Hellbound: Hellraiser II

Audience Reviews

View More

Oct 2, 2018 This is just gratuitous - it delivers a tidal wave of gore for shock value alone. The special effects work holds up well in certain areas; in other ways, the movie shows its age. No genuine "scares" in the movie and the ending is rushed. Ashley Laurence turns in another strong performance as Kirsty, but it's lost in a movie full of sound and fury signifying nothing. See more

Poe G Sep 15, 2018 Pros -It's nice to see Kirsty again. -Pinhead gets his name in this one. It's like Jason getting his mask. -Dr. Channard becomes a great monster. Loved it. And he has a great line after he transforms. -There's some funny humor here. A girl who never talks first words are "oh shit!" -This was a fun sequel. And in some ways kinda better than the original. All in all this movie is really not bad at all. It's really underrated actually. -When you see the cenobites transform back to human, you can't help but wonder what their stories were. Cons -The monster fight was a big letdown. They didn't stand a chance against the Doctor. -Leviathan special effects just look so bad. And the maze looks like a painted background. I like the idea though. -This is the last time we see the original cenobite team. Boooo. See more

Albus R Jul 31, 2018 Best of the many (and mostly bad) sequels to Clive Barker's original film. This was also the last of the Hellriaser films that Barker had a significant hand in the creative process, staying on to write the story as well as producing. I remember watching this film way back in the day when it first came out on VHS and the one scene that had burned itself into my memory was still as horrifying now as it was then. This sequel picks up right after the events of the first film, with Kristy being brought to a mental institution after the death of her dad and stepmom after encountering Pinhead and the Cenobites (not a boy band). Unbeknownst to Kristy, the head doctor of the hospital, an excellent Kenneth Cranham as Dr. Channard, is darkly interested in the occult and has been searching for the Lament Configuration for years. He listens to Kristy's account of what happened to her and instead of destroying the bloody mattress she's pleaded with him to destroy, he decides he wants to resurrect Kristy's evil stepmother, Julia. As with the first film, a resurrection requires massive amounts of blood for a body to reform, which brings us to the aforementioned horrific scenes that was burned into my teenage memory. In order to resurrect Julia, Dr. Channard takes one of his mentally ill patients who believes he has bugs crawling all over his body and who has to wear a straight-jacket at all times to prevent digging at himself, places the patient on the mattress, removes his straight-jacket, and hands him a straight razor to slice at his imagined bugs crawling over his skin. That scene was just as unsettling now as it was 30 years ago, which is saying something in a post Takashi Miike and "Hostel" horror film world. Beyond that one shocking scene, the story involves Channard seeking the Hellraiser puzzle box and Kristy tying to again escape Channard, Pinhead, the other Cenobites, and hell itself. Without spoiling anything, this film reveals more about the Cenobites history and origin, which is interesting and also feels canon since Barker was part of the story (more was told in the subsequent sequel, but Barker had little to no part in those films). Although his film lacks the interesting visual style Barker brought to the first film, with it's dichotomy of beauty and blood, director Tony Randal does and effective job of building suspense, horror, and a fair amount of visual style to the film. Similar to the first film, both good and bad, the gory practical special effects are top notch and wonderfully (and horrifically) executed, but the other special effects look like they were done with Magic Marker. The super imposed images of Hell are visually striking, but not even close to looking as if the characters are really in this location (it's super fakey looking). Despite those shortcomings and although "Hellbound: Hellraiser II" is not a classic horror film, it is a worthy sequel to the original Clive Barker classic. On a side note, rewatching this film mostly made me wish that Barker can somehow regain the film rights to his creating and have the opportunity to reboot the franchise, just as James Cameron is getting to do with his Terminator franchise. See more

Abraham G Apr 2, 2018 while it had some good parts like the visuals, hellbound hellraiser 2 steals from other horror movies like the shining and even the original. not to mention it's both predictable and the villain is undeveloped. add that up with a confusing plot and you've got a big mess. See more

Finn R Dec 31, 2017 A good gory sequel for fans of the genre. Not as good as the original but the best of the sequels.

Harry S Dec 25, 2017 Hell Raiser two had a good set up because of part one so the plot was good. We also got to see Pinheads backstory inwhich that was good too. What went wrong was they thought if they confused you it would make the movie good and scary at the same time but what it did was made Hellbound less the good and made it okay . The 80's horror movies thought they had to go over the top with gore and violence but that dose not make for a good horror movie that just hurts it. The last 30mins of the movie actually saved the movie and saved Pinhead helped him become on of the best horror characters out there. See more

Read all reviews

Hellbound: Hellraiser II

My Rating

Read More Read Less WRITE A REVIEW EDIT REVIEW POST RATING