'Hellraiser: Revelations' and 'Children of the Corn' NOW PLAYING?!

[Travicity]

I just did a triple take. Apparently Dimension Films has secretly released two of their direct-to-disc titles in a lonely theater in California, today.

Both Hellraiser: Revelations and Children of the Corn: Genesis are playing at the Rave Motion Pictures (6081 Center Drive, Los Angeles, CA - (310) 215-3483).

We will unlock the films in our database in case some of you guys are able to attend and provide a few user reviews (Hellraiser, Children of the Corn). We're all dying to know if they're any good.

The Victor Garcia directed Revelations stars Steven Brand, Sanny Van Heteren, Tracey Fairaway, Daniel Buran, Devon Sorvari. It follows two friends who unleash Pinhead, who becomes their master of pain. Apparently, one of the friends has a change of heart. He backs out on his oath hoping to swap himself out with one of hi friend's family members.

The Joel Soisson directed Children of the Corn, starring , begins on a trip to California, a family's car overheats leaving them stranded in the home of a creepy couple and their kid.

BD

[Smartmark]

Hellraiser 9 already out? :o

I can't even find a trailer for it

[Travicity]

Yea apparently it's a couple of cinemas I thought it might be tests etc I can get a review if you want?

[Smartmark]

^^ Sure dude :)

If you find a trailer, post it as well :)

[Travicity]

I knew when I sat down that Hellraiser: Revelations probably wouldn’t be very good. From what I understand, the film was made on the cheap ($300,000 – less than the original cost even without having to factor in inflation) and quickly, because the rights to the franchise were about to expire unless Dimension made a Hellraiser movie by a certain date. So it was hardly going to live up to the original, but I also figured that it’s not like the previous four DTV sequels set a particularly high bar, so maybe, all things considered, it might be at least a reasonably decent entry.

Well, no. In fact, it might just be the worst one yet. There’s a kernel of a good concept, and I can meet them halfway on certain things (from assuming that the time/budget crunch prevented them from exploring the story in a more thorough way), but the acting is terrible across the board, the script is painfully obnoxious, and most damning of all, they couldn’t even get Pinhead right. Doug Bradley opted not to return for the first time ever (which should have been a hint right from the start that this one wouldn’t measure up – he did Hellseeker for Christ’s sake, but drew the line here), and as a result we get a guy that looks something like a kid at a Fangoria con who dresses up as Pinhead and makes you go “Hey, he put some effort into that!” - but at least that kid would be quoting lines from the original movies instead of saying the shit he says here. There is some amusing irony in the fact that they made this movie specifically to hold onto the Pinhead character and couldn’t even get that much right, but the movie is too bad to enjoy it.

The biggest problem, once again, is focusing on snotty teens. Yes, Kirsty was the heroine of the first film, but the meat of the story was about Frank and Julia, not her. So instead of an interesting/flawed adult protagonist, we have two kids who are bored with life for reasons that are never explained, and decide to drive to Mexico (“Tee-KWA-na”, as one of them reminds us about 900 times), leaving their “nowhere town” (seen to be Los Angeles – OK?) behind. For reasons too boring (and confusing) to explain, they get a hold of the box (how it got to Mexico is, you guessed it, unexplained), unleash “Pinhead”, and disappear.

We learn most of this via video footage that the police found and sent to the parents. The parents of both teens (and the sister of one, who was dating the other) have come together for a really awkward dinner party where they talk to each other (read: the audience) about what little they know, and generally just sort of get pissy at each other. Then one of the boys returns out of nowhere (his sister announces "He's back!" as if he had just been a bit late coming home from basketball practice), and things start to pick up as they try to understand what happened to him and where the other kid went. It’s actually not a bad concept, but director Victor Garcia and his editor can’t ever seem to decide on a perspective to fill in the back story, so the “found footage” type scenes are blended with regular movie footage, and after awhile they abandon the video concept entirely. So instead of using it to slowly unfold a mystery, it comes across more as padding (or pandering, considering how many goddamn found footage movies there are nowadays). The flashbacks come and go with little rhyme or reason, and are oft-repeated; the scene where they first encounter Pinhead is played THREE times in the movie, which prompted me to joke “Maybe it should be called Hellraiser: Rashomon?”, since the “Revelations” subtitle didn’t really make any sense in the movie. We already know everything about Pinhead (né Elliott Spencer), and nothing else concerning the mythology is revealed here.

Luckily, the FX are quite good, and pretty much the only reason to watch the movie – I never tire of seeing people get their skin torn off in these movies. However, it’s a shame that they couldn’t come up with some decent new cenobites to accompany “Pinhead”. We only get two others; a female version of Chatterer, and, I shit you not, a “Sub-Pinhead” of sorts that I swear is just there to make the “real” Pinhead look better by comparison. It’s like “Well I know he’s no Doug Bradley, and we didn’t do a very good job with the design, but look how bad it COULD have been! Now our main Pinhead doesn’t look so bad anymore, right?” Luckily, they keep him to a minimum (if you remove his repeated scenes I’m guessing he’d have 5 minutes of screen-time tops), but that just means spending more time with our awful protagonists, so it’s not exactly a good tradeoff.

At least we know they’ve seen the first movie (I often suspected that wasn’t the case with some of the previous sequels), as the plot of the two kids sort of mirrors Julia and Frank’s from that film, albeit without the love affair (considering Clive Barker often explores homosexuality in his work, I’m surprised they never went there in any of the films). One is skinless and needs the other to bring women back to their place in order to “feast” and become whole again, and since they are in “Tee-KWA-na” this just means a lot of hookers. But since this is an ignorant Dimension production, the hookers are all Asian for some reason, and our lead characters frequently refer to how in Mexico its practically a given that hookers will turn up dead and no one will care because life is so cheap there (Hellraiser: Racism?). Nice.

I could go on and on, but the review is already long enough, and what’s the point? No one involved seemed to really give a shit, and why should they? The film exists to extend their ownership of the property while they work out all the kinks in getting the remake together. But even on that level, I still found it insulting; it takes just as long to hire good actors as it does to hire bad ones, and considering Hellworld was produced in 2002, there should have been a decent script to use floating around somewhere, since they’ve never announced plans to actually STOP making Hellraiser sequels. I can forgive the film’s insular and cheap feel – the original is still the best and that wasn’t exactly a globe trotting adventure with big budget spectacle – but I can’t forgive such cynical laziness. Christ, even the end credits managed to look cheap (I also spotted some mistakes). If they had to make a movie to hold onto the rights, fine – make one, show it to a lawyer, and then burn the negative. But as far as I’m concerned, they don’t DESERVE to hold on to the rights if they are making this sort of trash and asking people to pay for it as if it was a legitimate entry. Hellraiser: Reprehensible?

There it is.

Score: 3 / 10

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Starring Steven Brand as the new Cenobite king, Sanny Van Heteren, Tracey Fairaway, Daniel Buran, and Devon Sorvari also were cast in the pic that follows two friends who unleash Pinhead.

Editor's Note: Some small spoilers within

It's been about six years since the last direct-to-disc sequel in the Hellraiser franchise (Hellraiser: Hellworld) aborted itself into this world. Hellworld was so terribly contrived that watching the film felt like the Cenobites themselves were unleashing limitless suffering upon the loyal fans of the franchise. The bright side, it appeared there would be no more sequels in the future. Seven sequels, with significantly diminishing returns, seemed to have literally sucked every drop of joy (and money) out of Clive Barker's original masterpiece.

But the studio disagreed.

Facing losing the rights to the franchise the Weinstein Company pulled together a team, including director Victor Garcia (Mirrors 2, Return to House on Haunted Hill), and gave them two weeks to shoot a sequel. Yes. Just two weeks. In other words: enough time to throw some gear in a truck, round up some actor types, and shoot on the fly. And the film certainly suffers because of this. There's just not much that can be done at a high level in such a short period.

The shortened timeframe, amongst other production related concerns, led to Doug Bradley leaving his iconic role as Pinhead up for grabs. That unenviable task went to Stephan Smith Collins, who, like Derrick Mears (replaced Kane Hodder in Friday the 13th), will face a TON of fan boy skepticism. His boyish nice guy look gives the character an entirely different vibe than what millions came to know, respect and practically worship. I know this is the Internet and everything must fit neatly into one of two categories: Best or worst ever. But I'm on the fence. His performance is alright, not great by any stretch, but not end of the world terrible as some have speculated.

Opening on the start of a road trip, best friends Steven and Nico (A young Val Kilmer lookalike), are heading to Tijuana to get their "dicks wet" and enjoy some time away from "Generica" and all the other inconveniences of being super rich preppy kids living in Los Angeles. Cry me a river. The boys bring along a handheld camera, which acts as guide later in the film, to document their ill-fated adventure and eventual meet up with the Cenobites. Their weekend quickly spirals out of control when tequila becomes involved. Doesn't it always? Eventually, they meet up with a mysterious grungy looking character (Let's call him Fake Beard McHomeless) who offers them a chance to "experience ultimate pleasure" and gives the duo a little puzzle box. Queue the ominous music.

Flash forward to an unknown amount of time later. The boys are missing and presumed dead by the Mexican authorities. Steven's parents and his sister, Emma, host a dinner party with Nico's parents at their posh house way up in the hills, where, conveniently, even Verizon subscribers can't get service. There is much melodrama about the disappearance of the boys. Melodrama is the right word. It feels a bit like watching a Telenovela and some of the acting is on par with Mentos commercials. Eventually, the puzzle box, which has been kicking it at the house in a duffle bag recovered by the police, is opened by Emma, bringing Steven back from Pinhead's world. There is much rejoicing. But not all is at is seems.

In the excitement and drama of Steven coming back, all the cars (which probably would be a considerable amount based on how rich they are) have disappeared and the land line no longer works. This makes almost no sense. The only thing making less sense is the amount of effort and concern shown by the people whose cars have just been stolen. They walk around a bit and smoke cigars before Fake Beard McHomeless comes back out of seemingly nowhere. The rest of the film is told through Steven and feels very rushed and slapped together (Hint: Because it was). It's got a Bowling for Columbine woe is me teenage thing going for it (in a bad way) and made me ponder exactly how long a character can live (or not live) after suffering a shotgun blast to the chest if the plot demands it. It's borderline silly. Actually, it's way past borderline silly. It's just flat out ridiculous.

On the plus side, the gore is at least well executed during its limited screen time and looks an awful lot like the original film's effects – the best example being half-skinned blood drenched persons crawling out of disgusting beds located in run down places. Pinhead, Chatterer and the much talked about Pseudo-Pinhead all look as creepy as ever (especially Chatterer).There are a few moments that will make the weak-stomached nauseous, unfortunately those moments are very, very scarce. And there's even hooker murder, baby murder, and just a touch a very taboo subject thrown in for good measure. Fans should be pleased that very little CGI is used in the film. In fact, the practical gore is the best part of the film.

Onto the big question: Where does the film rank against the others in the franchise? I'd say somewhere in the lower half, but certainly not the worst. At least its intent was to be an actual Hellraiser movie, unlike some of the sequels which were stand-alone films that had Cenobites thrown into to cash in on brand recognition. And it's played straight, no cheesy rock-club Carrie-esque killing scenes or Cenobites with video camera eyes. Don't get me wrong. It's flawed and poorly executed, but for what it is, a cheap ($300,000 reportedly) direct-to-disc film made only to save the rights to the franchise, it could have been a lot worse. The only other movie made for the same reason (that I can think of) was the 1994 Fantastic Four movie, which is about as shoddy as it gets.

Hellraiser: Revelations is not great by any stretch of the imagination; not that anyone really expected otherwise. But in the end it was mildly entertaining for a film that was made, not because of grand intentions to revive the franchise back to it glorious roots, but solely because the studio's hand was forced.

1.5/5

[Smartmark]

Thanx for posting Travis

I still have some expectations for this, it's Hellraiser after all

[DUKE NUKEM]

^ the last few have been very bad

[Swinny]

Yeah and the last one's have at least had Doug Bradley, this one hasn't, and the new Pinhead looks pretty stupid, so I don't have much expectations for this one.

[Smartmark]

^ the last few have been very bad

Well, you are speaking to a guy who thinks the first one is the badest of all 9 movies :hide:

[Travicity]

Well worst and no way and 2 and 3 are two of my favourite but the last 3 are terrible.

[Swinny]

I haven't seen all of them and it's been so long since I've saw the ones I saw that I can't remember which one's I've seen, lol. I've have to watch them all again sometime.

[Metalitia]

Damn some bad reviews but like most film franchises once they become a franchise and get to their 9th film chances are it's gonna wear a bit thin :(