I don’t know what to expect from Hellbound: Hellraiser II. Kirsty may make a comeback or maybe a completely different story. I assume the stupidly named Kirsty makes a return in Hellbound: Hellraiser II. I am hoping for at least one good character that isn’t a Cenobite. That’s fair, right? I loved Frank. Also, better-looking women and more sex would be nice given the context of this franchise.
I feel like the title means that we may be visiting Hell. We are Hellbound. Let’s see what this film has to offer. Let’s see Hellraiser II.
Start Film
They start off with a recap, similar to how Phantasm does. I love a recap in the beginning. That tells me that they are going to have some continuity, usually. There’s Doug Bradley, but not as Pinhead. I think it is safe to assume this is how he got swept up into stuff however many years ago. His real name was Elliot Spencer. Ohhh shit, they showed the carving of his head and how they put the pins in his head. That was exceptional. Good luck beating that scene.
Kirsty wakes up in a psychiatric hospital. Homicide Det. Ronson is with Kirsty. He is asking what happened at her father’s house. Now, Kirsty reminds me a lot of Nancy from A Nightmare on Elm Street. Did they just show some brain surgery? Interesting. Dr. Channard and his assistant, Kyle MacRae visit Kirsty. “I’m Kyle MacRae. Call me Kyle.” This guy is super helpful. Kirsty notices another patient named Tiffany, and she solves puzzles. WOW, I bet that skill doesn’t come in handy at all during a film that has a puzzle box that brings Cenobites to you. Not at all. Kirsty sees a skinless person, I assume her father. Larry makes the most sense since she actually liked him. This came out in 1988 but this could even pass for the ’70s in many ways.
Dr. Channard visits a lot of his crozier patients, well checks on them. That was fun. Yup, it was her father. Kyle is not a good actor. Channard is having the bloody Julia mattress sent to his house. He must be fascinated by her story. They are really giving us the flashbacks in this one. I am fine with this. I love that Frank left Julia for the Cenobites. Kyle breaks into Channard’s place to find a bunch of weird shit, the mattress, and even a picture of a puzzle box and he owns 3 of them. He even has a picture of Elliot Spencer.
Channard brings in a male patient who begs for him to “Get them off me”. In his mind, he sees maggots on his body and has scratched the shit out of himself. He sits on the mattress. He gives the patient a straight razor to remove them, but he ie is just mutilating his torso. This shit is intense. Then Julia comes out from the mattress and attacks the patient. She finishes off the patient and asks Channard to help her. There’s a lot of stuff here with them. He dresses her in gauze like a mummy and they make out and he feels her up.
Kyle visits Kirsty and tells her that everything she told him was true and he wants to get her out of there. Kyle is going to help Kirsty. Where is her boyfriend? Channard and Julia have a new nude victim. She has drained like 10-12 victims already. He removes her gauze and she looks normal again. Good for her.
Kyle and Kirsty break into Channard’s house. Julia stops Kyle from going into a room. Kyle goes into the sacrifice room as I shall refer to it. She says “come to mother”, just like Frank with “come to daddy”. She drains his dumbass. I don’t feel bad for him. Kirsty finds Julia in the sacrifice room. Julia goes on about Fairy Tales and then smacks that bitch down. Channard shows up with Tiffany and says that it’s his turn.
Tiffany is playing with the puzzle box. Good things will come of this. Channard insists that this is what he wants. Good for him. It’s like getting a really bad tattoo. Others may say no, but if you know what you want, you should definitely do it so others may insult you. Tiffany has opened the doors and here they come. There’s the Chatterer, Butterball, Female, and Pinhead. Pinhead says no, it isn’t hands that call for them but rather desire. I can get behind that mindset.
The puzzle box resets itself. Tiffany is definitely not 18 or older in this, just saying. Kirsty is looking for her father. Tiffany is at some carnival and a lady just told her to “help my daughter”. I assume it to be her mom. This shit is fun. The buildings are really fun and unique here. Kirsty finds some pictures of her mom and blood is dripping all over the place and now there are cockroaches. She’s freaking out and now surrounded by the Cenobites. Pinhead just transformed the box to more of a long diamond shame. She claims that she didn’t open the box. They make fun of her, which was funny. They tell her that she is in her own personal hell, just like her father is in his own personal hell. She runs off and they’re like, we’ll get to know your flesh better later.
Channard finds a room with Julia and Frank in a tub it appears and we see boobs. Channard looks concerned but Julia wants to show him more. I’m just going to refer to Channard as Doc, I think. Spellcheck is being unrelenting with his name. Tiffany and Kirsty find each other. This place is so delightful to look at. Leviathon is Julia’s lord, apparently, and he is lord of the Labyrinth. Doc is having second thoughts.
Julia makes a good point. She asks him why she was allowed to be brought back. It was to gather more souls. Doc is backed into a container with some unpleasant shit. There’s 2 sets of needles in him and 5 wires cutting through his face. Julia seems pleased. Something was getting inserted in Doc’s mouth. Great, I make the decision to abbreviate his name, and then that happens. Hmmm, maybe I should abbreviate Kirsty’s stupid name. I guess that was Leviathan that was fucking up Doc’s world. Makes sense.
Kirsty tells Tiffany that if she can’t get out, she wants Tiffany to get out and make it home, whatever that means. Is home the hospital? Kirsty is now in some church or mausoleum or some odd ass place. There appear to be bodies moving under sheets and Kirsty removes one and there may have been a nude woman underneath. This is why I never blog about Phantasm. How the hell do you do it any justice? Hey, more bodies under bloody sheets now. Hell yeah! Frank is BACK! Frank has been the one leaving her messages asking for her to help him. Frank wants to punish her. I want that too. This is Frank’s hell. Kirsty kisses him and says that she will do anything if he doesn’t hurt her. She then sets the place on fire. Not cool, Kirsty. Frank is losing his skin. Poor Frank.
Julia and Tiffany enter the room. Frank wants Julia to kiss him. He’s always demanding, no matter what form he takes. I appreciate that. Julia comes to him. Then she rips his heart out of him and more flames. Tiffany and Kirsty run away.
Hey, Doc is back and now a Cenobite, I presume. He looks good. Leviathan just grabbed him by the top of the head and is fucking him up more. Julia is with the other 2 girls and it’s windy. Julia has a diamond-shaped “puzzle”. Julia loses her skin and gets sucked in. Tiffany and Kirsty are back in the hospital. Kirsty is sobbing an apology to her dad. Will Tiffany speak at all during this film? They go to another room with patients playing with puzzles that are connected to their faces by chains. Channard comes in through the window with Leviathan’s help and says that he recommends amputation, but then some knives go into a patient’s skull. That’s not really amputation, now is it?
Kirsty and Tiffany run to another room, and it is the room with the Cenobites and it is time to play. Kirsty offers Pinhead his old picture. Pinhead says that if she tries to fool them again, her torture will be legendary, even by Hell’s standards. Nice. So she shows him the picture. Pinhead remembers who he used to be and she tells them that they all used to be human. Doc shows up. The special effects are so bad. This was a problem with the late ’80s and early ’90s.
Doc says that he wants a fight with the Cenobites. They launch chains at him and he cuts them off. He shoots something at the female and she returns to her human form and is pretty nice to look at. He hits up Butterball then CHatterer next. Chatterer was just a boy. Doc is going to take over and he wants the girls as his first patient. Pinhead isn’t scared though. He has turned to his former self. He looks at the girls to tell them to leave. Pinhead’s throat is slashed. Doc lets out some scream.
Tiffany is now talking and she wants to finish the puzzle. The room with the puzzle patients is pretty awesome now. Tiffany is heading back to Hell. She finds Julia’s skin and the diamond-shaped thing. Why are there cobwebs in Hell? I knew it. Spiders are inherently evil! Kirsty is now just realizing that it’s all a puzzle. No shit.
Tiffany is working on the puzzle when Doc shows up with even more medical one-liners that are terrible So many bad lines. He says that they both have their whole lives behind them now. They are making me not like Channard. The jokes are so bad. He makes Tiffany back up and Julia appears. She’s got her skin again. They go to kiss and Tiffany grabs the puzzle. She is reshaping it into a box. Do is really bad at what he does. He is now getting his head ripped off. Tiffany falls and is holding onto the walkway. Julia offers to help her and says to trust her. Julia’s skin peels off but Julia saves her. Julia rips off her face and it’s really Kirsty.
Hold up. There are only a few minutes left but let’s talk about this. Kirsty is wearing Julia’s dress. So she found the dress and then put on sections of the skin or did she just put the skin on and the dress came on with it? I need explanations here.
The big puzzle piece in the sky is doing some shit and firing blue projectiles but somehow missing Tiffany and Kirsty. I call bullshit. The door is closing but the girls make it in time. Then, well there was a scream and a big blue something. I don’t have words. All the hospital beds are empty and have flowers. Later on, Tiffany and Kirsty are in different clothes and clean and are outside walking away.
Now we have two movers at Doc’s house, and one of them finds the bloody mattress. He gets attacked. The other mover finds half of his body and the spinning pillar of torture rises and it’s the cheesiest shit, but thoroughly entertaining. In the end, the face of the Moroccan man is asking “What is your pleasure, sir?”
End Film.
Okay, that film was just silly and didn’t do much for me. I didn’t hate it, but I have no real interest in seeing it again. I could see it again, but probably not. If I did, it would be for some laughs. The special effects are so bad to see, cringeworthy. Doc’s medical one-liners were so fucking awful, you feel like you need to drink after every one of them, and you should. Kirsty is still terrible. Julia improved. Frank didn’t get enough time. There was nobody that I really liked that had much time aside from Tiffany. And Kyle was really terrible. The Cenobites were cool again and that does help. Maybe I would see this again. (Update: After sleeping on it, I think I liked it more than I thought and would most likely watch it again, but my observations remain the same.)
Rating: 5.3 – I am very divided here and that is reflected in my score.
All the pictures used in this blog are for review purposes. They are the property of:
Film Futures
New World Pictures
Troopstar
Please go find a copy and support the creators.