FINAL GIRL explores the slasher flicks of the '70s and '80s...and all the other horror movies I feel like talking about, too. This is life on the EDGE, so beware yon spoilers!

Apr 11, 2007

The Special People Club

You know, I hadn’t quite realized that Clive Barker’s Hellraiser has become a bonafide franchise, a juggernaut set to rival even those most stalwart of franchises, A Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th. In fact, previous to this past weekend, I’d still only seen the original Hellraiser. I was shocked- shocked, I say!- to find out that Hellraiser: Deader (2005) is the seventh film in the series, and it’s not the last. Where the hell(raiser) have I been?

Kari Wuhrer stars as Amy Klein (shut up I know I’ve totally been on a Kari Wuhrer kick lately but I can’t seem to control myself ok so shut UP), an ultracool reporter who writes ultracool articles with titles like “How to be a Crack Whore”. She’s so ultracool, in fact, that she got booted from The New York Post for being…I don’t know, too ultracool or something, and she’s now writing for an ultracool London newspaper.

One fateful afternoon, Amy’s editor (Simon Kunz) calls her into his office in order to check out a videotape he received in the mail. On the tape, a group of kids who call themselves “Deaders” stand around in a warehouse looking all mopey. A girl Deader is cajoled into blowing her brains out so the leader of the Deaders, Winter (Paul Rhys), can suck face with her and bring her back to life. What a cool club! The girl sits up and exclaims “I’m OK!”, oblivious to the fact that while she may be alive again, she’s now saddled with a giant hole in her head. That’s gross, not to mention unsanitary. Why didn’t she hang herself or something equally less messy, rather than shooting herself in the head to play this little resuscitation game?

I don’t mean to harp, but I just couldn’t get past the impracticalities of the whole thing. “Yay, I’m alive again! Boo, I have a large gaping hole in my head! Mayhaps I shall fill said hole with Spam, using the canned meat like so much caulk. Then I shall get mah hurr did- a little weave here, a little weave there and I’ll be all set!”

At the conclusion of the tape, it’s decided that The Deaders have “huge ultracool blockbuster story!” written all over them and thus Amy must get the scoop. Her only lead is the return address on the mailing envelope, and so it’s off to Romania for Amy Klein.

Once in Romania, Amy gets caught up in all sorts of wacky Deader capers when she finds a dead body, another videotape, and a strange li’l cube we’ve all seen before.

Somehow our plucky and ultracool reporter has become trapped in a battle between the Deaders and the Cenobites- I think. It was all sort of confusing and nonsensical, and there were so many “Omigod did that just really happen? No, it’s just a dream…no wait, it DID happen…no, it was just a vision...” sequences that I kind of stopped trying to figure things out. Eventually Pinhead and His Merrie Bande of Leather-Clad Weirdos show up and I decided to simply enjoy the visuals, the chains, and the goo.

The single biggest problem with Hellraiser: Deader is that it’s glaringly obvious that the film was not originally conceived as an entry into the Hellraiser mythos. It was meant to be an entity unto itself, but at some point a “shrewd” producer slapped the Hellraiser label on it, Pinhead was added, and POOF! Hellraiser 7.

Yeah, that approach? It doesn’t work. I mean, tacking Jason Voorhees into the last fifteen minutes of The Trip to Bountiful and changing the title to Jason vs Gramma doesn’t properly make it Friday the 13th Part 18, you know?

On the other hand, it would make it a film I’d very much like to see.

Had director Rick Bota and writers Neal Marshall Stevens and Tim Day not been bogged down with the need for some added-on Hellraiser stuff, Deader could have been an interesting little thriller. It’s still an ok movie, I guess, though I’m already forgetting about it- it’s another sequel of a sequel in a long line of exercises in character dilution. In the end, however, the film does raise an important question:

IS THERE ANYTHING KARI WUHRER CAN’T DO?

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Those krazy Deaders and their wacky fads. They probably think of the bullet hole as the ultimate piercing. They can just fill it with a huge stud...hmmm, that sounded wrong somehow.

I think Kari Wuhrer isn't just ultracool - she's mondo-hip (you can tell by the way she spells "Kari").

Stacie, your brilliant Jason/Trip to Bountiful mashup brings to mind all kinds of possibilities:

Orson Welles meets The Texas Chain Saw Massacre in "Citizen Leatherface"

Humphrey Bogart meets The Evil Dead in "The Maltese Necronomicon"

Cary Grant meets Hellraiser in "Bringing Up Pinhead" or "Cenobites and Old Lace"

etc.

Anonymous said...

Dawn Weiner for President.

That is all.

Anonymous said...

Oh, Hellraiser 7 is fun, but 8 is even more fun-tastic, with Lance Henrikson as a mysterious masion owner hosting a Pinhead themed rave... ah yes.

Stacie Ponder said...

Theron- I agree, I think mashups are the next wave of horror. Mashups are the new remakes! There's sooo many possibilities. Chuckyblanca.

m13b- you get a whopping fifty points for getting the reference!

josh- wow. Is there anything Lance Henriksen won't do? Though...that plot sound like bad movie heaven.

Vote Wuhrer/Weiner '08!!

Anonymous said...

I knew there had been several bad hellraiser movies but I'm also shocked that it is up to number 7. I still love the first one and the second one is cool, but is very bizarre-seems like a bad nightmare which doesn't make much sense but still creeps me out. Part 2 also features what may be my favorite score to a horror film. If you have not, you should read the original novella-it will only take about a half an hour.

Amanda By Night said...

I saw Hellraiser: Inferno and LOVED it. Craig Sheffer... sigh.

They get some good actors for these...

Anonymous said...

The thing I really love about your writing is that there really is no gag too low for you. I'm talking about "Where the hell(raiser) have I been?"
Ah! It brings joy to my heart. Thank you!

Anonymous said...

I saw Hellraiser 8 on USA or something a while ago. It also seemed to have the Hellraiser theme tacked on to another story. It was mostly pretty bad. I mean, a Hellraiser movie with boring deaths (it's possible stuff was cut out but it didn't look like it). Why even bother showing up if you're not going to play?

Anonymous said...

In re Kari Wuhrer, let me quote the immortal Beth of WNYX on NewsRadio:

"You love her!

"You looooove her!

"You LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE her!"

Stacie Ponder said...

Thanks, benz, I try to--

wait, that is a compliment, right? :D Hmm...mayhaps that's my new motto.

Final Girl: Where No Gag is Too Low!

Bill, no one can resist Kari Wuhrer for she is too rad. Join usss...

Unknown said...

Are there only 8? I think that there are 8. I don't know, I have 8 of them and next month I'm hoping to do 8 straight days of Hellraiser for 7 Dollar Popcorn.

Anonymous said...

I'm glad I'm not the only one who's seen this little gem. Hellseeker was a tad bit more interesting and of course any thing with Lance Henriksen kicks marginal ass. Him, Michael Ironside and Shawnee Smith are like horror royalty or something.

Des said...

Yeah...I wrote about this gem a few weeks ago. This was definitely not a Hellraiser original.

It and Inferno were clearly both slapped with the Hellraiser franchise. Maybe Hellseeker too.

I think, despite the misguided third film, Hellraiser is the most consistently interesting horror franchise.