Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth

(1992) ***
Oh, what a relief to watch a movie with real production values! I've been watching such cheap product, this was a step up. And I'm saying this about a movie that takes place in NYC but was filmed in North Carolina.

I've already reviewed the first two Hellraisers, which can be read here and here. I go on at length about how I feel about Clive Barker, but he doesn't have anything to do with this movie so I can leave him alone.

Pinhead is back, having changed from one of the worst special effects in history (see the very end of #2) into a creepy piece of art. It's purchased by one J.R. Munroe, who's kind of like Arch Hall Jr. from Eegah but with dark hair and a tan. He owns a hoppin' night club in which nobody has been told the eighties are over. One of his hapless conquests gets too close to the Pinhead column, and in the movie's best bit of horror, column-Pinhead rips her skin off in one quick move. Eeeeew!

Then she gets et. Pinhead entices the club owner to find him more blood so he can break free and raise Hell...on Earth. (By the way, it's not polite to point out that the paintings in the background change.)

Unfortunately for J.R., he calls up his ex-girlfriend Terri and she kicks his ass. Rewinding a bit, Terri has been helping an intrepid TV newsgirl played by Terry Farrell, who, you'll remember, also played Dax on Deep Space Nine. Terry was at the hospital one night when Terri brought in a boy covered in hooks and chains. Terry tracked down Terri at the club and they hit it off. It's kind of like a girl buddy movie, or "best friends" movie. Until, that is, Terri also quickly falls under Pinhead's spell and she feeds J.R. to the platform in her stead. J.R. gets some machiney thing stuck into his head and Pinhead gets out and pulls a Carrie on the club.

Okay, so far, this movie was doing okay. I don't think so highly of the Cenobites as characters, I've never found the chains 'n hooks combo to be all that, especially since the hooked flesh closeups always look sooo fake. On the other hand, I've always thought the notion of demons emerging from a pretty puzzle-box is great, and it's also cool that the demonic artifacts are activated by contact with blood. Pinhead even makes a good speech about how his Hell is just an expression of the cruelty that already exists. "At the center of the world there is a song, and it sounds like razors across flesh. You've heard it."

Then the big climax of the movie happens and Hell comes to Earth. Clutching mankind's last hope (the box) close, Terry flees into the nighttime streets of North Carolina. As she passes, cars explode, a pair of falling wires conspire with a bursting fire hydrant to drive a fatal, half-inch high wave down the street. Hooky chains pop out of the sewer but miss. A car spins out for no reason. A manhole cover flies at Terry, then veers sharply upward and collides with the sign above Larry's.


It's Hell...on Earth! But really it's the movie totally losing my interest. Things started to get so silly with the background explosions my mind drifted to how good the same gag was in Planet Terror. Then the silliness crescendos for real when the new pack of Cenobite-lites shows up. There's CD Man (who whips cds at you), The Barb-wire Bartender (who breathes fire and has a one-use-only shaker full of gasoline), Camerahead Guy (Borg clone), J.R. and whatever fool thing is supposed to be sticking out of his head (yeah, what is that thing?), and good old Terri, whose horrifyingness consists of a cigarette sticking out of her neck. And she burns you with cigs, that wenchy evil demon wench.

Eventually, this happens. You know how that goes.

Hell on Earth has a couple of decent scary bits, a fairly hot sex scene (no nudity though), and Dax from Star Trek. I said the other night that The Unnamable squeaked by with three stars, and then knocked it down a bit after thinking about it. This movie, I'm thinking now, is a perfect three star squeaker. It's on the very thinnest border of the nation of Worth Your Time.