Starring:
Kari Wuhrer as Amy Klein
Doug Bradley as Pinhead
Paul Rhys as Winter
Georgina Rylance as Marla
Marc Warren as Joey
Special Features:
Deleted And Extended Scenes With Optional Commentary
Gag Reel
The Making Of Hellraiser: Deader
Behind The Visual Effects Of Hellraiser: Deader
Practical Effects With Gary J. Tunnicliffe
Storyboard-To-Film Comparisons
Location Scouting
Photo Gallery
Two Feature Commentaries
Other Info:
Widescreen (1.85:1)
Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound
French and Spanish Subtitles
Running Time: 88 Minutes
Synopsis:
The following is the description from the DVD cover:
“Hellraiser: Deader is the latest, most terrifying chapter in the wildly frightening Hellraiser legacy! Once again, the ultimate evil — the dreaded Pinhead (Doug Bradley — Hellraiser franchise) — leads an army of the dead who come back to life with a bloodthirsty vengeance! For an undercover reporter (Kari Wuhrer — Prophecy: Uprising) who becomes entangled with the deadly underground group responsible for the malevolent resurrections, any moment could be her last! With Pinhead in all his gory glory, the thrilling villain you love to fear delivers another hellish nightmare you’ll never forget!”
Hellraiser: Deader is rated R for strong graphic violence, sexual content, language and some drug use.
The Movie:
I have to start out by admitting that I’ve never seen a Hellraiser film. I’m familiar with Pinhead and the general concept behind the movies, but I’ve never followed the series. The good news is that you don’t have to be familiar with Hellraiser in order to dive into Hellraiser: Deader (the seventh film in the series). There’s not a lot of background knowledge required to get into the plot. The bad news is that it’s still confusing. The plot is at times hard to follow and I have to say that I was never clear about who the Deader cult members were, why they did what they did, and what their relationship was with Pinhead.
Apparently Hellraiser: Deader was originally written as another horror movie. It was then decided to turn it into a Hellraiser sequel and it was rewritten. This becomes very apparent when you see that Pinhead is barely in the film. He seems to have maybe 5 minutes of screentime. I don’t think Pinhead fans will be happy about this despite the fact that the premise of the movie is more or less solid for a B-Movie.
Romania makes an interesting backdrop for the film, but Deader manages to make Eastern Europe look even weirder than it is in real life. A subway car is shown moving around the city holding a lot of cult members, naked lesbians, and Goths. I’ve seen a lot of weird things in subways, but never anything that weird. The Deader cult also seems to produce a lot of well-edited videos of their activities. It’s kind of funny how their videos, supposedly shot on a hand held camera, change camera angles, zoom in for close-ups, and are edited like music videos. Yes, it’s a nitpick, but it came across as one of many silly things in the movie.
Kari Wuhrer makes a good scream queen as Amy Klein. She’s pretty, tough, and can scream her heart out. She gets to exercise that talent a lot in Hellraiser: Deader. Unfortunately none of the other cast members really stand out in any way.
Hellraiser: Deader is a good looking film with a semi-decent plot, but it’s not enough to make it a standout above any other B-movie horror flick. I can’t say how it compares to the other Hellraiser films, but I have to think it’s going to be a disappointment for many of the fans simply because Pinhead is barely in it.
The Extras:
There are a heck of a lot of bonus features included on this DVD. Here are the highlights of what you’ll find:
Deleted And Extended Scenes With Optional Commentary There are about 8 deleted scenes included here. Most are not that great, but one features more dialogue between Amy and Marla. Marla reveals more about how she got involved with the Deader cult. The rest are a lot less memorable.
Gag Reel It’s kind of weird to see Pinhead cracking up during a shot, but you can see it here. The other cast members flub lines and make other bloopers, too.
The Making Of Hellraiser: Deader This is your standard ‘making of’ feature. It is very brief, but it shows a lot of behind the scenes footage, interviews with the cast and crew, etc. They discuss shooting in Romania. Wuher talks a lot about how important it is to have an accommodating director, but it gets to the point that you want to remind her it’s only a B-Movie horror flick.
Behind The Visual Effects Of Hellraiser: Deader In this feature they discuss how they did some of the CG chains, people being ripped apart, and holes in characters in the movie. It’s not real in depth, but they point out the few CG effects shots in the film.
Practical Effects With Gary J. Tunnicliffe In this feature they only show how some chains were shot through a brick wall. You’d think they would have highlighted other effects, but they didn’t.
Location Scouting This is some footage shot around Romania of the locations used in the film. The video is shown side-by-side with the final locations in the context of the movie.
Two Feature Commentaries Rick Bota does two commentaries, one with the makeup guy and the other with another crew member. They focus heavily on the technical aspects of shooting and the challenges of filming on a low budget. I would have liked to have heard some commentary from Wuher herself.
The Bottom Line:
Hellraiser: Deader is better looking than many B-Movie horror films, but a confusing plot and a lack of Pinhead makes it a disappointment.
