Review – Hellraiser: Deader

I never in a million years would have thought this series would make it to seven movies. Of course, to be fair they’re cheating a bit at this point. This is one of those sequels that looks a lot like it was originally written as something else and then had some of the franchise’s stock jim jams crammed in – probably largely to help it sell. Doug Bradley is back once again as the jim-jam-in-chief, putting in a couple of brief cameo-menaces of Kari Wuhrer (and whoever thought she’d be up to a lead role was mistaken). There are some trademark Barker-isms here and there (including a nod to  “Midnight Meat Train” that doesn’t fit the already-weak logic of the production). But for the most part this is warmed-over sins of the last two: cheap, fake, kinky sex mixed with meandering plot, all of which is ultimately killed by the use of so many is-this-reality fits and starts that it becomes impossible to care if we’re being lied to anymore. Despite all the screaming and bleeding and jump-cutting, at a couple of points I actually started to fall asleep. Toward the end it returned briefly to some of the charm of the original, but by then it wasn’t enough to justify the rest of the experience. Overall my hope still stands where it was after #4: that the series will finally prove to be not only merely dead but really most sincerely dead. See if desperate