Spooktober 2020: Hellbound: Hellraiser 2

Well I watched this like a week ago so I'm probably gonna get plenty wrong but eh. No one is gonna read this or correct it.

Hellbound starts basically immediately after the end of Hellraiser. Kirsty is in an asylum for fairly obvious reasons. Her dad was murdered by his dead brother reincarnated and terror/ pleasure cenobites attempted to take her to Hell. I mean, that seems like a reasonable response. She also has some terror dreams/ visions of her father.

A reasonable request.

I guess it actually starts with a 5-10 min recap of Hellraiser. We get to re-see some good deaths and murders and cool stuff and cenobites. We quickly meet some kind of psychiatrist/ surgeon/ insane man who is all about seeking pleasure. He's done some research and he somehow knows of the cube puzzle that summons the cenobites/ the gateway to hell. Through conversations he learns that Kirsty's step mom died on a mattress and he does his best and easily obtains it, taking it back to his mansion. He brings one of his patients home, who, well, imagines maggots and bugs on himself and tries to clean them off with a straight razor. Using the same nonsense that brought back murder/ rape uncle in the first, step mom is revived.

Tricking a insane man into summoning a hell demon.

Doc makes out with her, she convinces him to bring people for her to kill to reconstruct herself, and well you can probably guess where this is going.

The crazy doctor's assistant goes to the asylum to help Kirsty get out and go to said mansion for some reason. She notes she doesn't have anything to wear and he responds with a line summing up a doctor's true super powers:

"I can get you clothes; I'm a doctor."

Some more things happen, and the evil doctor convinces the mute girl, who happens to be really good at puzzles, to solve the puzzle box and unleash the cenobites. Pinhead, in a moment of being kinda cool, tells the other cenobites to stay back and not take her, because, well, she didn't have intent to summon hell, she just wanted to do a puzzle.

It's not cool to use the mute girl to open up hell.

Kirsty and the mute girl go into hell, Kirsty trying to save her father (see above). Hell looks rad at least!

Hell is laid out like the director's cut ending of Phase IV

And that's where I'll leave discussing the plot because it really doesn't matter in this. This movie abandons the plot and pacing of the original to focus on some pretty fantastic visuals and a lot more gore. I don't think it's quite as good as the first, but it's a very effective sequel. It picks off and builds from the original without just being a pure re-hash. It's creepy and the cenobites get a lot more screen time. This movie is definitely worth a watch if you enjoyed the first. Plus, you get a little look into how Pinhead was made! Sit down, pour a glass of red wine, and let Pinhead show you new dimensions in pleasure.

Pinhead gets his pins.

Spooktober 2020: Hellraiser

Submit to pleasure. And nails.

Who knew Clive Barker was such a weirdo? (Besides anyone who has seen any movie he has made/ read any of his stories).

What a delightfully bizarre film. Briefly, a man opens the fabled puzzle box and is ripped to pieces by Cenobites, demons of torment and pain. His brother moves into his house with his wife. Said wife cheated on her soon to be husband with the main who had been ripp
ed to pieces. While moving in, the husband absolutely destroys his hand on a nail and drips blood onto the floor of the room where his brother had been ripped up (the cenobites cleaned the room very well so there was no person goo in there). This blood was absorbed and the dead brother starts being reconstituted. He convinces his former lover/ brother's wife to bring home men from the bar so he can eat/ absorb them and come more back to life.

Someone is missing some flesh.

I guess technically the main character/ heroine of the film is the husband's daughter, Kirsty. She doesn't feature a ton in the first half. It picks up for her when she gets the puzzle box and meets her not quite alive but very not dead uncle. She solves the puzzle box and cuts a deal with the Cenobites to save her own hide.

My pleasure... is ham.

I don't want to get into too many spoilery details even though the movie is coming up on 40 years old because it's a whole lot of fun. It has a whole lot of people goo. The practical effects look fantastic. As the brother reconstitutes and adds more layers to him he looks awesome. The muscle tissue on him looks great (also the fact that he wears clothes that his bodily fluids just leak through constantly).

Sir you appear to have something on your shirt.

This movie also has one of the more upsetting uses of "Come to Daddy" I've seen/ heard in a minute... Multiple times. And the partially reconstituted man watches his brother and the wife start to get frisky (which he promptly puts an end to by cutting a rat in half with a switch blade).

Overall, if you like creeps and people goo, you will like this movie. Definitely worth a spooky watch this year and any other year.