Hellraiser: Bloodline
It takes less than a minute here to solve the mystery of why I abandoned interest in this series at this point. I give you exhibit A – the damning credit, “Directed by Alan Smithee” – and exhibit B – an opening shot of a space station. Where did it all go wrong?
However, it has to be said, ultimately this movie has a pretty fascinating and undeniably ambitious concept. At one point it actually reminded me of The Fountain, of all things (albeit in a very shambolic, straight-to-video way). The moment a robot is revealed playing with the box in what I initially assumed was some kind of protected atmosphere, I kind of leaned forward, like, ‘okay, I’ll give you time to explain this opening, please enlighten me,’ lol – but that’s when it almost immediately goes back in time to 18th Century France, where the box was created. Shame – I was actually beginning to be interested by the “what if we brought Pinhead and the Cenobites into our world under controlled conditions?” thing. Silly overactive imagination.
We see the box being made in France, and a little blood being spilled – then we’re transported to 1996, New York, and I’m still wondering, “what happened to space?” The 1996 story is mostly a flatly told Hellraiser story in the manner of the usual “just do it again,” horror sequel tradition. It features Kim Myers, the ultracute redhead from Freddy’s Revenge who, 10 years on, is still an ultracute redhead (well, strawberry blonde?), so that earns the movie bonus points for me. It also features the “Lament Configuration” (again, why must it be named? though I’m getting ahead of myself, I think that comes up in the next movie) themed building that rose up over the concrete Joey plunged the box into at the end of part III, so, slight kudos for still joining the dots?
Really, the more I think about this part, the more credit I have to give it. For a straight-to-video (I think?) horror sequel, a part IV at that, it is beyond ambitious in its story. It’s just atrociously executed which would explain the Alan Smithee credit. I would love in the future for a decent DVD to be released containing a “better” cut which I’m assuming may have existed at some point, or just at the least a general explanation of how it all came about. For now – ambitious but a shambles.