A sleazy detective becomes obsessed with catching a serial killer known as The Engineer.
Craig Sheffer stars as Joseph, a member of the Denver Police Department who is a complete sack of crap. He abuses, cheats on, lies to, or steals from every person unfortunate enough to cross paths with him. However, he is also pretty smart and analytical.
After the horrific death of a former classmate, Joseph becomes embroiled in a cat-and-mouse game with The Engineer, a serial killer who leaves a child's severed finger at every crime scene. Nicholas Turturro co-stars as Sheffer's by-the-book partner, along with James Remar as a police psychologist who had a previous run in with The Engineer.
Hellraiser: Inferno, the fifth entry in the series, is a breath of fresh air for the franchise. Whereas the previous sequels ride the coattails of the original film, Inferno does its own thing and tells as stand alone story. The main reason for this is that it wasn't originally a Hellraiser story; it was a spec script that Dimension added the Cenobites to. I don't see this as a problem at all though, as I'm pretty sure the only major change that was made was flipping Satan -> Pinhead.
Compared with this rest of the series, this movie also has a different tone to it. Rather than body horror, Hellraiser: Inferno is instead a psychological horror in the vein of something like Silent Hill. Your milage my vary, but I thought filmmakers were very successful going in this direction.
Speaking of direction, this movie was helmed by Scott Derrickson in his first ever turn behind the camera. Derrickson later went on to direct movies like Doctor Strange (2016) and The Black Phone (2021). Frankly you can see the talent, especially compared to the other Hellraiser sequels.
Hellraiser: Inferno was the first of many direct-to-video films in the series, but fortunately it doesn't show that much. There are a couple terrible scenes using computer effects, but the Cenobites look good due to the movie mostly relying on practical effects. Though the acting isn't great in general, it's way better than most of the Hellraiser movies.
I may be too high on Hellraiser: Inferno, but I found it to be above average. Many fans of the series are lower on it than I am due to the fact that Pinhead has very limited screen time. I find this to be a huge plus. The previous sequels went into the wrong direction of turning Pinhead into a boogeyman who needs to be defeated by the protagonists. Here, he returns to his role simply as a demon who inflicts torture on those unfortunate enough to open the Lament Configuration puzzle.
Overall, this is my favorite Hellraiser sequel up to this point. That might sound blasphemous for me to say about this direct-to-video entry, but it's significantly better than the previous two sequels, and I even find it to be better than the good but more bombastic Hellbound: Hellraiser II. IMDB currently has this film at a 5.4, but I'd be curious to see what the score was looking at only the last 10 years, as this film has seemed to age well with horror fans. I think the movie should be around a 6.5, so I'm grading up a little by giving it a 7. Either way, take this review with a grain of salt.
Craig Sheffer stars as Joseph, a member of the Denver Police Department who is a complete sack of crap. He abuses, cheats on, lies to, or steals from every person unfortunate enough to cross paths with him. However, he is also pretty smart and analytical.
After the horrific death of a former classmate, Joseph becomes embroiled in a cat-and-mouse game with The Engineer, a serial killer who leaves a child's severed finger at every crime scene. Nicholas Turturro co-stars as Sheffer's by-the-book partner, along with James Remar as a police psychologist who had a previous run in with The Engineer.
Hellraiser: Inferno, the fifth entry in the series, is a breath of fresh air for the franchise. Whereas the previous sequels ride the coattails of the original film, Inferno does its own thing and tells as stand alone story. The main reason for this is that it wasn't originally a Hellraiser story; it was a spec script that Dimension added the Cenobites to. I don't see this as a problem at all though, as I'm pretty sure the only major change that was made was flipping Satan -> Pinhead.
Compared with this rest of the series, this movie also has a different tone to it. Rather than body horror, Hellraiser: Inferno is instead a psychological horror in the vein of something like Silent Hill. Your milage my vary, but I thought filmmakers were very successful going in this direction.
Speaking of direction, this movie was helmed by Scott Derrickson in his first ever turn behind the camera. Derrickson later went on to direct movies like Doctor Strange (2016) and The Black Phone (2021). Frankly you can see the talent, especially compared to the other Hellraiser sequels.
Hellraiser: Inferno was the first of many direct-to-video films in the series, but fortunately it doesn't show that much. There are a couple terrible scenes using computer effects, but the Cenobites look good due to the movie mostly relying on practical effects. Though the acting isn't great in general, it's way better than most of the Hellraiser movies.
I may be too high on Hellraiser: Inferno, but I found it to be above average. Many fans of the series are lower on it than I am due to the fact that Pinhead has very limited screen time. I find this to be a huge plus. The previous sequels went into the wrong direction of turning Pinhead into a boogeyman who needs to be defeated by the protagonists. Here, he returns to his role simply as a demon who inflicts torture on those unfortunate enough to open the Lament Configuration puzzle.
Overall, this is my favorite Hellraiser sequel up to this point. That might sound blasphemous for me to say about this direct-to-video entry, but it's significantly better than the previous two sequels, and I even find it to be better than the good but more bombastic Hellbound: Hellraiser II. IMDB currently has this film at a 5.4, but I'd be curious to see what the score was looking at only the last 10 years, as this film has seemed to age well with horror fans. I think the movie should be around a 6.5, so I'm grading up a little by giving it a 7. Either way, take this review with a grain of salt.