Disclaimer: I loved the original Hellraiser. The characters were interesting, believable and above all human. That made it all the more terrifying. The Cenobites were mysterious and undeniably evil. I had high hopes for Hellraiser II.
That being said, Hellbound: Hellraiser II is one of the biggest letdowns in movie history. Whereas in the original we had characters with believable motives (Julie was motivated by her lust for Frank, Frank was motivated by his obsession with pleasure and experiences etc...) in Hellraiser II we have bland caricatures. The bad guys are ridiculously evil, the good guys are pure and virtuous and nobody ever doubts anything. The original Hellraiser worked because we only saw glimpses of hell which allowed our imaginations to fill in the rest. There's nothing for the imagination to do here because the director felt like he should lay it all out for us. Tentacles, maggots, blades and blood galore. What's truly offensive is that the producers and director of the movie felt like they didn't need any of the basic elements used in movies and thought that the sheer amount of blood was enough to make a good movie. They were wrong. The further the movie goes, the worse it gets. By the time Kirsty and Tiffany are trampsing through hell, screaming each others' names, the movie itself has gone to hell. Seriously, we get all the clichés here. It's actually kind of admirable that they could fit it all in.
Hellraiser II is a boring, confusing slideshow of gory images with nothing to link them together, nothing to push the story along and nothing to emotionally connect the viewer to the movie. A real letdown. * out of ****
That being said, Hellbound: Hellraiser II is one of the biggest letdowns in movie history. Whereas in the original we had characters with believable motives (Julie was motivated by her lust for Frank, Frank was motivated by his obsession with pleasure and experiences etc...) in Hellraiser II we have bland caricatures. The bad guys are ridiculously evil, the good guys are pure and virtuous and nobody ever doubts anything. The original Hellraiser worked because we only saw glimpses of hell which allowed our imaginations to fill in the rest. There's nothing for the imagination to do here because the director felt like he should lay it all out for us. Tentacles, maggots, blades and blood galore. What's truly offensive is that the producers and director of the movie felt like they didn't need any of the basic elements used in movies and thought that the sheer amount of blood was enough to make a good movie. They were wrong. The further the movie goes, the worse it gets. By the time Kirsty and Tiffany are trampsing through hell, screaming each others' names, the movie itself has gone to hell. Seriously, we get all the clichés here. It's actually kind of admirable that they could fit it all in.
Hellraiser II is a boring, confusing slideshow of gory images with nothing to link them together, nothing to push the story along and nothing to emotionally connect the viewer to the movie. A real letdown. * out of ****