It is an article of resentment of my name becoming synonymous with a certain pin-headed sadomasochist from the far reaches of hell, that when good ol’ Pinhead showed up on this last week’s episode of South Park getting beheaded in Imaginationland by Jesus Christ, every atheistic impulse in my body fell by the wayside as I screamed “GET HIS ASS! FUCK “˜IM UP, LORD!”

This could be the first signs of stir craziness at this assignment, or that I have seen the first truly awful Hellraiser movie, Hellraiser: Bloodline. This movie blows not only goats, but everything in the barnyard and THEN rims the farmer. Those of you thinking I was being too good-natured about an undertaking such as this and WISHING for my old motherfucker self to pop up need wait no longer. I barely even made it through the opening credits alive, once I saw that this little flicker-show is directed by one Alan Smithee.

For those of you not in the know, here is the story of Alan Smithee: He doesn’t actually exist, but rather he is the pseudonym that the Director’s Guild of America places on movies that had creative control wrested from their directors by the studios and executives. The name has covered the work of people like Don Siegel (Dirty Harry) and Academy Award nominee Arthur Hiller (Love Story) for Death of a Gunfighter and Burn Hollywood, respectively. So if ever you see the name Alan Smithee on a movie, know that this movie was not made by a director who knows about film, but by a suit who knows only demographics.

Wait”¦ Someone didn’t want their name on Hellraiser: Bloodline? WHY ON EARTH NOT? If I ever meet Kevin Yagher or Joe Chappelle, (the original director and the guy who did the reshoots at the studio’s request) I’d stare at them like exhibits in a carnival sideshow. Because they had the gall to say””WITH AN ADULT PRESENT!””that “This film sullies the good name of the Hellraiser franchise.” HAVE THEY SEEN THESE FUCKING MOVIES?

Hellraiser: Bloodline not only jumps the shark, but pole-vaults over SeaWorld from the parking lot to the adjacent field. We see this from the first scene where we open in”¦ Space. During the course of the film, Pinhead actually gets a dog. Someone please tell me that in one of these next few movies he goes to The Hood and gets a rapping dwarf sidekick that knows Kung-Fu. OH PLEASE!

The story is that of the L’Marchand family, whose toymaker ancestor in 18th century France (Bruce Ramsay) made that damn Rubix cube that summons Pinhead. It’s construction was at the behest of a nobleman with a kinky taste for the occult, and he skins a prostitute (Valentina Vargas) and summons a demon to inhabit the flayed epidermal layer. Why he does this, I have no idea.

Then we go to the present day, where the prosti-demon tracks down the last of the toymaker’s bloodline, who is an architect in New York (Ramsay Part II: Ramsay Boogaloo). He’s designed the interior to an office building that bears a striking resemblance to The Box and she goes there and finds it in a pillar in the basement. How she finds it and what the hell it’s doing there are a mystery to me and is probably a mystery to screenwriter Peter Atkins, who’s been responsible for these last three.

The third and final branch of the story takes place aboard a space station, where the last of the L’Marchand clan (Ramsay yet again) finally figures out a way to kill Pinhead and is about to do so, when he is apprehended by a military officer named (and I shit you not) “Rimmer.” No word yet on if her first name is “Arnold” or “Ace.”

If I had to describe Hellraiser: Bloodline, it’d be “muddled” and “confused.” You don’t get any clear idea as to why these characters are doing anything they do or how they’re doing it. The special effects are terrible (yes, for 1996 standards, and even SCREAMERS did it better) and the acting is ass. I emerged from Hellraiser: Bloodline with a splitting headache and vision problems. That I could light my cigarettes (thus proving that I could use both sides of my body) was all the evidence I could find that the movie didn’t actually induce a stroke from the simple act of watching it.

I’d say that this movie was all sound and fury, but they didn’t even get that right. It’s empty effects and makeup and it bored me to tears. Do you want to know how boring this movie is? I actually paused a shot on my DVD player and examined it to determine whether or not the cigarette a character was smoking was an English Dunhill. The characters, plot and gore didn’t interest me in the slightest, but THAT did!

Apparently one of the bones of contention leading to the Alan Smithee credit was when to bring Pinhead in and how much of him was to be used. Less truly is more in this case, because our old buddy Doug Bradley has finally gotten on my nerves. Once he shows up he never leaves, and he NEVER SHUTS HIS MOUTH! And another thing that bothers me is that in the course of four films, he’s gone from pissy bureaucrat to lost soul to game show host to”¦ Elmer Fudd. How Pinhead is defeated is completely nonsensical and retarded in a franchise that didn’t have much sense (common or otherwise) to begin with.

But there is a bright spot. Hellraiser: Bloodline takes place in its final stretches in 2147, while all the rest of the movies are apparently present day features. Which means that there’s a glimmer of hope that PINHEAD IS ACTUALLY FUCKING OVER WITH! At least on some realm of the movie plane. That Pinhead will no longer talk and pose and bring his hooks out and deny health care to children of working families who don’t qualify for Medicare and can’t afford insurance.

Oh, I’m sorry. ANOTHER pinhead did that last one.

I am at the end of the beginning. Four down, four to go and I’m not sure how much more I can take. I have come to at least regard the prospect that in eight movies, the Hellraiser franchise will not pump out a flick that’s at least recommendable. I thought that was impossible outside the world of hardcore porn. Christ, even Friday the 13th managed to give us at least one good movie.

And the prognosis is looking all the more grim. For now, I leave the New York-based Geeks of Doom for the fiery Orange County confines of Fatally Yours, and the world of respectable theatrical features for the purgatory of direct-to-video.

So for those of you keeping score at home, that’s”¦

GOOD’UNS-0

SHITTY’UNS-4