HELLRAISER {2022}

 "ONCE AGAIN INTO THE REBOOT BREACH."

 

This time it's the new take on Clive Barker's HELLRAISER.  Long story short:  it was OK, I guess.  However, I had some real problems with it.  Too long.  Yeah, certainly.  Tops out at 121 minutes.  And for the slight plot, that was really excessive.  There aren't even really any subplots to justify 2 hours.  There nothing really wrong with the plot; it just doesn't need 2 hours to tell the story.  I liked David Bruckner's THE NIGHT HOUSE quite a lot but here the direction seems to be lacking something.  Oh, and the major flaw with the movie which I can't really excuse:  it's too dark.  I don't mean in subject matter.  I mean, for at least 75% of the movie you can't see a thing that's going on.  It's one of the biggest fallacies in horror movies; make it really dark and people will be scared.  No, if you make it too dark to see what's going on, people will be bored.  When something 'scary' was happening, I was mostly annoyed because I couldn't make out what I was supposed to find 'scary'. 

This picture of Pinhead over there on the right is much better lit than anything in the film.  It's a real shame that the lighting wasn't bumped up slightly because it would've made a real difference.  And I don't mean that facetiously; it really would've made the movie play a lot better and would've increased my rating at least another half star.  No one likes to stare at a totally black screen for much of a movie.  Hollywood take note.  Speaking of the new Pinhead, I quite liked Jamie Clayton's portrayal.  She brought a nicely threatening stillness to the character quite unlike Doug Bradley's iconic and masterful portrayal.  She's no challenge to the greatness of Bradley but, in a pinch, she's perfectly good.  Ditto our lead actress Odessa A'zion as Riley; the actress really brings the grittiness to her drug-addict character.  But yeah, all in all I can't really recommend this one.  It's not that it's bad, it's just not very good either.  It's really kinda bland -- which is REALLY odd for a Hellraiser movie.  They're supposed to be transgressive and such.  Nothing here is transgressive at all.  And that fatal flaw of not being able to see anything that's going on  really sinks this one.