Rating: 0/5
AKA: Hot Potato: The Movie
Watch Here: No, Never, don’t even THINK about it
I don’t even want to write this, but I suppose it’s necessary after shoehorning my moniker from a franchise laced with disappointment; I supposed I shouldn’t be surprised by this latest entry.
I knew this flick was in trouble when they touted Jamie Clayton was the new Pinhead.
The red flag wasn’t because of them being trans, it was every initial news blurb pointing this out as if it was a major selling feature of the film (especially those rejects from Bloody Disgusting).
If you go to those levels in doing that kind of promotion, don't you think Hellraiser is the one franchise you could capitalize on doing that? Well they didn't do anything with it, so why even bring up their gender identity at all?
When you promote the shiny new social ice cream above the film itself, that’s when you know it’s most likely going to suck.
So, I will say from the outset, right or wrong, because of this trend I’ve outlined above (social ice cream) I and the crew typically have a bias going into these reboots.
I DON’T APOLOGIZE FOR THAT Trends exist because of their relation to logical patterns and identifiable behavior, something that was ever present in the design focus of the original Hellraiser, and missing in this new “Reinvention” (Yeah they actually called it a reinvention lol)
This complete rejection of art this film represents was the last “straw” and as of this morning I have begun writing a real fucking movie. Can’t Take Fast Food Cinema anymore.
Rich asshole Voight lures people to use the Lament Configuration so that he can “feed the box” which transforms into a new configuration upon each kill, ultimately leading to a wish being granted from the Cenobites and Leviathan itself.
Voight disappears shortly after the box turns into its final configurations.
6 years later Riley and boyfriend Trevor find the box and stupid shit ensues.
Essentially the box has a blade in it, so whenever you solve the current configuration, if it cuts you or in turn cuts someone else, this “marks” you for retrieval by the cenobites.
A drastic departure from the “you did it, now deal with it” type self-ownership of solving the puzzle in the original movie.
After the box claims its “victim” it transforms into the next config (of which I think is 6 total) until it gets to looking like its Leviathan double dagger like triangle appearance from older movies.
I could waste HOURS picking apart this story but I’ll just save it. I mean literally nothing is relatable or makes sense in this movie.
I think the worst part of all is that these cenobites are supposed to have “practical effects” which is basically like saying yeah you can buy off brand soda at a Dollar Tree.
I don’t doubt it, but you can tell they CG’d the absolute FUCK over the top of these prosthetics, so yes practical is a loose term at best.
Don’t get me started with how fake the walls moving look either, everything looks too clean like they put a fucking tik tok filter over everything or forgot to imagine what it might look like if reality itself was bending. Walls don’t slide like ice skaters.
Earlier I complained about the design of this film. Part of it is, some things have a moist look like you would expect, but mostly all the cenobites look dry, clean and unthreatening.
Where’s the extreme visceral decay and putrid horror?
Conversely, the cenobites all have “pins” in them with the little pearl color top like you would put in one of those old lady sewing tomatoes for safekeeping.
There was one cenobite who took the blue ribbon of shitty design home from this movie and it’s this one below:
Its supposed to look like her throat and chest is opened up, but just looks like a bad make up job carefully placed in front of her, with 2 stink folds serving as her crown.
I get they were going for, this look from part 4 w/ regards to the "crown" sorta:
I would also like to point out by the time we got to 4 we started seeing a dryness to the FX as well, but no where near as bad as it is in HuluRaiser.
Conversely Anglique in 4 had a practical design versues this wannabe Silent Hill Trash they were trying to honk out, I would also bang Angelique over the pearl ridden labia scalp lady from 2022.
I don't want to rant forever, just know this, Voight went to go on to play Yu-Gi-Oh in the sky at the end (true)
MRHELLBOX – I felt very solemn when this was FINALLY over, truly it was the last nail in the coffin personally when it comes to watching modern movies.
Nothing is truly independent in US entertainment (Mostly); everyone follows the same playbook of on the nose storytelling with reliance that the audiance knows their queues, when to be sympathetic and understanding towards each even placed in font of them. So they can just quickly throw a bunch of things to trigger the desired emotion in order to write the story where the audience can build towards an emotion. The quick fix versus the slow burn towards understanding.
2 completely different experiences I assure you.
I can't get over how in this incarnation, these plebs are allowed to throw the box around like a hot potato and not take responsibility for fucking with it. This has happened before (ala Hellraiser 2) but the rules and methodology from that 1 instance shouldn't have been applied to the entire cast here as the circumstances were completely different, and based on a ruleset which had little wiggle room for negotiaion.
(Another exmaple would be the bargain to hand over Frank in H1, but even then the cenobites renegged, not like in this one) - 0/5
DRUNKEN MASTER – I think we all stopped drinking halfway thru when we realized nothing was going to be unintentionally funny about this movie. It’s just sad, like watching your next-door neighbor beat her husband after he catches her cheating on him, and then makes him sleep on the couch. That’s reality bitch. – 0/5
PRINCE PECTORALS – I wanted to say how nice all the brochachos were, but they all looked like effeminate bitch boy mother fuckers. They didn’t even have Franks masculine appeal of being a lean, cut, strong type. Just a bunch of open mouthed pussy boys. Par for the course in America land I suppose – 0/5
All images were clipped by me from