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Paul Asay

Movie Review

The worst things come in small packages.

Take the box, for instance. It comes without bow or lid. No tape seals its sides, no glue holds its folds. It’s a puzzle box, held together by its secrets. And those who seek to solve its puzzle? Well, you could say they become part of the puzzle, too.

While many over the centuries have sought out the box, Riley certainly wasn’t among them. Why, she’s never sought out much of anything beyond her next high, her next beau, her next fun time.

But those fun times take money, and that’s something Riley has precious little of.

And then Trevor—Riley’s latest testosterone plaything—offers her a way to get some.

Trevor’s a delivery guy of sorts. And in the course of his work, he’s seen plenty of incredibly expensive stuff pass through the doors of one out-of-the-way warehouse. Now, he tells Riley, the warehouse has been cleaned out, except for one forgotten shipment. Clearly, whoever was moving stuff in and out is through with the place and forgot all about this forlorn little shipping crate.

Trevor says he doesn’t know what’s in that crate—but he suspects that whatever it is, it’s worth quite a bit.

“Give me a hand [getting it],” Trevor tells Riley, “And I’ll cut you in.”

Well, that sounds pretty nice to Riley. A little cash could help her clear out of her all-too-patient brother’s place. It might even give her a fresh start. Or, if not that, at least a fresh high.

But when they get the crate open, they find just a small box inside: Shiny, metallic, mysterious.

It looks old. It might be worth something. And Riley volunteers to take it home.

But it’s not her home: Not really, and not anymore. When her brother, Matt, smells the alcohol on her breath and watches her stagger into her place, Matt makes it clear. Riley wasn’t supposed to be drinking or using now—not while she was living with him. The two fight. And Matt tells her to leave.

Riley’s on the streets now. Just her, her car, a few secret pills and the puzzle box. She has nowhere to be, nowhere to go. So why not play with the box a bit?

A twist at the corner.

A push in the center. And—

Snap!

Positive Elements

When Trevor first asks Riley if she wants to check out that abandoned shipping crate with him, he gives her an out. A warning, almost. If she’s really trying to get clean and turn her life around, stealing whatever’s in that crate isn’t the way to do it.

“You might not be a good girl,” he says. “But you want to be.”

Riley doesn’t much care about being a “good girl” in that moment. But as the movie goes on and circumstances spiral more and more out of control, the addict takes some determined steps in a better direction. She begins rejecting the easy escape of drugs. She starts thinking about other people. She’s even willing to sacrifice herself to save others, and that’s a good thing.

We should also note that, while this film has a staggering number of problems, we can find a bouquet of cautionary lessons within its bloody wrapping. One, curiosity—especially curiosity of the occult—can get you into big trouble. Two, sensate-driven desires are a dead-end road. Three, be careful what you wish for. Those who sought out the puzzle box did so because they wanted something—wanted it so much that they were, essentially, willing to sell their souls for it. But the “gifts” the box offers are those held out by the proverbial monkey’s paw: nightmarish corruptions of those already corrupt desires.

Spiritual Elements

So, this feels as good a time as any to introduce you to the movie’s big bad bogey-people: the Cenobites.

While the Cenobites aren’t technically demons, their original creator (author Clive Barker) certainly gave them an extra-dimensional demonic tang. Both the title of the movie and even the word cenobite itself echoes with spiritual meaning, with the latter referring to novitiates living in a monastic community. (And the Cenobites indeed seem to form a sort of unholy order that demands human sacrifice and, ultimately, new human “applicants” to the order.)

The Cenobites serve a higher (or lower) power, and those who deliberately play with the box often seem to be seeking that power: Riley discovers a handwritten book detailing the box’s different stages, with the final stage granting an “audience with god.” (When Riley shows it to one of her friends, he asks, “Since when do you believe in God?”)

Certainly, the universe that Hellraiser takes place doesn’t offer a lot of hope that these beings can be dispelled by the Christian God. One unfortunate victim begins reciting the Lord’s Prayer as she’s tortured.

“What is it you pray for?” a cenobite asks.

“Salvation,” the victim sobs. The cenobite seems to suggest she’s asking for the wrong thing. Heaven, it says, is a static place. “There’s no music in that,” it says. The sort of pain they offer, meanwhile, is a veritable symphony—at least to cenobite ears.

Sexual Content

The Cenobites exude a sort of sadomasochistic vibe taken to the ultimate, horrifying conclusion. We meet one man—Mr. Voight—who sought out the Cenobites, hoping for sensations beyond imagining. He had hoped for sexual pleasures, but instead he is given the gift of pain. “They’re tastes were not what I imagined,” he says.

It should be noted that while a certain grotesque sensuality is in play with the cenobites, they themselves seem to derive all their pleasure through pain. A couple of the cenobites we see have been graphically de-sexed; organs have been removed or mutilated, and their absence (and the bloody hollow left behind) is pretty obvious on camera.

Riley and Trevor have sex twice. While nothing critical is shown, we do see loads of skin and plenty of movement.

Riley’s brother, Matt, is gay, and he lives with his lover, Colin. They lie in bed together, both apparently naked (we see their exposed torsos) as one quizzes the other about romantic poetry. They kiss and make out, as well, and Colin begs Matt to stay in bed when Matt hears Riley stumble home. (He doesn’t, throwing on some clothes to greet her.)

 We see one of Mr. Voight’s hedonistic parties, including some guests who, in the background, seem to be writhing about and making out without any clothes on. (I don’t believe anything critical was shown, but the scene was quick.)  A man is taken into Mr. Voight’s presence: We later hear that Voight was connected to the disappearance of a “sex worker,” and it’s possible that this young man might’ve been that worker. Various sculptures and reliefs depict nudity.

Violent Content

It’d be hard to overemphasize just how gory and intentionally revolting this film is. And as such, I’ll not get into too much gruesome detail. For the most part, the grotesqueries fall into two general categories: The Cenobites and their victims.

The Cenobites were once human, but have been hideously deformed in ways that should kill them several times over. Most  walk about with strategically flayed skin and contorted, twisted muscle (sometimes wrapped over metal rods or hoops and serve almost like a horrific fashion element). Some Cenobites are familiar retreads of Cenobites seen in previous Hellraiser movies: The most famous, nicknamed “Pinhead,” is a “woman” this time around, with long pins driven into her head and skull. Another has lost its eyes, but has had the skin around its mouth flayed off to reveal constantly chattering teeth.

Others are apparently newer members of the Cenobites (at least in terms of those we see in the movies). One seems to have part of its skin stretched across its face, forcing it to gasp to breath. Another has the edges of its face pinned to what must be a hoop or frame—looking as if the skin could be pulled away at any minute. Organs are sometimes visible, as are bones.

Speaking of pulling, the Cenobites love pulling people apart with hooked chains (that often shoot out of nowhere). We see several ensnared and yanked about in such a manner. And indeed, at least two victims are torn asunder. Another Cenobite can seem to call on piano cords to bind, then cut, then at least partly dismember its victims. And for its most special victims, the Cenobites can get even more graphically created. One victim has a machine inserted in the chest, designed to rotate nerves and bits of skin (and obviously trigger unimaginable pain). The victim says the machine does pause its excruciating work—but only to make sure that the nerve endings never go numb.

We see more torture take place as well. “There is so much more that the body can be made to feel,” one Cenobite tells a victim. “And you’ll feel it all before we’re through.”

The box itself causes its own pain and wounds—piercing hands with blades and needles and sometimes forming into an oblong weapon itself. A wound seems to almost vomit up blood, gore and metal. Blood, naturally, is almost ever-present.

Crude or Profane Language

More than 70 uses of the f-word are heard, along with about half that many of the s-word. We also hear “a–,” “b–tard,” “d–n” and “h—.” God’s name is misused a dozen times (once with the word “d–n”), and Jesus’ name is abused about five times.

Drug and Alcohol Content

As mentioned, Riley is a recovering addict—though the “recovering” part of the phrase is pretty questionable. She meets Trevor at a 12-step meeting, but he’s already drinking heavily by the time we meet him. Matt, Riley’s brother, worries that Trevor will pull Riley off the wagon. And sure enough, the two drink from the same flask as they prepare to break into the shipping crate.

When they recover the puzzle box and Riley’s kicked out of the house, she stares at a number of pills she’s kept hidden. At first she throws them to the ground but then thinks better of it. She picks three pills up and swallows them. As a result, when she first sees the Cenobites, Riley thinks she’s hallucinating (even though she’s never hallucinated with those pills before).

Later, Trevor ransacks a bar in a mysterious mansion. Riley discovers a vial of pills. She mentions that they’re pretty strong drugs and looks at them longingly, but she eventually hands them off to someone else—to be used in case an injured person could use them.

Other Negative Elements

An act of betrayal takes place. Riley and Trevor obviously steal something that isn’t theirs.

Conclusion

Clive Barker’s Hellraiser franchise was spawned in 1986 with his novella, The Hellbound Heart, and then the next year with the first Hellraiser movie. It has since grown into a sprawling franchise of books, comics, games and nearly a dozen films. (This Hulu reboot is the 11th in that run.) An HBO television series is allegedly on its way as well. It’s enough, presumably, to make Barker as happy as a Cenobite in a hardware store.

Granted, success doesn’t necessarily mean quality. Five of the franchise’s 11 movies scored 20% or less on Rotten Tomato’s “freshness” scale, and two of them landed a flat-out zero. And that makes 2022’s Hellraiser—at least as far as horror-oriented secular critics are concerned—a wild success. It holds a perfect 100% on the Tomatometer as of this writing.

But don’t let that fool you. This ain’t Shakespeare—not unless the Bard wrote a bunch of evisceration scenes that history isn’t privy to. This is as gross and lewd and truly horrific a movie as will likely come out this Halloween season. And honestly, it’s not even all that scary. Hellraiser is about the gore, plain and simple. It confuses creative sadism with entertainment, and it comes with all the charm and subtlety of a pack of hyenas eating an almost dead wildebeest.

The Cenobites in Hellraiser count on two very human traits to claim their sacrifices: Unwise curiosity and unfettered desires. Perhaps that should be a bit of a warning for those curious about this movie or, for some reason, desirous to see it. This puzzle box might be better left untouched.

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Paul Asay

Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.