Back in 1987, when slasher horror films were all the rage, Clive Barker decided to throw his hat in the ring, writing and directing the iconic Hellraiser (1987). The film quickly became a hit amongst horror fans who became entranced with the unique concepts and grotesque violent horror that Hellraiser entailed.
And then it got eight very bad sequels.

In fact, Hellraiser became known for its eight poorly done sequels. It was famous for being the grossly cool horror movie ruined by money chasing sequels. However, in late 2021, this particular sequel finally started filming, with a release date of October 7th, 2022. The movie stars Odessa A’zoin as the main character, Riley, a recovering drug addict whose poor choices leads her to an entanglement with the cenobites, and Jamie Clayton as the Hell Priestess, better known as Pinhead.

Essentially, the story follows Riley in her attempts to complete the infamous lament configuration, while trying to solve the mystery of the box. Without giving too much away, the story takes a lot of strange twists and turns that bizarrely works. Hellraiser (2022) isn’t perfect– far from it, but it does take the aesthetics and the eeriness of the original without having a totally stupid plot and poorly written characters. The start of the film is slow, but as it goes on, tensions rise and the audience begins to feel these characters’ pain.

Overall, movie sequels, especially horror movie sequels, have a very bad reputation, but this new Hellraiser movie is different. It isn’t the best horror movie ever, but as far as a sequel or spinoff goes, it’s pretty well done! Almost all of the effects and makeup are done practically, and not with computers– even the cenobites are really cool to look at.

If nothing else, Hellraiser is an enjoyable movie with an alright plot and cool special effects! Hellraiser (2022) is streaming on Hulu, and it’s recommended to people who enjoy horror and special effects and makeup.