Disclaimer: Contains spoilers!
Plot Summary: Pinhead is back--somehow--as he attempts to...uhh...take over the world?
Review: Completely ignoring everything that made the first two entries great, the filmmakers decided it was a smart move to appeal to the MTV crowd. Likewise, they concluded that Pinhead would best serve as another generic horror villain, dishing out one-liners and winks at the audience. In the wise words of Yoda, "That is why you fail." Sure, bonus points for having a song and video with the title--congratu-fucking-lations--but it doesn't match the tone nor come close to complementing the brilliant score taken from Christopher Young; in fact, that score is too good for this series from here on out. Now, while I do hate this entry as a matter of principle, it's mostly mediocre rather than outright horrendous. I mean, back in the early '90s this was just the kind of bullshit you came to expect. Only in retrospect do I realize that this franchise could have been something amazing in the right hands--hands with the vision to rival Clive Barker's imagination rather than shitting on his concepts.
To kick things off we have that stupid spinning cabinet-thing from the end of part 2 now magically containing the spirit of Pinhead or something after Channard killed him. It's implied that Pinhead has slowly been killing people in order to rejuvenate his powers and conveniently is almost powered back up once part 3 gets rolling. For whatever reason, the soldier that was Pinhead's original form has been separated, the evil being so powerful that the Pinhead persona has become a separate entity. In theory, this could have been interesting yet it isn't handled properly. All of these shenanigans coincide with a reporter discovering the puzzle box and a nightclub full of victim fodder. Pinhead's goal is to be free from the confines of the puzzle box and, I guess, hell itself. It doesn't make any sense so it's best not to dwell on why anything is happening.
Of course Pinhead escapes and decides to enlist new cenobites because he can do that for whatever reason. In another nonsensical move, Pinhead wants to kill the reporter due to her having a puzzle box. Funny, didn't Channard have 3 and the implication was that there were a bunch all over the world? But nah, let's just focus on this specific one that fell into the reporter's lap through a huge contrivance. Well...if you really wanted to reach to the heavens to explain this...I guess...you could argue the spirit of the soldier is tied to that particular puzzle box but they don't address it. Anyway, they attempt a few set pieces and launch the body count through the roof which is acceptable I suppose. Eventually, all the new cenobites are defeated almost as quickly as they appeared which made all them utterly pointless. As for Pinhead, he merges back with the soldier and is killed in the most laughably bad way when he's stabbed by the puzzle box. More to the point, that scene alone of Pinhead dying embodies how little this crew understood what "Hellraiser" was supposed to be about. To make matters worse, the ending is that the reporter puts the puzzle box into cement and then there is an office building made to look like the puzzle box built. Ugh. On the bright side, we had a tiny cameo from Kirsty so there's that, right?
I don't know what the hell they were thinking with this entry. There were a million directions you could have taken this series (or just let it end!), and they chose to embrace mediocrity. I know there are those who love this incarnation of Pinhead, but this simply doesn't work for me especially considering how influential part 2 was when growing up. There are a few acceptable ideas strewn here and there, but, fundamentally, this film misses the mark. You can find casual entertainment here as I did laugh at the cornball lines in a good way. It's just so fascinating to see the decline of horror between the '80s and that rough patch in the early to mid-'90s. As a result, we got the likes of "Hellraiser" 3 and 4. Fuck.
Notable Moment: When Pinhead kills all of those '90s rejects at the club. Besides loving the shit CGI, it's amusing that so many people are standing around waiting to die in ridiculous ways like a CD to the head.
Final Rating: 5/10
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