Happy All-Hallow’s Month! In anticipation of Halloween — which, let’s face it, we’ve been anticipating since last Halloween — Daily Grindhouse will again be offering daily celebrations of horror movies here on our site. This October’s theme is horror sequels — the good, the bad, the really bad, and the unfairly unappreciated. We’re calling it SCREAMQUELS!
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By 1992, Pinhead was a star. From his limited screen time in the initial 1987 HELLRAISER film through his expanded presence in the 1988 sequel, Pinhead (brilliantly portrayed by Doug Bradley) had become one of the most beloved and recognizable horror icons of all time. With an eye to nail Pinhead even deeper into the psyche of the general public, the franchise’s producers wanted to go even bigger with the next installment. If HELLBOUND: HELLRAISER II found Pinhead in actual hell, HELLRAISER III: HELL ON EARTH would up the stakes by sending Pinhead…to the club?
HELLRAISER III: HELL ON EARTH is the first American-shot HELLRAISER film, and the differences are noticeable right from the jump. The Clive Barker-directed original film (based on his short story, “The Hellbound Heart”) was infused with gothic dread and marital drama and the sequel expanded the franchise lore by delving into the hellish underworld of the Cenobites. These were decidedly adult films, and for all of their success, they didn’t necessarily appeal to teenagers the way the FRIDAY THE 13th or NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET films did at the time. It turns out that a franchise based on forbidden sexual desires and the joys of boundary-pushing physical pain wasn’t exactly making the rounds at teen sleepovers. HELLRAISER III was meant to change all of that, and it did in many ways (though, perhaps not in the way the filmmakers intended).
If the notion with HELLRAISER III was to dumb it down for a general audience, that benchmark was easily met. Directed by Anthony Hickox (WARLOCK) from a screenplay by Peter Atkins, the film opens with Pinhead imprisoned in a grotesque pillar following the conclusion of the second film (a contraption he also appears to be sharing with Jesus Christ, so he’s in rarefied company). The pillar soon falls into the hands of J.P. Monroe (Kevin Bernhardt), a sleazy New York City nightclub owner who runs The Boiler Room, a heavy metal club that features “extreme” décor (dangling baby mannequins, etc.) copious amounts of fire, and regular sets from metal band Armored Saint.
Because J.P. is that kind of guy, he places his new pillar acquisition squarely in the middle of his loft, directly facing his bed. Soon after, while J.P. is lecherously hooking up with a young woman from the club, Pinhead is suddenly revived from his carbonite-like slumber with a deep craving for blood. After devouring the woman and absorbing her into the statue, Pinhead pressures J.P. to gather enough victims to free him from his confines, promising him unlimited power for his help.
Right off the bat, HELLRAISER III throws out everything we’ve come to learn about Pinhead and the Cenobites. Part of what was so revolutionary about Pinhead was that you had to call upon him; he wasn’t lurking outside of your cabin or coming for you in your dreams. You had to first find (and solve) the mysterious Lament Configuration puzzle box, which would then summon Pinhead and his gang of Cenobites to usher you into a world of pleasure and pain. In this third installment, Pinhead might as well be a vampire (or LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS’ Audrey II); he needs human blood to free him from his shackles.
Meanwhile, Joey (Terry Farrell), a young TV reporter (“tight stories, not tight skirts”), is trying to get to the bottom of a horrific death she witnesses in a local E.R. A young man is brought in with mysterious chains attached to his body that suddenly pull him apart, exploding his body like a ripe watermelon dropped from the roof of a high-rise. Joey seeks out the help of Terri (Paula Marshall), the young woman who accompanied her doomed friend to the hospital. Terri explains that the chains came from the golden puzzle box, which she gives to Joey for safekeeping. While investigating the puzzle box, Joey and her cameraman Doc (Ken Carpenter) come across footage of Kirsty Cotton (Ashley Laurence), the protagonist from the first two films who explains that only the box has the power to send Pinhead back to hell.
It turns out that Joey and Terri aren’t the only ones looking to put Pinhead back in his place; Joey has long been beset by traumatic dreams of her father’s service in the Vietnam War, which gives the spirit of Elliot Spencer an opening to reach her. Spencer was a WWI vet who opened the puzzle box and was turned into Pinhead. Seeking to set things right, he needs Joey to reunite him with Pinhead in order to properly dispatch him away from this plane of existence before he can wreak untold havoc on humanity.
After Terri inadvertently frees Pinhead from the pillar by feeding him her ex-boyfriend J.P. following an ill-advised attempt at reconciliation, we finally get a taste of the havoc Elliot Spencer warned about. Bursting through his confines, Pinhead strolls down to The Boiler Room below and unleashes a spectacularly gory (and slightly goofy) attack on the bar’s patrons. For all of the film’s faults, this scene alone makes HELLRAISER III worth a watch (or a re-visit).
For just under two minutes, Pinhead brutally goes to town on the trapped crowd. Chains whip out indiscriminately and slice off fingers and flay faces, ice cubes form into a dagger and slam down a woman’s throat, and in the most memorable sequence, a handful of CDs (it was the ‘90s) are violently flung into a DJs head.
From there, things get progressively sillier. Pinhead picks through the slaughtered club denizens to form his new Cenobites, reviving a handful of his victims as his new henchmen, complete with dated tricked-out features. There’s Camerahead (poor old Doc), and of course, the CD Cenobite (Eric Willhelm), who launches deadly flying CDs at his victims. This ridiculous character is likely what people remember most from HELLRAISER III, and while it begs a number of logistical questions about where this endless supply of CDs comes from, it’s at least a bold departure from the stately Cenobites we’ve seen up to this point.
While much of HELLRAISER III feels like a misguided attempt to make the franchise palatable to teens, it does have some redeemable qualities. Doug Bradley gets much more screen time as both Pinhead and Elliot Spencer, and delivers some grandiose Pinhead monologues here that stand up to anything from the first two films.
For all of its dumbed-down moments, there is still a strain of Clive Barker’s boundary-pushing ethos within HELLRAISER III, despite his limited involvement in the final film. The unforgettable scene with Pinhead in the church is the most thrillingly subversive in the film; we witness Pinhead melting a cross into a Priest’s hand, mocking the Crucifixion, and force-feeding a bloody piece of his body into a Priest’s mouth in a blasphemous take on the Holy Communion. It’s the sort of thrilling sequence that demonstrates the type of sequel we might have gotten if the producers and filmmakers had settled on maintaining a tone of true horror rather than opting for some cheap Compact Disc-based laughs.
HELLRAISER III also considerably ups the gore from the earlier films. The nightclub scene in particular in an orgy of severed limbs and blood-soaked violence which more than earned the film its R-rating. (The Arrow Films Blu-ray release also includes an unrated cut of the film sourced from another long-dead physical format, the LaserDisc.)
The notion of Pinhead working his way into a potential victim’s dreams as he does with Joey is an interesting new facet of his powers that never gets taken up in the (many) subsequent sequels. After a showdown with the Cenobites at a construction site, Joey is trapped in a dream-like state where Pinhead poses as her father to gain control of the puzzle box. By Pinhead opening a door into her subconscious, the spirit of Elliot Spencer is able to follow him in and meld their essences together, returning Pinhead to hell.
HELLRAISER III is a fairly mixed bag, but it at least wraps up with one of the best scenes in the entire franchise. After Joey buries the puzzle box following the climactic battle, we cut ahead to an unspecified future where a towering building has been constructed on the same site, complete with the Lament Configuration built into every surface. Unfortunately, we never get to see that wild premise pay off in any way; by the next film, we’re off in space, before the franchise crash lands to Earth with a series of increasingly lazy entries.
Compared to the straight-to-video dreck that followed it (though HELLRAISER: BLOODLINE gets a pass), HELLRAISER III: HELL ON EARTH feels like a masterpiece. The tone is all over the place and it loses the grand gothic overtones of the original, but at least Doug Bradley really lets to cut loose as Pinhead here. With a couple of wildly memorable sequences and some gonzo choices that you almost have to admire for their sheer goofiness at this point, HELLRAISER III might not be a perfect movie, but it sure beats a night out at The Boiler Room.
Tags: Anthony Hickox, Ashley Laurence, Cenobites, clive barker, Doug Bradley, Elliot Spencer, Eric Willhelm, Hellraiser, Hellraiser III: Hell On Earth, Ken Carpenter, Kevin Bernhardt, Paula Marshall, Peter Atkins, Pinhead, Screamquels, Sequels, Terry Farrell
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