Hellraiser: Judgment (2018) — Triskaidekafiles

HELLRAISER JUDGMENT

WRITER: Gary J. Tunnicliffe

DIRECTOR: Gary J. Tunnicliffe

STARRING: Damon Carney as Sean Carter

Randy Wayne as David Carter

Alexandra Harris as Christine Egerton

Heather Langenkamp as Landlady

Paul T. Taylor as Pinhead

QUICK CUT: A brother cop duo welcome the newest detective on the force into their circle of trust.

THE MORGUE

Sean Carter - A determined detective trying to solve the big case, despite how it is affecting the rest of his life. He’s a dirtyish cop, willing to do whatever he must, to get the job done and get rid of the bad guys. He’s well read, and often quotes books.

David Carter - Sean’s brother, the slightly more clean cut and law abiding brother, although it’s a very fine line.

Christine Egerton - Another cop assigned to work with the brothers, under the apparent orders to get the latest serial killer case solved.

TRIS ANALYSIS: Welcome back, Triskelions! Hard to believe we're here, with the 10th film in the Hellraiser franchise, which I've been doing one a year. It feels like just yesterday I was doing a running Masochism Tango caption gag. And this is, for the most part, the final film in the original run, with one more that kicked off a reboot. But that's not what we're here for, we are here to pass judgment on Hellraiser: Judgment, so let's get into it.

The movie opens up with some Cenobites musing how antiquated and outdated the puzzle box is, and wow, way to throw your own franchise under the bus. It's not about the *box* it's about the promise, the mystery, the desire, of where it leads. And I am not gonna start ranting already, or else we're gonna be here forever.

Pinhead rambles about how technology has advanced, and again, that's not the *point*. The box wasn't state of the art in the 80s either. But on the upside, they do acknowledge how easy it is to sin with technology now. Or should that be with the...sinternet.

Following that, we jump to a kinda grubby guy getting invited to 55 Ludovico Place, with the promise of being helped by whatever is there.

The guy makes his way to the house, and he is invited in with a "we have such sights to show you. Oh. Here we go. Get ready, they pepper references throughout this movie, constantly reminding me of the MUCH BETTER original movie.

Or hey, maybe it's "we have such sites to show you," this IS the age of the internet right? Eh? EH??

We hear a scuffle, and then Mr. Watkins awakens tied to a chair, and naturally he's freaking out, as a guy covered in scars hooks him up to a typewriter, and begins to type away.

Did I ever tell you how I got these scars? Well, get comfortable, this is gonna take awhile.

And, okay, for as much shit as I'm gonna sling at this movie, draining the blood to use as ink in a typewriter that records your sins is honestly, pretty heckin' rad.

The Adjudicator types those sins up, starting with Watkins luring a little girl into his van. And wow, this is NOT how I remember To Catch a Predator going.

With his job done, he passes on the stack of sins to the Assessor, a slovenly, large man, who pours tears over the pages, slices them up, and eats them like he’s gorging on the best piece of steak he’s ever eaten.

Overall, this is all icky, weird, and an unsettling view of the bureaucracy of Hell, and I'm not gonna lie, I do dig it. It at least shows someone had a vision of something. Even if it's all filmed in SepiaVision.

From there, the Assessor vomits up the results, which go down a tube to a trough where a trio of mostly naked, disfigured women shove their hands into it, and pass judgment, as the Jury.

Oh hey, the Stepford Cuckoos are in this.

Adjudicator, Assessor, the Jury...don't any of your little street demons have normal names??

Since he was found guilty, Watkins receives his reward of being cleaned, and fed to the Executioner, who looks like a giant guy in a hood, but then a smaller guy in a latex bodysuit crawls out to do the dirty work.

Slicey then peels off the man's skin and they spray his blood all over the Stepford Cuckoos, all in all a very unpleasant vision of hell. As it should be.

After piling on the sepia tinged weirdness, we jump to the really real world for a bit, and almost normal colouring.

We watch a woman, who seems a bit drunk, and a lot frustrated, getting dropped off at home. However, when she heads into her apartment, she is surprised to find a bunch of candles lit up.

She presumes it's her boyfriend, but gets a big surprise when some dude appears from the darkness and punches her to the ground, killing her, saying he wants to make a lesson out of her.

We then jump to a pair of cops who, as will shortly be revealed, are the ones investigating these string of murders, of which Blondie was the latest victim.

They get called to the scene and look around, and they find Crystal splayed out on the floor next to a message scrawled in blood, "I am a jealous God".

Another cop arrives, who has also been assigned to the case, and thinks this is all a little basic for "the Preceptor" as they call the serial killer.

That is a notion which is completely put to rest when they discovered the killer tauntauned Crystal's dog into her belly, because she treated it "like her baby".

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. I'll let you decide which is which.

We get informed the Preceptor is doing his killings in alignment with the ten commandments, and Crystal's sin was the horrible crime of posting online that she "just worships this little guy", meaning her dog.

So, basically, someone saw the movie Seven, thought "ten" was three better, and made a worse movie?

We sit back and do character building stuff and detective investigation stuff with Detective David catching the new girl, and us, up on the case. The only thing really of note is that Detective Sean's job is putting a strain on his marriage.

The next victims turn up, and it's a bunch of clenched hands placed around jars filled with blood, near a sign that says "THIEVES". Inside the hands are an eye and a teeth, because "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth". We get it, you read a bible once.

Meanwhile, Pinhead is just waiting in his trailer until it's time to go on.

So the cops do DNA and fingerprint tests, and all the jars and hands and bits match up, to a handful of kids with petty theft records.

But most interestingly, they all went to the same girl's school, which put out a complaint on the perv from the start of the movie for creeping around the girls. Oh, and Crystal went to the same school.

So, they think Watkins might be a lead, and go to his apartment, but he's gone missing. Fortunately, Landlady Heather Langenkamp lets them in to look around.

They don't find anything there, except for another letter from the Preceptor, which doesn't give them any new leads. So, Sean heads back to Watkins’ apartment since something is bugging him.

While there, he gets the power turned back on, Watkins' computer powers up, and Sean finds a web search for the address of Hell House.

Oh good, this movie does remember the rest of the plot.

Sean gets scuffled with, tied up in a chair and...this all feels redundant. He literally goes through the same processing as Watkins, and I think there's even some resued footage in there.

If I had to guess, the movie was either short on time, or they realised it took 30 minutes before the movie got to weird Hellraiser shit, so they quickly threw together the opening scene, which is essentially a repeat of this one, to tide us over. Not a bad idea, but the downside is, it makes THIS seen feel like a retread, and any power it would have is taken away.

The big difference is, the Assessor chokes on the report, and vomits up black sludge, which I guess is not normal. Having a more "normal" version of this at the start of the movie, is good in so far as it set a baseline. Even if calling “eating a stack of blood typed paper, barfing it into a tube to be smeared on naked women” as the NORMAL thing, is a bit of an odd place to be…

While Sean is sent off for his cleaning and probable execution, an angel shows up to tell the Adjudicator to let the man go, he has a role to play in God's Plan.

It is a mildly interesting peek into the further bureaucracy of all this, and the "arrangement" between Heaven and Hell, but it's one of those things that doesn't really go anywhere. Still, at least it's something.

After he's "cleaned", Sean escapes, running away with the nearest Lament Configuration, and Pinhead is informed.

The Adjudicator wants to go after Sean, but Pinhead declares that he'll be back. Which is good, or else this would be a short movie.

Sean calls his brother, and they return to the house on Ludovico, and find...absolutely nothing. It looks like the place has been abandoned for years. Something something, Hellish bullshit.

He heads home, stares at the box for a bit, and heads to bed. Following a Cenobite filled nightmare, his wife comforts him, and they start to have sex. Except Sean continues to have Cenobite visions, and runs off into the night to clear his head and get mugged.

The following morning, David meets up with Detective Egerton, and the two discuss Sean and how invested he is, obviously too much, in this case. It gives us a good sense of the darkness the guy carries with him. Well, that and the list of people he's murdered the Hell House got out of him.

David gets a call from Sean's wife that he got mugged on his walk, and he goes to get his brother, and clean him up. While they chill at his house, Sean quotes some scripture, and then ducks into the shower. Dave pokes around, and finds a copy of Tale of Two Cities, which has been mentioned a few times, and a few passages are highlighted that the Preceptor has used.

These will shortly be brushed away as he was just doing research. Plus, they've established Sean already as a well read man, so none of this is TOO off the reservation.

Hello, I'll be your quirky medical examiner sent down from central casting for the day.

Sean and Egerton head to the medical examiner's office since he found Crystal's phone shoved down her throat. In the meantime, David stays behind to go through evidence again.

Because of reasons, the cell phone still works, and it's last location wasn't her apartment or anywhere notable to her life, so the cops head to it to investigate.

They find a warehouse and break in, and once they turn on the lights, well, to put it succinctly, they find the killer's lair. On top of that, they find a photo of David sleeping with his brother's wife.

When the photo is revealed, Egerton is so caught off guard, Sean knocks her out, revealing himself as the Preceptor. Gasp. Shock. What a surprise. Or it would have been if this wasn't almost the exact same twist from...which? Hellraiser Inferno?

David shows up, having pieced things together, but his brother gets the drop in him, and they wait for the last guest to arrive; Sean's wife.

Making a Cain and Anel joke feels too on the nose here, even for this movie.

Sean tosses them the box, and tells them to open it, and *sigh* this is not how the box works. They're not seeking anything. And there's no real motivation for ANYone in this movie to open the box, aside from "It's a Hellraiser movie!" There’s a little wiggle room with the catatonic girl from Hellbound, but still.

But, whatever, here come the chains and the dank and the bloody pillar and Pinhead struts in to say his three lines for the movie.

Sean wants to make a deal, knowing he's hellbound in this Hellraiser, too, and offers the souls of the adulterers so he can go free.

Pinhead shows up to the movie an hour late with Starbucks.

However, Heaven has other plans for him, so his damnation can wait, and Pinhead points out things don't work like that. I mean, they KINDA did in the first movie, making deals with other souls, but to be fair, they coulda closed that loophole in the intervening decades.

But, Pinhead doesn't care about Heaven's wishes, and decides to take Sean anyways for punishment. And he's so disgusted at Sean’s offering of mere adulterers, he decides to take them as well. I mean, you're here, might as well, right?

The angel from earlier, Jothiel, shows up to try and stop Pinhead, and this could have been interesting. It's NOT, but it could have been. Heaven utilizing a serial killer to further their goals is a good idea, and an interesting counterpoint to Hell and the Cenobites. Unfortunately, it's an interesting idea in a latter day Hellraiser movie.

Jothiel demands Pinhead send Sean back to Earth to continue his work, and eventually the Hellpriest relents...and Sean returns just in time to be shot dead by Egerton, foiling the plans of Heaven.

The angel is upset at this, threatens Pinhead, and he chains her up in response. They talk a bit, she threatens him with suffering, which is the wrong direction to go. This all culminates in her being torn apart, and once again referencing a far far better movie, with having her say, "Jesus wept".

Which is another cool visual, tearing apart an angel is badass, but once again it’s undercut by the fact it’s just ripping off the much better original movie.

And this ends up being a bad idea, as Pinhead and his friends are banished, cast out of Hell, and sent back to Earth as mortals. Because I guess that's one way to end the franchise.

So the movie ends with human Pinhead homeless on the streets shouting about the sweet suffering. And yeah, there was suffering, but nothing sweet about this movie. What a way to end things.

TRISK ASSESSMENT

Video: It looks good. In fact, it looks too good. It’s very much shot on modern cameras with modern sensibilities, and while there’s a lot of grimy visuals, the film itself doesn’t look very dirty or grimy.

Audio: Sounds decent enough

Sound Bite: “Technology has advanced, but sin remains unchanged, and pure."

Body Count: An acceptable amount

1 - Almost 10 minutes in and X gets sliced up by the Surgeon

2 - Blonde gets beaten by a wannabe ninja

3 - We see the process of some rando getting chopped up.

4 - David gets chained and gutted and dragged off

5 - Alison soon follows

6 - Sean gets shot by girl

7 - Jophiel is torn apart by Pinhead

Best Corpse: Can I count after effects? The hands clutching the eyes and teeth, encircling jars of blood like a tiny fisty Stonehenge is at least a striking visual

Blood Type - B+: One thing even a bad Hellraiser movie has, is good effects. Nothing terribly noteworthy, but done well.

Sex Appeal: Some sexytimes in bed, and mostly nekkid Cenobite triplets.

Drink Up! Every time you notice a reference to an earlier movie

Movie Review: Sigh. This is not a popular movie in the franchise, rightly so. But much like Hellraiser 3 and 4, I don’t entirely hate this one. Like I said a few times, it has some cool visual touches, some interesting ideas of Hellish procedure, and a few good ideas. It just hangs them all on a predictable story, and one we’ve largely seen before. I like the acting, it’s shot well enough…but while I argue this is a step in the right direction for the franchise, after the last two or three actively bad movies, it is not a big enough of one. A truly low bar, but it is better than the last film. Two little grabby hands.

Entertainment Value: Cool visuals carry a LOT of this movie. The Rube Goldberg nature of judging a person is really interesting, and again, someone had a vision there. The effects are worth checking out. Pinhead is better than the last one, but still no Doug Bradley. And unlike most of Bradley’s lines, even when he only has a handful, there is just nothing memorable about any of them. The movie tries, but I judge it and find it lacking. Two out of five puppies in the belly.