Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth [1992]

Hobbled rather than crippled by its backstory, Hellraiser III is a major improvement on the scrappy Hellbound: Hellraiser II, although it marks a further transformation of Clive Barker's distinctive debut feature into a transatlantic horror franchise. In Hellraiser, the London setting was transformed illogically by over-dubbing the supporting cast with American accents, even when it rendered locations and dialogue meaningless. But in Hellbound, the action was definitely shifted Stateside, although the film was made in the UK and British players predominated. Here, intermittent shots of Manhattan firmly establish a specific locale, though the North Carolina-shot film rarely suggests a big-city setting. Even the street scenes have a claustrophobic, underpopulated feel, and the action, as in earlier movies, is confined to a few major settings, with the emphasis on the standard-issue satanic night-club.

Even more in line with requirements of mall cinema is the dropping of Barker's terminology (his Cenobites become plain demons) and the invention of arbitrary, plot-driven 'rules' for Hell and its emissaries. But the most obvious influence of Elm Street lies in the transformation of Pinhead - billed seventeenth and called 'Lead Cenobite' in the credits of Hellraiser - into a cult creature worthy of innumerable Fangoria covers. Doug Bradley, the British player whose career has certainly benefited from the publicity decision to feature him on the poster for the original film, does manage one startlingly blasphemous, if irrelevant, scene as Pinhead humiliates a priest and impersonates Christ by driving two of his own pins through his hands and intoning, "I am the way".

Writer Peter Atkins (Hellbound) and director Anthony Hickox (the Waxwork films) score best in their melding of a British horror sensibility with American professionalism. There is an unusual concentration on characterisation - the relationship between Joey and Terri is particularly well-developed - along with all the apparatus of Gothic horror as characters are skinned instantly, sliced with CDs, have drills or cameras rammed through their heads or distort like toffee. In the tradition of sequel-as-spectacle, this is as effective a recap of basic principles as A Nightmare on Elm Street, Part 3 or Evil Dead II.
KIM NEWMAN

First Published In: Sight and Sound vol.3 no.2 [February 1993] pp.46-47 [UK]

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