) as he gets deeper and deeper into the madness of a series of murders and possible child abductions orchestrated by a person simply known as 'the engineer'. Thorne is a bad cop - does coke, cheats on his wife with hookers, steals evidence, is rarely home, lies, backstabs, and more. When he's called to a crime scene for a horrendous murder, Thorne finds the
Hellraiser box (first time it's actually called the Lament Configuration in the films), and he decides to take it home with him. He digs puzzles, is good at them, and the LG intrigues him. Of course, he winds up opening it, and BAM - all Hell(raising) breaks lose. People are suddenly popping up dead; he's having bad dreams filled with monsters and hideous visions; and he's finding small children's fingers at crime scenes. Thorne's thrust down a rabbit hole of chaos, and he suddenly can't tell up from down, left from right. Eventually, everything spirals out of control, and... I'll stop there.
This installment in the
Hellraiser franchise is NOTHING like the previous films. In addition to looking sharper and being more grounded in reality (ironically enough), the film takes a completely different approach in telling the
Hellraiser tale. I don't want to give anything away, but, again, the story is very different than what you'd expect from the franchise. In fact, Pinhead is only in the film for a collective 10 minutes. He's just a quick dream image until three quarters of the way through! Acknowledging this makes me want to say the movie's not any good, but it is. It is a very tense thriller with a good story and a lot of guessing going on. In fact, I would have liked it more if it had followed more of the
Hellraiser story line. The whole thing actually unfolds like a murder mystery with a horror twist, as opposed to a series' installment. Still, it works really well. The violence is more implied than shown, but it's effective. And Craig Sheffer is awesome! His thin sharp eyebrows are like swords being raised and lowered for battle on his wide, white forehead. His expressions and inhibited, smug attitude are perfect for the character he's playing, which is surprisingly darker than you'd expect a main character that's not a straight socio/psychopath to begin with.
There are some new Cenobite characters, but they are mostly copies of previous characters with a few pluses or minuses. As mentioned before, there's a lot of violence, but it's realistic, grounded violence, often more psychological that gratuitous. That doesn't stop a some stab wounds or shotgun blasts from being shown, though. Also, there's more fist fighting in this installment than any of the other previous 4 combined, which just goes back to the violence being grounded. And speaking of fist fighting, there is a strange scene that happens about midway through the film that features a room full of cowboy poker players. I don't want to give anything away, but I gotta ask - when did Asian ninja types start dressing like
Tombstone characters? Just curious.
So, if you wanna watch a taut, tense, suspenseful thriller that really doesn't belong in the
Hellraiser franchise but IS because Pinhead is featured in it, I'd say give
Hellraiser V: Inferno a watch. It's good, and it's on Netflix!
"I was with that girl last night. I did coke with her and slept with her, but I did not do THAT to her."
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