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The Hellraiser Project: Hellraiser VI: Hellseeker
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Dr. Royce Clemens   |  

Hellraiser VI: Hellseeker dvd coverHellraiser VI: Hellseeker

I’ve heard from people that have had appendicitis, that when you press down on your stomach, it relieves the pain a little bit, but when you take your hand away, it hurts even worse. Like the inflamed organ is making up for lost time.

So it should have come as no surprise that after taking some time off for Thanksgiving and some other family related stuff, I come back to The Hellraiser Project just in time for Hellraiser: Hellseeker, which is the worst of the franchise. It’s a jumble of flashbacks, dream sequences, and hallucinations with a “surprise ending” as the cherry on top. It’s like Donnie Darko, except Patchouli-smelling theatre chicks won’t sleep with you if you say you liked it.

This is the tipping point. I knew this would be bad, but if I knew it would be THIS bad, I wouldn’t have signed up for it. This is my Dresden, except I’m an Internet movie-hack and I’m not Kurt Vonnegut. This will haunt me at odd hours for the rest of my natural life, as a reminder that things could get so much worse. Nobody said it was easy, the song says, but nobody said that it would be this hard. I know I have only two left in this project, but I want out, and am willing to consider alternatives. Such as”¦

-Self-dentistry.

-Wearing a suit made entirely of ham and running through Fallujah.

-Cleaning septic tanks.

-Buying Yankees season tickets.

-Being the meat in a Malkin-Coulter sandwich.

I’m impressed with the B-grades of clone actors in the Hellraiser movies. There was a Billy Zane clone in the third one and a retroactive David Boreanaz clone in the fifth one. So with this sixth installment, a Cole Hauser — COLE HAUSER! — clone plays, Trevor. He is in a car accident with his wife in the passenger seat at the beginning of the movie. The car careens off a bridge into a river and he escapes. She doesn’t. He’s under suspicion for the rest of the movie.

And I can’t tell you anything more. Nothing is at stake for the rest of the feature. I’m not against a film heavy on hallucinations and dream sequences, turning the whole movie in on itself. But it’s a SECOND ACT thing. In Fight Club, did Edward Norton start out wacky? No, we set him up as a character, and THEN things started going nuts. If you start out with things being weird, that means you have no ideas, nothing means anything, you’re abandoning your actors and you’re depending on your director to do all the heavy lifting.

YOU’RE SUCKING! STOP THAT!

I bring up Fight Club for a reason, because director Greg Bota apparently wanted to MAKE it. Only replacing an underground organization that fights each other and blows shit up, you have, um”¦ Pinhead. It looks EXACTLY like Fight Club, with the sickly greens and dark browns all over the color palette, a protagonist with a cubicle job, multiple shots of people on public buses, a residence on a crappy end of town, and the Everything-Is-Not-As-It-Seems-ness of the whole ordeal. I’d have listened to the commentary on the DVD to see if Bota was man enough to admit his transparent influences, but that would have meant watching this piece of shit again.

What’s supposed to be special about Hellraiser: Hellseeker is that this marks the return of Ashley Laurence as the protagonist of the first two films, Kirsty Cotton. But since she supposedly dies at the beginning of the movie, we only see her in flashback, which kind of cuts underneath her. She’s one of the precious few good things about this whole Hellraiser debacle, so imagine how disappointed I was about that. It doesn’t even matter that she’s in it, but NOTHING MATTERS in this movie.

And the dialogue is just great. I try to limit myself to just one list per review, so I’ll give you the biggest whopper in the whole movie. Trevor and Kirsty are celebrating their anniversary, when”¦

TREVOR: “I got you something.”

KIRSTY: “I can’t believe you got me a present”¦”

Yes. She’s surprised”¦ He got her a present”¦ ON THEIR FUCKING ANNIVERSARY! You know, you can just tell when the screenwriter’s a dude”¦

I’ve made note, with equal parts amusement and derision, that Pinhead serves a different purpose in each movie, from Monty Hall to Elmer Fudd. In Hellraiser, Doug Bradley as Pinhead plays an English actor who desperately needs the money. Not really a stretch.

Look, I know only the die-hard amongst you have seen this. I’m just trying, at this point, to tell you if there’s anything remotely redemptive about anything in these last few movies. Hellraiser: Inferno, once you could get past some of the cheesy acting, wasn’t too bad a time. Not recommendable, but it is The Treasure of Sierra Madre compared to this one. In fact, the only good thing about Hellraiser: Hellseeker? Ashley Laurence is still, y’know”¦ Hot. Comely lass, that one. And her next project, according to IMDB, is a ghost story she’s co-writing that stars Rob Schneider. When it gets to the point that even THAT sounds better than this”¦

I can’t resist looking at the user reviews on Netflix, and according to those, the worst is yet to come. The next one is called, and I shit you not”¦ Hellraiser: Deader.

Now where’s that ham?

And for those of you keeping track at home, that’s”¦

GOOD’UNS: 0
SHITTY’UNS: 6

4 Comments »

  1. ::wince::

    …Welcome back.

    Comment by NeverWanderer — December 11, 2007 @ 11:05 am

  2. Oh dear. You would rather be the meat in between Malkin Coulter. That’s bad. THis film sounds that bad. Welcome back.

    Comment by Jerry — December 11, 2007 @ 4:11 pm

  3. I had a choice of watching this or being raped by pieces of broken glass.

    I should of went for the broken glass.

    But then again, watching Hellseeker was like being raped by pieces of broken glass dipped in chunky sour milk.

    Comment by Jim — December 12, 2007 @ 9:04 am

  4. Dude, that fundraiser to save your sanity is still ongoing. I knew things would get worse as you continued this torturous adventure. And yes, DEADER I’ve heard is pretty bad. I’m not sure that’s the one with Kari Wurher. Right there should tell you how good that film is gonna be. Good luck, my friend. I’ll be praying for your soul.

    Comment by Fred [The Wolf] — December 12, 2007 @ 9:30 pm

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