{"id":1313,"date":"2024-07-25T03:55:27","date_gmt":"2024-07-25T03:55:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=1313"},"modified":"2024-10-14T13:57:00","modified_gmt":"2024-10-14T17:57:00","slug":"hellraiser-iii-hell-on-earth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/07\/25\/hellraiser-iii-hell-on-earth\/","title":{"rendered":"Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth<\/strong>\u00a0(1992)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Dimension\/Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 93 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (language, extremely graphic violence and gore, sexual content)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Anthony Hickox\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Peter Atkins and Tony Randel\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Randy Miller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Gerry Lively\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: September 11, 1992 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Doug Bradley, Terry Farrell, Paula Marshall, Kevin Bernhardt, Ashley Laurence, Ken Carpenter, Peter Atkins, Eric Willhelm, Robert Hammond, Brent Bolthouse, Lawrence Mortoff, Clayton Hill, Aimee Leigh.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $12.5 million (US)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ***<\/p>\n

\u00a0As much as I enjoy Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth<\/strong>, it hasn\u2019t escaped my notice that the series has started to slip into the realm of the campy. With a subtitle like Hell on Earth, it should have been a total horror epic. The idea of Pinhead bringing an army of Cenobites into the real world sounds awesome to this horror movie fan. That\u2019s sort of\/kind of what happens in Hellraiser III<\/strong> only on a somewhat smaller scale. Such is the pitfall of low budget B-movies, the makers can only afford to do so much.<\/p>\n

\u00a0However, that\u2019s not my biggest complaint about Hellraiser III<\/strong>. In fact, it\u2019s not even a complaint; it\u2019s really more of an observation. What I find most disappointing about this third installment of the franchise is that it isn\u2019t the least bit scary. Whereas the first two Hellraiser flicks are full-blooded horror movies, this one takes too campy an approach to the material to frighten all but the most timid viewers. It plays more like a Nightmare on Elm Street movie with all the stuff about dreams and the heroine\u2019s excursions into the realm of dreams. Then there\u2019s the matter of the new Cenobites. They look more like Borg rejects than Cenobites. They\u2019re pretty silly too. One of them has a video camera in his head and another shoots razor sharp CDs at potential victims. It\u2019s a fun movie, don\u2019t get me wrong. It\u2019s just a step down from its more serious-minded predecessors.<\/p>\n

\u00a0So when we last saw our old friend Pinhead (Bradley), he had split into two distinct identities- his good human self, WWI British Army Captain Elliot Spencer and his evil id Pinhead. While Spencer remains in limbo, Pinhead and the puzzle box are trapped in the Pillar of Souls, the grotesque statue that rises from Julia\u2019s mattress in the final scene of the previous installment.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The pillar is purchased by J.P. Monroe (Bernhardt, General Hospital), a rich and spoiled nightclub owner with a thing for the ladies. The scene then jumps to reporter Joey Summerskill (Farrell, Becker) doing a piece at a hospital ER when a patient is wheeled in with hooked chains attached to his body. She watches in horror as he\u2019s pulled apart by the chains. Realizing there\u2019s a hell of a story there, the ambitious Joey starts looking into it. Her investigation takes her to Monroe\u2019s nightclub The Boiler Room and his ex-girlfriend Terri (Marshall, Warlock: The Armageddon).<\/p>\n

\u00a0Now here\u2019s where dreams come into it. Terri never dreams while Joey always dreams about her father who was killed in Vietnam when she was a baby. It\u2019s in these dreams that she meets Capt. Spencer who explains all about Pinhead and the Lament Configuration. Meanwhile, J.P. discovers the secret of the pillar when it kills a young woman he just slept with. Pinhead asks J.P. to bring him more victims so he can be freed from his prison. Long story short (too late!), Pinhead is freed and proceeds to wreak havoc in our world.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Since his usual gang of Cenobites was killed in the previous film, Pinhead must create new ones to help him. He goes a rampage through the Boiler Room and recruits a new team that includes \u201cCamerahead\u201d (Carpenter), \u201cCD Cenobite\u201d (Willhelm) and \u201cBarbie\u201d (writer Atkins). What a step down from the Cenobites in the previous films. They\u2019re sort of\/kind of cool in a campy way, but that\u2019s not what one expects from a Hellraiser flick.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Aside from that, Hellraiser III<\/strong> is a fun movie. I went to see it at a Saturday matinee and enjoyed it a great deal. I was actually happy to see a third Hellraiser come to pass as the franchise\u2019s future was put in question by the closing of New World Pictures (the studio that distributed the first two movies). Thankfully, Dimension Films (then part of Miramax) picked it up.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Hellraiser III<\/strong> is the first of the series to not be shot in the UK. The British connection made I & II feel like very bloody Hammer films. While part III doesn\u2019t have the same feel, it is very gory. People still get torn apart and the nightclub massacre is a nice bloody mess. The gore effects are very good as is the makeup. As for the acting, it\u2019s about you\u2019d expect. Farrell does okay as the heroine of the piece. Marshall fares better as the metal chick who helps Farrell with her investigation. Bernhardt makes a very convincing rich jerk.<\/p>\n

\u00a0It may not be the best of the series, but Hellraiser III<\/strong> is a damn sight better than what follows. They really should have ended the series with this one.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth\u00a0(1992)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Dimension\/Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 93 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (language, extremely graphic violence and gore, sexual content)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Anthony Hickox\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Peter Atkins and Tony Randel\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Randy Miller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Gerry Lively\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: September 11, 1992 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Doug Bradley, Terry Farrell, Paula Marshall, Kevin Bernhardt, Ashley Laurence, Ken Carpenter, Peter Atkins, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1639,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-horror","category-sequels-remakes"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Hellraiser-III-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1313"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1313\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1917,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1313\/revisions\/1917"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}