Although the first 2 were under budget and the SFX were very bad, they followed the original story. Hellraiser and Hellbound were not about nail-biting edge of your seat gags and one-liners, it was about presenting a concept most people are exposed to but do not think of. We are taught that Heaven is where we all want to go to, and Hell is bad, but what if it were switched and hell is what we strived for. Barker was trying to make a twist on Puritian belifes as he feels trapped or banished from "regular" society as can also be seen in "Nightbreed". In Hellraiser, only those that make an attempt will be blessed with "an experience beyond limits... pain and pleasure, indivisible." It isn't about mass distruction and death, it is about people comming to terms with what awaits us after this world.
Even on a tight budget the "real" hellraisers were successful, so a big company, Paramount, thought "Why can't we make $$ off of this thing". So this 3rd attempt had a larger budget and threw a bunch of special effects in, found some witty one-line writers, used Doug Bradley and the box, but never bothered to read anything Clive Barker did. Just because Doug Bradley is Pinhead doesn't mean they know what they are doing. They took a good story and made it into a generic slasher movie. The cenobites didn't even have the corpse like blue skin signifying lack of blood.
It started out OK, but in the middle they made some idiotic decisions: Random people become cenobites (you have to strive to become a cenobite, Frank and Julia never were), these cenobites have CDs and cameras in their heads??!?! WHAT THE HELL??!?!
If you like "Nightmare on Elm Street" and have no clue what the real Hellraiser stories (as in before the movies were even thought of, like in the comic books) this might be good for you, as it wasn't lacking in Hollywood fluff, but for anyone that knows who Grizlard was, this was a disapointing derailment of a good concept.
Even on a tight budget the "real" hellraisers were successful, so a big company, Paramount, thought "Why can't we make $$ off of this thing". So this 3rd attempt had a larger budget and threw a bunch of special effects in, found some witty one-line writers, used Doug Bradley and the box, but never bothered to read anything Clive Barker did. Just because Doug Bradley is Pinhead doesn't mean they know what they are doing. They took a good story and made it into a generic slasher movie. The cenobites didn't even have the corpse like blue skin signifying lack of blood.
It started out OK, but in the middle they made some idiotic decisions: Random people become cenobites (you have to strive to become a cenobite, Frank and Julia never were), these cenobites have CDs and cameras in their heads??!?! WHAT THE HELL??!?!
If you like "Nightmare on Elm Street" and have no clue what the real Hellraiser stories (as in before the movies were even thought of, like in the comic books) this might be good for you, as it wasn't lacking in Hollywood fluff, but for anyone that knows who Grizlard was, this was a disapointing derailment of a good concept.