Review

After battling the Doctor in the second movie Pinhead has become entombed in the Pillar of Souls, along with the souls of some of the Cenobite victims and naturally a puzzle box. Nightclub owner J.P. Monroe buys the artefact, thinking it's some sort of tortured artwork, and installs it in his apartment above the nightclub. Naturally someone manages to dislodge the puzzle, solve the puzzle, with the chains and hooks making an appearance. Young runaway Terri helps the latest victim make it to the local hospital, like that's going to help, where it just so happens would be television reporter Joanne 'Joey' Summerskill has found she has no story worthy of broadcast. Naturally her cameraman has left when Terri and the victim arrive via ambulance. The chains finish their fiendish work, read rip the victim apart, and Joey suddenly finds she has a story.

Back at the nightclub, "The Boiler Room", J.P discovers Pinhead wants free of his prison and can achieve this via feeding on victims. With offers of rewards J.P soon turns his hand to supplying Pinhead with victims, though that doesn't work out well. Meanwhile Joey has tracked Terri to the nightclub, has learnt about the puzzle box, and is being contacted by the incarnate Elliot Spencer who warns her that Pinhead needs to destroy the puzzle box in order to bring hell to Earth. Spencer has apparently been split from Pinhead via the metaphysics of the previous movie. With new Cenobites on the rise can Joey thwart Pinhead's devilish plans or will hell come to town?

Generally by a third movie in a franchise we can pretty much write the franchise off and go and have beers instead, though the two activities aren't mutually exclusive. However occasionally a franchise will spring a surprise and actually send something half decent in our direction, Army of Darkness, the third Evil Dead movie is a case in point. Joining Army in the surprise stakes is Hell On Earth. The third Hellraiser flick wasn't as good as the previous two entries in the franchise but was still a decent enough watch and if taken as a standalone movie actually works pretty well in comparison to a lot of other titles you could spend your time viewing. While it doesn't add a whole lot to the Hellraiser mythos, it doesn't wipe its bum on that mythos either.

Firstly the tie in to the previous movie is outstandingly brilliant, I was simply nodding my head in approval over Pinhead being trapped in that pillar thing that emerged from the mattress in Dr Channards crib at the end Hellbound, I thought it was even more awesome when script writer Peter Atkins manage to tie in a cameo from Ashley Laurence's Kirsty Cotton and the world weary Captain Elliot Spencer. Nice to see the plot direction and ideas from the previous movies aren't being rode rough shod over in some dodgy new plot direction that makes a mockery of previous movies, count the franchises that do that. I was also highly impressed by the introduction of the new characters. Joey rocked the house down, Terri was a cutie - talk about your damaged goods headed for a bad end, and J.P was simply the dude we all love to hate. Even the incidental characters and a couple of cameos added to the broth to deliver a full Hellraiser delight.

I was less impressed with the new Cenobites, seemed like they were created for the movie makers here to thumb their chest at the previous movies rather than being thought out as scary characters in their own right. Sure we can't have the Lady Cenobite, Chatterer, or Butterball back, but come on a Cenobite that fires CDs, really! Equally the whole sub plot with Joey's father in Vietnam was slightly melodramatic and only really headed for a single scene, waster of everyone's time truth be told.

Well a good time was had by all, surprisingly a third movie in a horror franchise that rocks it out.

Director Anthony Hickox hasn't dispensed with the gore the previous movies were famous for. Yes we have a skinless character, we have someone needing victims to regenerate, and it nearly always is about the chains and hooks ripping some poor smuck apart. So gorehounds hump the leg of this one, for others who don't like it blood red and dripping - maybe not the horror flick for you.

There's some T&A going down, including a sex scene, so be warned if planning to insanely throw this bad boy on during a tween's birthday sleep over. I actually thought it was handled pretty well and for sure was used to advance the development of a character and the plot, so no we aren't talking exploitation or including boobs for boobs sake. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Overall I dug the plot that was going down, the new mythology added to the franchise, and the possibility of at least one character going forward in the series, fingers crossed there. I was also digging the fact that one of the major protagonists hasn't been killed off yet, the norm for any character returning in a horror flick. Hell On Earth once again delivered such dark delights, great to see a movie that is unapologetically a horror flick and works within the confines of the ghetto genre without feeling the need to apologise for doing so.

Just before closing I should also point out that Director Hickox does go for some cinematic touches from time to time that should give the warm and fuzzes to anyone with a love of cinema rather than a snob view of it. In one scene Terri is drinking coffee and making the same finger movements on her cup that she previously made on the puzzle box. With a snatch of music from the chain happening J.P's reflection appears in her black coffee. Very simple but very effective in conveying the meaning to those who might have missed where this scene is leading up to. Hickox knows what he is doing and nails the scene, like just about everything else he was called upon to do with this movie.

If you are enjoying the franchise then Hell On Earth is going to work for you. If you haven't dialled in then you can watch this one as a standalone, enough background is provided to get you up to speed, but I would still recommend doing the movies in order. One for horror fans only I'm afraid, recommended to those folks, but not to those who don't dig horror flicks.

Like the two previous movies Hell On Earth was part of the Anchor Bay region 2 box set. Grab a copy of that one if you can, else you can find the movie on the Amazon six flick Hellraiser box set that starts with the third movie. Guess if you dig around the traps there is probably a single movie release of it as well.