Hellraiser: Inferno

If you open the box of your own free will then you deserve everything that happens to you. I guess that the same applies if you deliberately choose to watch the sequels (and I have three more to go through) even though you know that they're pretty poor. However I'm a sucker for cenobites (Pinhead in particular) and there's usually some entertainment to be had and there was, although it doesn't come close to the first two films.

The irony here is that this could have been a decent film. The story is good, it has a fun blend of the visceral horror that the series excels in and a more psychological (with an existential twist) facet as well. The story tells the tale of a detective who discovers the dreaded box at a crime scene, naturally he makes the mistake of opening it, he then finds himself being stalked with a malevolent force killing people that he knows in macabre fashions.

Events unfold at a reasonable pace and in a direction that kept me interested for the duration. Unfortunately the weak part of the film wasn't the idea of it, but its execution. The lead in particular brings everything down, the whole story hinges on his experiences, but he just isn't up to the job of carrying them. Don't get me wrong, it's entertaining in a 'made for TV' kind of way, and it does have some cool horror moments (and most in a suggestive way rather than all out gore), but it did have the potential to be better.

Supernatural villain Pinhead (Doug Bradley) finds himself on the wrong side of the law in this, the fifth film in the Hellraiser franchise. Joseph (Craig Sheffer) is a detective with the L.A.P.D. who one morning discovers he's no longer living in California - he's been exiled to Hades, and the only way to escape is by solving the mystery of the all-powerful puzzle box. The box is now in the hands of the fearsome demon Pinhead, and Joseph finds himself in a life-and-death struggle with the demon for control of the puzzle box.

Hellraiser: Inferno is available from Amazon (and it's an ok watch)