Hellraiser: Bloodline is directed by Kevin Yagher and that name is very familiar to me at the moment. He worked on the Chucky dolls early on in the Child’s Play films and I think that he is married to Catherine Hicks. He also has worked on Tales From the Crypt TV series, Demon Knight, and Sleepy Hollow. I have some faith in this man’s abilities, but he didn’t direct much, which worries me slightly. Adam Scott of Parks and Rec fame, along with Step Brothers and other funny things, is in this. So far, I am pleased.
Just reading about production, this sounds like an absolute clusterfuck thanks to Miramax wanting things cheaper and then changing too much of the story. This caused Yagher to be credited as Alan Smithee so that his name wasn’t attached. Oh boy. Now I am scared.
Start Film
We are on Space Station Minos in 2127. The ’90s had such a weird obsession with horror films in space. There should only be Alien, Event Horizon, and Jason X. That movie was fun as hell. Dr. Paul Merchant had a robot solve the puzzle box and the robot explodes. Some armed soldiers of sorts break into Miros. We see Pinhead briefly. Really, the lady interrogator in named Rimmer? Slow clap.
We go back to 1796 in France, where the characters speak English. Phillip L’Merchand is Paul’s ancestor who created the puzzle box after being hired by some rich dude. There’s Adam Scott, his name is Jacques in this and he is the assistant to Duc de L’Isle. Cool, Jacques got the first kill on the peasant girl. L’ Merchand shows up with the box and delivers it. They have skinned this girl and have her hanging by hooks and chains. Time to summon a demon. The demon now inhabits the peasant girl. Her name is Angelique.
L’Merchand is afraid of what he has made so he returns to de L’Isle’s and finds Duc is dead Jacques and Angelina have lots of fun now. And they knock out L’Merchand, L’Merchand’s wife checks on him but he tells her to get out since she is pregnant. He dies but is told by Jacques that his family line will be cursed for making the cube.
Later on, in 1996, Angelique sees the successful John Merchant on a magazine cover. Angelique wants to go America and Jacques, with an absolutely absurd haircut, says no to her. Well, she gets pissed and starts to cut him with her claw. She just bit off some of his face. Jacques broke the #1 rule, he stood in Hell’s way. You just can’t do that. She rips into Jacques and rips out his heart. Bye-bye Adam Scott. You were really good.
Angelique is now at this banquet that John is speaking at and he sees her. He has often dreamed of her. This freaks him out a little. Angelique bumps into a man and spills her purse and calls him an idiot. She wants to make it up to him so she brings him to a basement. She wants to play a game. Okay, Jigsaw, if that is your real name. Angelique punches through a pillar and gets the box. She removes his shirt and makes him use the box. He opens the door to hell and gets hooked and chained. There’s our old buddy, Pinhead. He looks pleased. He refers to her as Princess.
Angelique meets John. John is working on a box for perpetual light and she seems startled. Either way, John dreams of fucking her and she has an excellent body. Good for her. Pinhead doesn’t like Angelique’s methods of temptations compared to his of terror.
These 2 security guards in John’s building that isn’t on the map. It’s a very long corridor. The lights go out, the door closes. Things are bad. Hahaha, they go through the door and find Pinhead and Angelique. One guy says that they will inflict pain on Pinhead. Hahahaha. He tells them to allow him to show them pain. “Work with me or for me” is what Pinhead says to Angelique. The guys are bound by chains and have a mask on each face and then this drilling device attaches them together and then are Cenobites now. Solid. Pinhead is hellbent on pushing his ways onto Princess. Pinhead wants to fuck with John by making him lose his child.
Bobbi, John’s wife, leaves their son, Jack, alone for a few minutes so she can do laundry. Angelique is still seducing John. Wherever she is going for laundry is fucking awful. Nobody would be okay with that setup. She hears Jack screaming for her. His toy is disassembled, but she finds him holding Pinhead’s hand. Pinhead is negotiating a little. He wants to have live bait. John comes home and can’t find Bobbi or Jack.
Bobbi and Jack are in a room with the puzzle box. John finds them and a chattering dog. He tells Pinhead that he was his wife and boy returned. He tells John to finish his work or else his boy won’t die for a thousand years but he will wish that he had. That’s a good threat. I knew that Jack looked familiar. He played Danny in the remake of The Shining. John sees a door and thinks that they can outrun Pinhead. Hahaha, he suggests that they split up, make it harder to find. John confronts Pinhead. Jack is now in an elevator. Bobbi is stuck facing the dog and she has the puzzle box.
John finds Jack but now Angelique has Jack. She wants him to open the pathway for her. Pinhead is approaching. Well, that worked poorly so Pinhead decapitates John. Bobbi comes in with the box and tells Pinhead to play with his dog. Angelique gets chained up, shit is exploding and they get sent back to Hell.
Back to the future with Rimmer and Merchant. Merchant had a conversation with Pinhead before he was apprehended. Rimmer appears to believe the story but the man in charge doesn’t. One of the guards hears children’s cries for help behind a locked door. He blows it open only to find the robot and Pinhead. Sorry, sir, your day is about to get worse. Face skin moved and yeah, he’s fucked. That dude’s name was Parker. Why is Pinhead still with the two security guard Cenobite? It’s been like 130 years. That doesn’t make much sense other than for budget reasons. Like, his Cenobites typically don’t last long.
They found Parker’s body and that 23 minutes time window that Merchant has is down to 12 minutes and nobody is letting him take care of business. This one guard, he’s a treat. He sees Angelique ask for help. Angelique asks for help and the guy reaches through the mirror and then loses his head. The Pinhead confronts, Mr. Chamberlain. Chamberlain fires and does no damage, then runs and hides. He thinks that he is safe. Foolish mortal. Rimmer has decided to give Merchant a chance.
I wonder how many bags of beef jerky I could eat before feeling full. My heart would hate that, but it’s an idea. Is that Angelique with the twins? I assume so. Her head being split open is neat. She gets the box. The twins separate. They held faces with him and kill the dude. The kills and torture have been lackluster.
Pinhead is now confronting Merchant. Pinhead goes on one of his rambling monologues. Rimmer won’t leave with Merchant, and then she finds the dog. She seals the dog in a room and it’s a pressure chamber. She just killed the dog. There are only 2 minutes remaining and Pinhead says that he cannot die, that he’s forever. But Merchant was a hologram and he and Rimmer got on escape ship. On the video screen, Merchant says it is all done with mirrors. The ship or space station is turning into the box of perpetual light. So had they just listened to him instead of being tough guy badasses, that whole team could have potentially lived.
End film
This one wasn’t for me. I loved bits and pieces of it. The parts with Adam Scott were fun. Angelique was a fun character. And Pinhead always provides entertainment. They went away from the cheesy jokes and tried telling a complex story in too short of a time. Originally, they wanted this to be a 3 film series to tell it much better. I don’t think I would have liked that any more than I liked this though. I just didn’t care for the story. This should have killed Pinhead, but they did it in the future so sequels could be made in modern times. It is what it is. With more death, better acting, more interesting death, and some jokes, I’d be more positive about this. It wasn’t horrible, but I see no reason to ever see this again. This was the last of the Hellraiser films to be in a theater. Beyond this, they are all direct to video. Oh yay.
Rating: 4.2 – That may be too low. I wasn’t invested though.
All the pictures used in this blog are for review purposes. They are the property of:
Dimension Films
Hellraiser IV Partners
Miramax
Trans Atlantic Entertainment
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