Hellriaser: Deader is the first of two Hellraiser films to come out in 2005. Yes, that’s right. Two films from the same franchise were released in the same year. When has that ever happened prior? I really enjoyed the previous film, Hellseeker. I went in with very low expectations and was rewarded. This time, Kari Wuhrer is the lead and I know her from Sliders and a bunch of shitty made for SyFy films. She isn’t so much talented as much as she has perfect tits. She is perfectly acceptable in the lead role of part 7 of a horror franchise.
Haha, I mentioned this in my review for the previous film, well I speculated on this. On the Wikipedia page for Hellraiser: Deader, I want to share a small snippet. “However – like the previous two entries in the series, Hellraiser: Inferno and Hellraiser: Hellseeker – it began as an unrelated spec script, which was subsequently rewritten (by Tim Day) as a Hellraiser film.” That is how you keep the franchise going with a ton of unnecessary sequels.
I guess this film is about a journalist and a group of people claiming to bring back the dead. Will this also be one long dream and morality play? Here we go with Hellraiser: Deader. Seriously, deader is what you went for?
Start Film
Oh yay, a bunch of strung-out junkies to start us off, and I think we’re in England. Yup, we’re in London. Amy Klein is like some bigshot journalist and she was getting a story together by hanging with junkies and learning how to be a crack whore. Then she gets a video from a group called the Deaders. They show this ritual of sorts or initiation. The group has a big speech and this girl has to go through it all about not being real. She then shoots herself in the head. It’s a bit graphic. But wait, there’s more. The exit wound is ginormous. A dude kisses the girl and then gasps and kisses her again. A real Prince Charming. The girl then comes back to life. She is going to get the story and head to Romania. I used to know a couple of people from there.
Okay, I am dreadfully bored 15 minutes into a 90 minutes long film. It’s also almost 5:30 AM. She goes to find Marla and pays a guy to let her explore the apartment for 5 minutes and apparently it smells worse than it looks. It looks gross. So many flies and other insects and shit generally rotting. Well, she just found a woman who strangled herself in the bathroom, presumably Marla. Lots of pictures of her getting choked. Lots of creepy-ass pictures too. This feels like a jump scare waiting to happen. There’s a package and Amy was trying to reach it. The package says “HELP US” and Marla is holding onto the puzzle box. There’s the jump scare of Marla coming alive briefly.
She opens the package and there’s a tape. She talks about not opening the box and not to agree to the terms. She gives instructions on how to find Joey. Amy naturally decides to play with the box like a jackass. Really, we’re gonna do this again. Yup, we sure are. Chains and hooks in her head pulling her closer to the box and Pinhead telling her that she is in danger. Marla calls and tells her to “Help us, Amy”.
Amy goes to a subway to find Joey. What the fuck is all happening here? Nice to see tits, but not quite my scene. It sounds like Winter is a guru with followers. Joey goes on and on, and Amy whips out the puzzle box. He tells her where the Deaders are but once she visits, she ain’t leaving, and only “he” can bring her back. The lesbians were top-notch, at least. Now a strange dude, I think it is Winter, is approaching Amy and he is walking slower than Voorhees. But it is a meaningful stalk until he jumps out in front of the approaching train. Nobody can find him. Now she sees him as she is being questioned.
Amy’s boss, Charles comes and bails her out. She says that there is something demonic about Charles. I think he’s a good boss and possibly Pinhead. Why not? It’s not the dumbest theory I have ever come up with. Amy goes to the address Joey gave her, and it’s locked and she has the key. I just got these new headphones today for watching movies at night so I don’t disturb my neighbors. So far, these sound awesome. They are more for studio monitoring, which made the most sense for me. Jump scares are a tad bit louder, but otherwise, these are solid. Amy is now wandering these underground tunnels and sees a dog. So exciting. She finds this narrow passage that only thin people could go down. And there are bugs. She struggles to keep wedging herself further. There’s a man in a hood with a knife trying to stab her.
She wakes up and this black dude tells her to follow him. There’s Winter resurrecting some dude on the bed. This group doesn’t appeal to me. I also find cults to be creepy as hell. Winter claims that he chose Amy. Winter is a descendant of L’Merchant from Hellraiser Bloodline. But John never mentioned a brother in that film, or would this guy just be a cousin? Winter can now move superfast suddenly. Oh, this film. Amy keeps having visions of a young girl being molested, I think. Now it is time for her to be sacrificed and turned into a Deader. As she is screaming she then wakes up in a bathtub. She showed a boob and sees her muddy boots. Wow, that was all the nudity that you’re doing Kari? I’m shocked and appalled.
Time to have the dreams again. Then she wakes up with a knife in her back and there’s more boob. That a girl, Kari. She knows her audience. She is making a mess of her bathroom. She takes the knife out and gets a phone call. It’s Marla telling her that only he can bring her back. Pinhead visits him. He asks her why she isn’t feeling pain and she thinks it’s a dream, but Pinhead tells her that she is being recruited as a soldier. But her soul and Winter’s both belong to him and her only way back is through Pinhead. I just don’t like her character. I don’t like films with no characters for me to enjoy. She cleans up, gets on clothes, goes outside, and is already bleeding through her shirt.
She is bleeding too much. She goes back to Joey and shows her wound. He asks if her tits are real. She just needs to accept it. Now everybody on the train is suddenly dead. Yeah, so they really are going with this idea again, it appears. She backs into Marla who is alive. She looks like shit. Apparently, Marla was the one who stabbed her. Marla is here to help her face her demons. Amy was in her dream then wakes up in a hospital strapped down and Charles is there. Winter apparently needs Amy to help with the puzzle. These fucking movies of people constantly appearing and disappearing.
In the flashback dream, the little girl has a knife and stabs the man. Oh wow, just like how she was stabbed. I’m playing Spider Solitaire. I’m that fucking bored at the moment. Amy then wakes up on the bed surrounded by the Deaders and Winter. He tells her to finish her journey and gives her the knife. The final step is to plunge the knife in her, I guess. The box has some electricity and Amy buries the knife in the table to the puzzle box. She tells him to go to hell and throws the puzzle box. That opens up the box and there’s Pinhead. He has 2 Cenobites, a male, and a female. Winter tries to argue with Pinhead. He says to Pinhead “You can’t hurt me.” Well, you can imagine, the chains are out. I’m not sure if Winter is coming in this film. Winter whimpers begging for no more. He just got ripped apart.
Pinhead is now going to fuck up all the Deaders because they were jackasses. Now it is just pinhead, Amy, and Cenobites and she has to pay the price for opening the box. He tells her that her father is with him and that he owns her soul. Marla tells Amy that only he can bring her back. Amy refuses to give her soul to Pinhead or Winter. So she stabs herself in the belly, and the box is going crazy. She dies and the box is causing shit to happen as Pinhead screams “No!”.
Charles is watching the news about the explosion in the tunnels. No sign of Amy. Charles’ 3 o’clock is there, and it’s a nice looking brunette. Charles wants to show her the tape. Then we get a closeup on a framed picture of Amy in his office.
End Film
Oh, fuck that movie. The worst one by far. Read these notes about the production from the Wikipedia page on this film.
“The film is on Neil Marshall Stevens’s spec script Deader, which was submitted to Dimension Films in 2000 during the production of his script Thirteen Ghosts and had been planned to be produced by Stan Winston.[3] As in the final film, it entailed a newspaper reporter being sent to Romania to cover an underground cult who have discovered the secret of immortality and had gained contact with an otherworldly dimension, but did not feature connections to the Hellraiser series.[4] Although Tim Day had wanted to write a direct sequel to Hellraiser: Hellseeker featuring a final conflict between Pinhead and Kirsty, Bob Weinstein directed him to rewrite Deader into a Hellraiser sequel similar in tone to the Japanese horror films Ring, and Pulse. After a brief delay during the production of the 2006 American remake of Pulse, work on Deader resumed. Scott Derrickson was approached to direct but declined, and Rick Bota was rehired from the previous film. The film was originally rewritten to take place in London and later the Lower East Side of Manhattan before the producers opted to film it simultaneously with another Hellraiser sequel, titled Hellraiser: Hellworld in Romania, between October and December 2002, to save costs.[3] Production was difficult due to the inability of the Americans in the cast and crew to understand the Romanian set workers and actors.”
That explains so much. So far, Deader is by far the worst of the franchise. I know that can change with 3 films remaining. This was worse than Inferno and Bloodline. I was so bored with the ideas in this one. I can’t think of any characters that I liked unless they were topless women or Pinhead. And that is what this film has going for it. A LOT of boobs! But, as the legendary film, Showgirls has taught us, you can give us so much nudity and we still aren’t going to accept your film. I don’t ever want to see this again but am okay with seeing Kari Wuhrer again.
Rating: 3.5 – That seems very fair. It wasn’t nearly the worst film that I have seen. I just didn’t like it and have zero interest in seeing it ever again. Hellraiser: Deader absolutely made me feel deader on the inside.
All the pictures used in this blog are for review purposes. They are the property of:
Dimension Films (presents)
Stan Winston Productions
Neo Art & Logic (in association with)
Castel Film Romania
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