Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1988) Revisited – Horror Movie Review
There are a handful of movies that just flat out don’t get enough credit for what they bring to the table. This could be because they are remakes that are overshadowed by the original property, something like the remake of The Crazies, came out the same year as another hot property, I’m thinking Near Dark getting buried by The Lost Boys, or be saddled with the heavy burden of being a sequel to an all-time classic like today’s topic. Hellbound: Hellraiser II came out just a year after the first one was released, in fact, it was greenlit while the first film was still in post-production, and while that could have been a recipe for disaster, this movie is something special. Not only is this the last Hellraiser that really adheres to its source material until the 2022 iteration came out, but it is actually a more entertaining time than its hallowed predecessor. I have such sights to show you as we revisit Hellbound: Hellraiser II.
As I mentioned, Hellraiser II was put in production before the first one even had its first showing but that was a gamble that paid off as Hellraiser would get good reviews and made 30 million on its meager 1-million-dollar budget. The original budget, which I can’t find anywhere, was going to be much higher at first but was then slashed after the studio looked at what they wanted to do. It ultimately didn’t matter as it still looks like it has a higher budget than the first one and gets creative on making the movie feel like it has more locations and a grander scale than the first. Really, its amazing what they were able to do with it considering the chief architect stepped away considerably from his role in Hellraiser. Clive Barker was the writer and director on the first movie but the stress of it made him take a step back since this movie was shot so soon after the first one wrapped.
Barker would help with the story, but the screenplay duties were passed to Peter Atkins. Atkins took over for Michael McDowell who had written Beetlejuice and a handful of horror episodic TV but had to step away due to health issues and Beetlejuice rewrites. Atkins hadn’t done anything on screen but had been a playwright with Barker and would go on to write Hellraiser III, Hellraiser: Bloodline, and even the first Wishmaster. To take over directing duties for Barker would be Tony Randel who was a long time New World Pictures employee and had edited the first movie while working incredibly close with Barker. This would also be his first credited director gig but he would go on to helm both Amityville 1992 and Ticks. Look at those credits from the writer and director and tell me why this movie works so well. Theres no logical reason behind it, at least until you look deeper.
While the writer and director were both brand new, much of the rest of the cast and crew returned. Effects designer Bob Keen came back to give us the disgusting things seen throughout the movie while cinematographer Robin Vidgeon and composer Christopher Young would also come back in their roles to not only make the movie feel right at home sitting next to the first entry but also improve on things. In front of the camera, we would see Ashley Laurence come back as Kirsty, Sean Chapman as Frank, Clare Higgins to headline as Julia, and Doug Bradley as his iconic Pinhead with cenobites in tow. The entire production feels uncomfortably comfortable.
The basic story, with recycled footage as a recap to start, is that Kirsty is in a mental hospital trying to explain to police the unexplainable. Dr. Channard who is at the hospital with her and is obsessed with the Lament Configuration, you know, the key to the cenobites and hell, hears her story and brings Julia back. Julia follows the steps Frank did to get his form back in the original and the two plan to use some of the other patients at the hospital to open the doors to hell for power. This happens but of course it’s more than either bargained for and we se a battle between a newly powerful Dr. Channard, the cenobites, and some unexpected guests. Kirsty and a young patient named Tiffany come out on top, but the cycle is doomed to repeat itself.
So, what else makes Hellbound so good? The main reason is the understanding of what makes a Hellraiser movie special. Kirsty has to deal with the resurrected Julia, a power hungry Channard, the death of her boyfriend who I always forget is Gorman from Aliens, and nobody wanting to believe her story. It takes 50 minutes to pass in the runtime before we see Pinhead and his cohorts, besides the mini backstory at the beginning of how Pinhead came to be. They aren’t even the biggest villains of the movie with a trapped Frank running around, Julia reincarnated, and especially Uber Channard after he gets his transformation. That’s one of the biggest things. Clive knew that in the first movie and those that took over know it here. The Cenobites should be the destination, not the whole journey. While the direct to video lineage of these movies are the most egregious in their overuse of Pinhead specifically, some even turning him into a 2-bit slasher villain, even 3 and 4 make it a point to have these villains front and center. The movie is called Hellraiser, not The Cenobites Bogus Journeys.
That brings me to my next point of what makes this movie better than its predecessor. Its hell is very much an idea, more than a place. We don’t need the circles that Dante introduced in his inferno to be scary. Frank’s personal hell is being stuck with women that he can’t have in a place he is stuck forever. It’s not fire and brimstone that hurts him physically over and over again, it’s an emotional torture that won’t leave his mind and that he physically can’t do anything about. I’m curious what we could have seen in Julia’s own personal hell or even someone like poor Larry who was originally supposed to be dragged into this place too. In the original script, they were kind of stitched together until Kirsty was able to save her dad and even escape with him at the end of the movie. This was all changed but it did lead to that strange scene that was on the back of the VHS and early DVD boxes that showed the Cenobites as surgeons. It’s a deleted scene you can watch on any of the newer box sets that finally give clarity to the mystery of what that scene came from. Anyway, hell here is a confusing and frightening place but more importantly it’s a very personal one.
While the budget ended up being more than the 1 million that the first one had, it was still cut down which changed the script and certain scenes around, but it’s certainly doesn’t feel like they took that budget out of the gore. From Julia taking her turn as a skinless zombie to the crazy patient slicing imaginary bugs off of himself, Hellbound delivers on the goods. That patient by the way is also the same guy who plays skinless Frank. Really though the whole movie feels like a Halloween Horror Nights walkthrough and I mean that in the best possible way. All the bodies hung up that Julia took the life force from, the hospital itself with the other patients trying to solve the various boxes, the confusing layout of hell, and the leftovers of the house in the first movie all are great set pieces that I can envision walking around in.
The score is just as crisp and epic as the first movie and fits in with the beautiful matte painting of the center of hell. While I enjoyed seeing Frank again and Julia having her very own Frank moment, Channard is a better villain. He seems meek at first as he tries to figure out what exactly waits for him on the other side and is trusting Julia to get him there but when he is transformed, and boy is it ever a transformation, he becomes a force to be reckoned with. He even asks himself why he hesitated. He has blades that are sharper than any scalpel he is accustomed to using and the look is fitting for what he has become. If there is anything I can complain about, it’s that he becomes almost a Freddy-like one-liner spitting bad guy, which doesn’t fit. It makes sense with where we were at with the Nightmare on Elm Street series, but it isn’t needed here. The battle he has with Pinhead and his cronies is great if a little short and it’s awesome to see the Cenobites turn into the people they were before agreeing to be hell’s personal pain army. The Chatterer as a child is horrifying and so deliciously unexpected.
Hellbound: Hellraiser II shouldn’t work. It lost its writer and director, had its budget slashed in the middle of production, and was rushed to come out just the following year from its predecessor. It’s also a horror sequel and we all know the path that those entries usually take but somehow, in spite of all its obstacles, the movie turned out to be faster paced, gorier, and a lot more horrifying than the first. It’s better because it took what made the first one good and made the elements great. Even with recycled footage and similar ideas it somehow manages to feel fresh and engaging while audiences were still grappling with the first one. It’s unfortunate that it gets lost in the pantheon of great horror sequels but even above that it sits in an even more exclusive and elusive class of being a better movie than the original. Hellbound is the best Hellraiser movie and should be given the attention its due. Give it a revisit and enjoy wondering about what your own experience would be if you solved the box and they came.
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