Hellraiser: Bloodline (1996) Dimension/Horror-Sci-Fi RT: 85 minutes Rated R (language, graphic violence and gore, brief nudity, some sexual content) Director: Kevin Yagher (as Alan Smithee) Screenplay: Peter Atkins Music: Daniel Licht Cinematography: Gerry Lively Release date: March 8, 1996 (US) Cast: Doug Bradley, Bruce Ramsay, Valentina Vargas, Kim Myers, Christine Harnos, Charlotte Chatton, Mickey Cottrell, Adam Scott, Paul Perri, Pat Skipper, Tom Dugan, Jody St. Michael, Louis Turenne, Courtland Mead, Wren Brown, Michael and Mark Polish. Box Office: $9.3 million (US)
Rating: NO STARS!!!
In the space of a year, independent studio Dimension Films earned its reputation as a franchise killer. From September ’95 to August ’96, it effectively destroyed Halloween (The Curse of Michael Myers), Highlander (The Final Dimension), The Crow (City of Angels) and the one with Pinhead.
Hellraiser: Bloodline, the last of the Hellraiser movies to be released theatrically as well as the last one I’ll be reviewing, is a bloody mess and not in the cool sense of the word. This fourth installment brings together past, present and future into a not-so-cohesive whole that betrays all of the post-production issues that caused director Kevin Yagher to have his name removed from the credits. Any time you see “Alan Smithee” listed as director, LOOK OUT! That’s the pseudonym used by film directors who wish to disown one of their movies. Apparently, Dimension didn’t like what Yagher was doing and demanded changes to the original script. The first-time director walked away before finishing and Joe Chappelle (Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers) was brought in to complete the film. Extensive rewrites, including the futuristic framing device, and revisions were done without Yagher’s approval. The result is a messy narrative and a boring horror flick.
However, the most obvious sign that Hellraiser: Bloodline is a stinker is the aforementioned framing device. When a horror franchise sends its boogeyman into outer space, it means they’ve run out of ideas. It’s what’s known as scraping the bottom of the barrel. On a personal note, I had a bad feeling about the sequel based on the fact the studio held the pre-release screening at 9pm the night before it opened. That way, the inevitable bad reviews wouldn’t appear in the papers until Saturday at the earliest, giving the movie a fair shot at a decent opening weekend before bad word-of-mouth got around. I was at the Philadelphia screening and it was the tamest horror movie audience since Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers six months earlier. Instead of screams, all I heard were groans and exasperated sighs. I did a fair amount of that myself.
Hellraiser: Bloodline is too much of an incoherent mess to be scary or anywhere near it. The story begins aboard a space station circa 2127 with builder Paul Merchant (Ramsay, Killing Zoe) preparing to destroy it. He has a robot solve the puzzle box, presumably to conjure up Pinhead. He plans to destroy the space station and the Cenobites along with it until a team of guards stops him.
Paul has a past with the Lament Configuration going back about 400 years to 18th century France. He proceeds to regale interrogator Rimmer (Harnos, Dazed and Confused) with the story of his family’s past. His ancestor, a toymaker named Philip Lemarchand (Ramsay again), made the puzzle box for a wealthy aristocrat obsessed with black magic. He and his associate Jacques (Scott in his first film) use it to summon a Cenobite slave named Angelique (Vargas, The Name of the Rose). The toymaker, upon realizing what he’s done, tries to steal it back but ends up with a curse on his family bloodline instead. The scene jumps to present-day where architect John Merchant (Ramsay yet again) has built the building seen in the final scene of Hellraiser III, the one with all the Lament Configuration designs in the lobby. Angelique, still roaming around after 200 years, goes to America to once again try and put an end to the Merchant bloodline.
After 40 excruciatingly dull minutes, Pinhead (Bradley) finally makes his first appearance. Upon arriving and seeing the house that Merchant built, he decides to make another attempt to conquer Earth by establishing a permanent gateway to Hell in the building’s basement or something like that. Pinhead, with Angelique’s reluctant assistance, creates at least one new Cenobite before tables are turned against him and he’s sent back to Hell. That brings us back to the future where our story began.
The way I see it, there are three different movies in Hellraiser: Bloodline; a potentially decent one in 18th century France, a mediocre one in present-day New York and a crappy one in outer space. The problem is that the pieces don’t fit together as well as they should. That can be mostly attributed to the massive studio interference. It’s my understanding that Yagher cut four different versions, one running 110 minutes. I’d be interested to see if the missing 25 minutes makes a difference.
The only nice thing I can say about Hellraiser: Bloodline is that it has a couple of decent gory scenes, but even that fails to compensate for this picture’s utter ineptitude. Even Bradley appears bored by the whole thing. The new Cenobites are completely unmemorable. And don’t even get me started on the beast from Hell that shows up.
Hellraiser: Bloodline is terrible! There’s no other way to say it. It is a complete waste of time and resources. I’ll go even further and say that it’s as big a rip-off as The Curse of Michael Myers. It’s totally unwatchable on every level. Hell, it’s bad on levels that haven’t even been discovered yet. Even though there have been five direct-to-video sequels, this is the series killer. This is one mission that should have been aborted early on to avoid the crash-and-burn. On second thought, I can’t call it a crash-and-burn as it never even gets off the ground. It just SUCKS!
