Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth (1992)

Very well executed

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Quite disappointing, especially after the first movie.Hellraiser II picks up where the first movie left off. Kirsty (played bu Ashley Laurence) is in an institution after her experiences of the first movie. She is then visited by the gang of ghouls we previously met...The first movie was quite original for a horror movie. (Not that this says much, as most horror movies are incredibly formulaic and predictable). The plot was fairly solid too, with good direction and special effects.This, the second movie, is not anywhere near as good. Plot feels random, unoriginal and unengaging. The story just lurches from one contrived, inexplicable horror scene to another.Not worth watching - save your time.

Of all the horror franchises to devolve into mindless slasher nonsense, I find the Hellraiser series to be the most depressing. Whereas there's only so much you can do with the simple set-ups of films like Halloween and Friday the 13th, there was something edgy and elegant about the first two Hellraiser films. While they were certainly as gory and titillating as their slasher counterparts, they had a little more going on under the surface, and were just as interested in their characters as they were in their violent set-pieces. This is mostly due to Clive Barker, the writer and director of the first Hellraiser, whose poetic and shocking horror novels remain benchmarks in the genre. Even starting from Hellraiser II, however, certain slasher tropes were starting to creep in, such as corny one-liners and gratuitous death scenes. Even so, they both never forgot their primary aim, which was to present a seriously disturbing horror film geared towards adults; even Hellraiser II doesn't showcase its few one-liners with winking irony. Starting with Hellraiser III, though, several things went horribly wrong: the studio began to meddle, Clive Barker found himself increasingly unwelcome as a creative consultant, the budgets grew smaller, and Pinhead became the primary antagonist of a series which increasingly lost its footing. It's difficult to say exactly where it all went wrong, but somehow the stars aligned to make a Hellraiser III so ludicrous that it seems to come from an entirely different planet than the first two.This entry, scripted by Barker's long-time friend Pete Atkins (also the screenwriter of Part II), finds Pinhead (again played by the brilliant Doug Bradley), still trapped in the Pillar of Souls after his battle with Dr. Channard. The Pillar is purchased by the gloriously reprehensible douche bag/club owner J.P. Monroe (Kevin Bernhardt), who soon discovers that he can free Pinhead by feeding him souls. Meanwhile reporter Joey Summerskill (Terry Farrell) stumbles onto the story of a lifetime when she witnesses a man torn apart in the E.R. by the power of the Lament Configuration (i.e. the box used to summon the Cenobites). Her investigation leads her to J.P.'s ex-girlfriend Terri (Paula Marshall), and the two try to figure out exactly what the hell is going on.It sounds okay on paper, but Hickox unintentionally turns it into a hilariously overwrought parody. Given Hickox's previous horror comedies such as Waxwork and Sundown: The Vampire in Retreat, I assumed this might be the intention, but Hickox insisted in interviews that he was attempting to make a serious psychological horror film in the vein of Jacob's Ladder or Angel Heart. Instead he directs his cast to deliver corny, unmistakably nineties dialogue in an alternately stilted or over-the-top fashion. Only Doug Bradley really escapes with his dignity intact (the man can make even the lousiest dialogue sound like Shakespeare), but I must admit I enjoyed Bernhardt's absurdly sleazy turn as J.P. He looks like the sleazy American cousin of Rupert Everett, and I love how transparent his attempts to sweet talk women into his bed/into Pinhead's stomach(?) are. Only those two really help to sell the ridiculous goings on. Our two female leads are likable enough, but they're not nearly as convincing as Ashley Laurence is in the previous films, though it doesn't help that they're confronted by the most ridiculous Cenobites in the whole series. After the film's most ambitious set-piece (a massacre in a crowded nightclub), Pinhead mounts his attack on humanity with the following soldiers of Hell: there's Camera-Head, whose head has been fused with his news camera, and who spouts one-liners like "That's a wrap!" and "Are you ready for your close-up?"; CD-Head, a DJ whose head is pierced with CDs and who…throws CDs at people; and the Barbie Cenobite, a bartender whose head is wrapped in barbed wire, and who uses a cocktail mixer filled with gasoline to wreak havoc on some cops. It's jaw-droppingly stupid, and completely undermines the pain/pleasure dynamic of the first two entries. If Hickox was aiming to emulate Alan Parker or Adrian Lyne, he's way off the mark - instead think Sam Raimi, if Sam Raimi was a moron.To be fair, though, the movie looks very good, apart from the corny, early-nineties CGI, and some decent dialogue actually trickles through now and then. I particularly enjoyed several of Pinhead's lines, such as "Down the dark decades of your pain, this will seem like a memory of Heaven," and "I will enjoy making you bleed, and I will enjoy making you enjoy it," which briefly touches on Clive Barker's original intentions for the character. Unfortunately this film, by turning Pinhead into a Freddy Krueger-esque slasher front-man, set the series on the wrong path for good. Atkins and director Kevin Yagher attempted to put things right with the ambitious Hellraiser IV: Bloodline, but studio meddling would turn a potential masterpiece into a complete disaster.

Hellraiser III starts with a new cast. Joey (Terry Farrell) is a reporter trying to get her break when she stumbles upon the aftermath of an attack from one of the cubes that keeps serving as the catalyst to all the films. Joey befriends Terri (Paula Marshall), the woman who brought in the victim of the cube, a typical punk girl on the surface, but Joey knows there is more going on. Meanwhile, Terri's ex-boyfriend, and owner of the nightclub The Boiler Room, J.P. Monroe (Kevin Barnhardt) acquires a totem that houses the body of Pinhead (Doug Bradley), a body that becomes reanimated after coming into contact with blood.The film boasts another interesting set of female characters. Joey and Terri are two women in very different places who are still able to connect. Joey's confidence and drive contrasts Terri's aimless direction in life and the feeling that she's an undesirable and incompetent.Terry Farrell was a couple years away from fame and the lust of sci-fi nerds everywhere thanks to her role in Star Trek: Deep Space NineIn spite of these flaws, the film does have a few serious merits. The visuals and direction are a good step up from Hellbound and there are a number of compelling sequences from a cinematic perspective

think a Hellraiser movie should be about the Cenobites and that's what this movie does it finally releases Pinhead into our world which is a fascinating idea the embodiment of Hell being seen by the general population and not just someone who opens his forbidden box. If you haven't seen this movie yet you really should, this to me is a very competitive film as my favourite in the Hellraiser series.Hell on Earth is one of the most fun entries in the series. For fans who simply want to watch Pinhead and the Cenobites cause chaos on Earth, then director Anthony Hickox delivers on that front. Mythology is at the forefront here, An entertaining horror extravaganza.