Hellraiser: Judgment Movie Review

I watched Hellraiser: Judgment on Netflix last night. It was decent considering it was a direct-to-video release, which isn’t surprising since it’s the tenth installment in the franchise. The thing about this movie is that unlike the eighth installment of the Rocky franchise, this movie understands exactly what it is.

It’s a rip-off of the movie Seven with torture porn and Pinhead and his band of Cenobites thrown in. While it’s a lot more watchable than Rocky VIII and I considered it decent, there’s nothing that hasn’t even remotely been done before. So, others may not like it.

There was something new done in the Hellraiser franchise in this one, though (I think, I don’t remember any of the films past number 5). An angel comes down and orders Pinhead to let someone go on orders of God, not once, but twice. This pretty much confirms that Pinhead and his gang are the rulers of the Abrahamic version of hell. While the original Hellraiser has “hell” in the title and ends with one of the main characters saying “And Jesus wept” right before his head gets ripped apart by hooks, it was always left open as to whether Pinhead et al came from hell or another dimension.

Anyway, what is called the Stygian Interrogation house is sufficiently creepy and has a number of blood-covered bewbs. Nothing wrong with that given the genre. The acting from the main characters is also decent given that they aren’t well-known names. The actor playing Pinhead is also new and he does a good job with it, even though playing Pinhead doesn’t necessarily call for someone with a wide range of emotion on the screen.

The dude who plays the Auditor of the Stygian Interrogation, a new character (on the right in the title image), was good too. He’s also the writer and director of the movie. All of this is impressive, given that his primary job is a make up effects artist according to IMDB.

Judgment: B-