Hellraiser: Sekta

Deader is a likable scary sequel to the Hellraiser video series. It’s scary in the sense that I had too many butterflies in my stomach. The train entrée is excellent, slightly evocative of Neverwhere. The main character Kari Wuhrer is one of the best actresses of the series ever. I don't just mean that she shows her balloons, but especially the wonderful hysterical solo with the knife in her and the fact that she carries almost the entire film. Romania is absolutely fine and the mythology builds on the toymakers, which is good. Unfortunately, the Cenobite sidekicks didn't impress me. I'm surprised how the second half of the stories from hell are getting under my skin. This is the order in which I like the films overall: Hellraiser 8, Hellraiser 5, Hellraiser 4, Hellraiser 7, Hellraiser 2, Hellraiser 6, Hellraiser 1, Hellraiser 3, Hellraiser 9. (24.02.2011)

"Hellraiser: Return of the Dead" falls into the worst of what you will find in the series, maybe even the worst. Pinhead is essentially only used as an excuse for a poorly written story that is truly hard to like. It's a story that doesn't make much sense, unnecessarily overcomplicates itself, and in the end, Pinhead is inserted into it to somehow make it meaningful. The effects are almost absent here, it's overall cheap, which does not bode well for this film. So we continue to fall. (23.07.2015)

Surprisingly not as bad as I expected. The main problem of Hellraiser’s latest sequels is not Rick Bot (who has actually improved a lot since the previous episode), but the script, which is so messy it can hardly hold the plot together by the end. Fortunately, this time they’ve managed to conjure a pretty decent atmosphere, which was somewhat reminiscent of the brilliant first film, and several truly good scenes, and I can give it three stars without any complaints. My ranking: H1, H5, H2, H7, H3, H4, H6, H8 (29.03.2008)