For decades now, the phrase “je ne sais quoi” has been a punchline. Roughly translated from French as “I don’t know what,” it’s been used to mock pretentious elites who are unable to articulate why some piece of art is good or interesting. Except, it’s a fair descriptor of certain elements that elevate or drag down various works. In sports, these things are known as “intangibles,” various attributes of players that can’t be statistically measured but still have an impact on the game and their teams. And sometimes it’s hard to pinpoint what makes something good or what something is lacking so “je ne sais quoi” fits the bill pretty well. This is the case with HELLRAISER (2022). Director David Bruckner’s remake/reboot/whatever it is does many things well but is lacking a certain Clive Barkerian essence to make it a fair follow up to the 1987 original. Make no mistake, it’s the best HELLRAISER film in decades (however damning with faint praise that may be) but this lack of “I don’t know what” could’ve made HELLRAISER (2022) a tremendous movie in its own right.
Voight (Goran Visnjic) is an exceptionally rich man who loves to indulge in all manner of delights but has moved beyond the mundane. The decadent hedonist has tracked down the Lament Configuration, an ancient puzzlebox that brings horrific agony to those that solve it but can also present its owners with a rare opportunity to solve it. Eventually Voight disappears along with the box, but the latter turns up when lovers Riley (Odessa A’zion) and Trevor (Drew Starkey) find it in a shipping container they were hoping would have something far more obviously lucrative. But Riley accidentally solves some of the box and unleashes a wave of terror for her brother Matt (Brandon Flynn), his boyfriend (Adam Faison), and their roommate (Aoife Hinds), as they are confronted by malformed creatures seeking to extract blood and sacrifice from those in their path. Known as Cenobites, these demons are led by The Priest (Jamie Clayton), a pinheaded monster who relishes in the torture they’re able to inflict on the unsuspecting people who solve the puzzle.
HELLRAISER (2022) misses the mark in two important ways: the character moving the plot is poorly conceived and the film simply isn’t freaky enough. That last part may seem weird in a movie full of flayed bodies, grotesque monsters, and copious bloodletting, but that’s not exactly what I mean. But first is looking at Riley and why having a weak link at the center of the story brings it down across the board. A’zion delivers a fine performance as the lapsed addict and grieving protagonist, but the part as written simply doesn’t work. This isn’t a case of an unlikable figure, though there are many times when her actions are certainly ignoble. But this is HELLRAISER—the leads of the original were murderers luring innocent men into an addict to rob them of their flesh and they were awesome. No the issue with Riley is that she constantly shifts her goals every other scene. In one she’s compelled to see what the box does and what it all means, and the next she just wants it gone; in one scene she easily figures out some piece of the mythology, but in the next she can’t understand why the Cenobites are attacking again. This constant reversal of actions is enough to give the audience whiplash. Viewers want their protagonists to succeed, even if it’s something deplorable, but without a clear understanding of what they want, it’s hard to be invested and easy to feel confused about who this character actually is.
The other major issue with HELLRAISER (2022) is that it simply isn’t sexually charged enough. This may sound like a “why isn’t this new thing like the old thing,” but it’s actually a vital component of the novella and this movie misses it significantly. The promise of the Lament Configuration isn’t just cruel torture, but it’s the comingling of pleasure and pain. While it’s true that this was essentially baked into the version Clive Barker created in 1987 that was born out of the gay BDSM clubs of London in the ‘80s, it is still a part of the mythos in this telling and it is vastly underserved. There is sex in HELLRAISER (2022) and there are certainly Queer elements in HELLRAISER (2022), but nothing ever feels sexually transgressive and nothing ever feels particularly sensuous. Maybe it’s the sheen that most movies have nowadays as byproducts of color correction and CG work, but there is a lack of tactile feeling from the film.
The Cenobites are angels AND demons because they mix the thrills of titillation and of torment, but the new designs and actions are devoid of that. These Cenobites are constructed like intricate dolls with connecting parts and various exposed pieces of flesh, but not like sweaty meatbags that are in sexually fulfilling states of terrible agony at all times. This is a film that should have people feeling some kind of way and being pretty weirded out by that. The lure of the Lament Configuration is the lure of the taboo not because of some secret power or overbaked mythos, but because it’s meant as the ultimate experience for our flesh. Instead, HELLRAISER (2022) reduces them to demonic narrative devices that look cool but lack any sort of thematic punch (which is essentially what happened in the series after the first three films).
HELLRAISER (2022) has other issues besides those two, of course, including a half-assed third act twist and lack of tactile grossness that plagues so many modern mainstream horror films. There are also lulls in the story and a lack of real danger with a lot of the narrative feeling pretty “on the rails” and thus lacking any suspense or wonder or dread. But Bruckner finds ways to inject cool visuals and seemingly made a real movie for adults and not just something pandering to teens for increased profit, both of which are to be admired. There are some good performances, gnarly kills, and powerfully creepy sequences. They are not many, but those moments show a real keen sense of composition from Bruckner, DP Eli Born, and F/X supervisors Dragan Radic and Josh Russell. These positives make HELLRAISER (2022) entertaining enough, but those main flaws hold it back from being truly remarkable.
It may be hard to define that special sauce that Barker brought to his adaptation of his own work 35 years ago, but it is easy to see HELLRAISER (2022) is lacking for it. Even with its own cool designs and impressive horror moments, there is a disconnect between the movie and its own central premise of intermingling of pleasure and pain. The Cenobites have such sights to show us, but most of them are just new forms of body mutilation without any of the transgressive ickiness that made the first two HELLRAISER films genuine genre classics. Director Bruckner has turned in a fine horror movie with some excellent parts, but it’s unlikely it will ever be as formative or perennial as its forebears.
Tags: 2022, 20th Century Studios, Adam Faison, Aoife Hinds, Ben Collins, Brandon Flynn, clive barker, David Bruckner, David S. Goyer, Dragan Radic, Drew Starkey, Eli Born, Fantastic Fest, Goran Visnjic, Hellraiser, Hiam Abbass, Horror, Hulu, Jamie Clayton, Jason Liles, Josh Russell, Kit Clarke, Luke Piotrowski, October, October 2022, Odessa A'zion, Selina Lo, Yinka Olorunnife, Zachary Hing
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