hellraiser (2022)

​I am always reasonably skeptical of horror franchise remakes, especially with a classic like Hellraiser. Clive Barker's original was the perfect balance of camp and grotesque, elements that I suspect only worked for me because it was made in the 80's. I generally cringe at the "gritty" aesthetic of contemporary horror (the whole 2000s-2010s era of torture porn is completely lost on me) - so this film seemed like the perfect test of whether or not the magic of the story was contingent on its predecessor's specific niche. And the answer? Yeah, kind of. 
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For starters, let it be known that I am OBSESSED with the idea of a Lady Pinhead. Finally, right? Which is why I was surprised with the amount of effort they put into making Jamie Clayton so intentionally androgynous. It still worked, she still looked very cool and creepy, just not in the ways I was anticipating. Also, her voice - the Cenubites have always had somewhat distorted, depended voices, but there was something about Pinhead's that felt very specifically... trans? Was this intentional? Was this a choice? What does it mean? What were they trying to say? 

(ADDENDUM: OKAY WOW I AM AN IDIOT I JUST FOUND OUT JAMIE CLAYTON IS A TRANS WOMAN. THAT MAKES A LOT MORE SENSE NOW.)

To me, the most interesting parts in the Hellraiser films are the ones that actually take place *in* hell, and I assumed that since they were working with a decent budget and now have access to post-MCU CGI technology, we would be spending some more time there. This is the only area where I actually wanted to see the "gritty realism" that contemporary horror movies seem to bring, but instead, we spend the whole movie chasing around a bunch of hot Americans (and one Brit) who for some inexplainable reason live in Serbia (or were we supposed to believe those cobblestone streets were some back alley in Brooklyn?). 

Also, for a franchise that is literally founded on the concept of pain and pleasure being two sides of the same coin, it seemed like a real wasted opportunity to have their lead character struggling with addiction and then not really do anything with it. We see her sober and we see her relapse, but how she feels about it is never discussed. We never explore her pleasure or her pain, we just see her fuck her boyfriend, yell at her brother, and cry (a lot). And it's not actually Odessa A'zion's fault, I think she's proving herself to be a solid actor - which is why I wish they gave her more to work with. There is little to no point making a Hellraiser film with a cast of hot young Gen Z-ers if you're not going to dig your teeth into the Cenubite Gospel: they worship the carnal experience, and delight in punishing humans who refuse to be satisfied. Essentially, if pleasure isn't enough, why not try pain? 

The ending gets surprisingly close to toying with that question, but still left me wanting much, much more. And this film was absolutely not smart enough to have made a choice that meta on purpose. 

Also can we just talk for a second about how aggressively phallic everything was in this film? Like, we get it, sexual pleasure is theme here, but I lost count of how many times something penetrated something else. Remember kids, tragedy is breaking a fingernail and comedy is falling down a well and dying. There's a fine line between being so ugly it's awesome (camp) and being so on the nose that it's farcical. The Cenubite whom I call Vagina-Throat? That's camp. The main villain who literally has a giant penis-shaped box in his chest that corkscrews his guts? That's a bit much. 
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ruthless rating: 4/10