Hellraiser: Hellworld

Plot synopsis:
The film introduces a circle of youths who are addicted to playing Hellworld, an online computer game based on the Hellraiser series. The film opens at the funeral of Adam, one of their friends who was obsessed with the game and ultimately committed suicide after becoming too immersed in the game. The remaining five friends blame themselves for not having prevented Adam's suicide.
Two years later, they attend a private Hellworld Party at an old mansion after receiving invites through the game. Mike, Derrick and Allison are enthusiastic about the party, while Chelsea reluctantly accompanies them. Jake, who is still very much distressed by Adam's death, only agrees to show up after a female Hellworld player with whom he has struck up an online friendship asks him to attend so they can meet. The quintet are cordially welcomed by the middle-aged party host, who offers them drinks, shows them around the mansion (allegedly a former convent and asylum also built by Philip Lemarchand), and provides them with cell phones to communicate with other guests.
As the party progresses, Allison, Derrick and Mike find themselves trapped in separate parts of the house, and are gruesomely killed by the Host, Pinhead, or Cenobite minions Chatterer II and Bound. Jake and Chelsea become mysteriously invisible to other party guests, and are stalked by the Host and the Cenobites.
Holing herself up in the attic, Chelsea finds items belonging to Adam, and discovers that the host is his father, who blames his son's friends for not helping break his addiction. Chelsea and Jake try to flee, only to discover that they have been buried alive and are receiving messages from the host via cell phones in their respective caskets. The Host informs them that they are just coming out of a hallucination induced by a powerful psychedelic he exposed them to upon their arrival, and that the events they have been experiencing have been the result of hypnotic suggestion and their own guilty consciences. Before leaving, he lets Chelsea know that Allison, Derrick, and Mike have all perished in their respective caskets, and that only she and Jake remain alive. Chelsea begins to slip into another hallucination when she is abruptly pulled above ground by police and paramedics, who say they were informed by a phone call from Chelsea's telephone. Looking towards the house, Chelsea sees Adam standing in the window.
Later, the Host sits in a bedroom, going through a suitcase containing Adam's possessions. He finds and opens the actual Lament Configuration, which summons the real Cenobites. Pinhead praises Adam's ingenuity and mocks the Host's disbelief before Chatterer and Bound tear him to pieces.
Jake and Chelsea are shown driving into the sunrise, when they receive a mysterious phone call from the Host, who suddenly appears in the back seat. The two almost crash the car but are able to stop it. The last scene shows the police entering the bedroom in which the Host opened the box, the walls blood-smeared and the box lying on the floor.

Tags: good versus evil, revenge, neo noir, murder, violence

Review:
Lines of dialogue like this:"You been away from the dark realm a while, Chels, how'd it feel playin' again?""Just like any other ultra-violent twenty-four hour wildly popular and yet utterly purposeless embraced-by-the-masses Internet role-playing game."It's one of those lines of dialogue that they always put into movies like Hellraiser 8 that are impossible to avoid sounding like they were written and re-written and rehearsed and re- rehearsed and then finally they just give up trying to make it sound natural after 30 or 40 takes and, exasperated, just drop the best bad take into the movie.
His friends later mourn that they all knew what was happening to him but still kept playing Hellworld, although if you watch the making-of featurettes on the DVD, Director Rick Bota refers to Hellworld as "a website, or video game." It's kind of an ominous sign when even the director doesn't know what his movie is about.
If you thought Jigsaw had some time on his hands to come up with some incredibly complex machines of torture, wait until you see the plot that is hatched by the Host (played by Lance Henriksen, who wastes his talent completely in this movie).
Also don't miss the making-of featurette on the DVD, in which you can witness Pinhead eating a piece of pizza and, my favorite, Khary Payton, one of the actors in the film, makes the following mysterious analogy  "Horror movies are like roller coasters, you know, they're not gonna win Oscars or that kind of thing, but they're just a lot of fun."I don't know, Khary, have you ridden Xtreme at Magic Mountain in Southern California?
The problem, you see, is the following: the first half of the series (yes, even the 4th installment which most people dislike) were monster-movies - a mysterious box, a couple of evil looking beings that came with it, and a lot of unlucky people who came in contact with them - while "Inferno" and the rest have been turned into mind game movies, where people see things which may, or may not, be related to the box...What we have in "Hellworld" is a genuine mediocre teen slasher: 5 young people, who were once dedicated players of the Internet based game "Hellworld" but are taking it cooler since the suicide of their fellow player, get invited to a big party.
It could have used more deaths though.I have to mention two positive things about the movie: Lace (hey, it doesn't matter if it's a brilliant masterpiece or Z-class production when Lance is in it!) and the fact that everybody was familiar with the Hellraiser mythology (the main character Chelsea even mentions that cenobites could never attack her because she would never open the box...
I love the original hellraisers and i just keep hoping that they make at least 1 more decent sequel but thats looking unlikely.Having said that i've seen worse films but its seems to have gone down the the traditional slasher film a bit too much.
This movie is about fans of the series (like you and I) and one exciting night in their lives that goes bad.FWIW, Pinhead and the Cenobites are not *AT ALL* demoted to Freddy Kruger analogues spewing one-liners for their comedic effect, as others have posted here previously.
But the gore is *definitely* there, and Hellworld accomplishes it in an interesting and fun (there's that word again) way.You might be able to call some of the shots along the way, but I can almost guarantee you won't call the final twist.Being the avid Hellraiser fan that I am, I bought this movie the day it came out and watched it.
Five teenagers hooked on Hellworld, an internet game based on the horrific world of the Cenobites, are invited to an exclusive rave party for avid fans of all things Pinhead, where their host, played by Lance Henriksen, has 'such sights to show them', pitching them into a nightmare world where they come face-to-face with their darkest fears.Doug Bradley continues to pay the bills as Pinhead in yet another lousy Hellraiser sequel.
With the exception of the final scene, every time Pinhead and his pals appear, it's in someone's imagination.The insulting script is a complete mess, the direction is uninspired, the acting is poor (even Lance Henriksen is bad), and virtually all of the characters are unlikeable.
Usually I think people just haven't given a movie a real chance when they give it 1star out of 10, but this movie do not deserve anything but the worst possible rating.This shows a total lack of respect for Doug Bradley and Lance Henriksen and anything associated with Clive Barker and Hellraiser.
Of course by the end of the film, it's explained why this is the case, but by that point you've wasted roughly 90 minutes of your time watching a pointless story trying to cash in on the Saw "torture porn" genre.Overall the acting is sub-par; probably even worse than you'd expect from a low budget horror flick.
None of them are integral to the world of Hellraiser, although they might feature the trappings in a kind of "Pinhead Presents" fashion.Hellworld is in fact literally festooned with Lemarchant cubes and the like, but it's a thin veneer covering the reality of one of the worst conceived, plot-hole ridden c-movies ever made.
It was Pinhead, the leather-clad Black Pope of Hell's Labyrinth, played with ghastly grandeur by thespian Doug Bradley, the symbol of the brilliantly macabre Hellraiser series.However, with the release of Hellraiser: Hellworld, the third direct-to-video sequel directed by Rick Bota (whose previous entries, Hellseeker and Deader, actually gave me fleeting moments of hope for the Hellraiser series), not only has Pinhead caved (and this is a level of caving that no one could ever imagine, a level even worse than the one he stooped to in Hell on Earth), but the whole idea and principle of the series has caved to a point of extreme embarrassment.In the "real world," Pinhead, the Cenobites, the Labyrinth, Leviathan, and the Lament Configuration are nothing more than instruments in "Hellworld," the hottest internet game to sweep the gamer and hacker world (which is kind of a sad commentary on the gaming world).
Five gamers in particular  Chelsea (Katheryn Winnick), Allison (Anna Tolputt), Derrick (Khary Payton), Mike (Henry Cavill), and Jake (Christopher Jacot)  have been invited to a "Hellworld" party, hosted by a peculiar man (Lance Henriksen, who just seems to be looking for work nowadays, which is just depressing) who knows all about Hell and more.
It's pretty rare that you notice how bad the lead actress is in a straight to video horror sequel.But sadly, that's one of the smaller problems of this movie.Hellraiser use to be one of those rare horror films that had a real mythology to it.
No, pinhead is almost never the main bad guy in these films, but he always gets his say and often oddly ends up saving the day.With all the changes this movie almost seems like it is a spoof of the horror gener.
Hellrasier: Hellworld is director Rick Bota's third and, thankfully, final entry, and he bows out with his most atrocious Hellraiser film yet, having succeeded in turning the world of Cenobites, sadism and the quest for the ultimate pleasure into a running joke of slasher clichés, with an obligatory, blink-and- you'll-miss-it cameo by Pinhead (Doug Bradley) to loosely tie into Barker's mythology and allowing production company Dimension to retain the rights to the series in the process.Two years after they buried a close friend who became obsessed with playing online game Hellworld (based on Hellraiser) and committed suicide, five friends - Chelsea (Katheryn Winnick), Jake (Christopher Jacot), Derrick (Khary Payton), Mike (Henry Cavill) and Allison (Anna Tolputt) - receive an invitation to attend a private Hellworld party held at an old mansion.
Some of this is obviously rushed, but the photography, setting, and some parts of the story work well.***** Hellraiser: Hellworld (9/6/05) Rick Bota ~ Katheryn Winnick, Christopher Jacot, Lance Henriksen, Henry Cavill.
I have no idea if the Hellworld game is an MMORPG, and I do not think Lance has any plan to show them the truth about cenobites (although he does display a very impressive museum of cenobite-related artifacts and torture devices.)While this movie is not great by any means (it has a bunch of stupid kids getting killed, but is not a slasher, so it does not hold my interest), it has two things going for it: one, it actually has almost nothing to do with video games, despite the way the movie appears.
Rick Bota delivers his 3rd movie in the Hellraiser franchise and whilst it's a lot better then the awful Hellraiser 7 (Deader) it's still not as good as his original entry Hellraiser 6 (Hellseeker).The acting for the most part is good, Lance Henrikson is reliable as always and the rest of the characters are humorous enough to be likable slasher victims.The story is the weak part, it's a far cry from Hellseeker and leaves you waiting till the end before it provides some originality.
The story of "Hellraiser:Hellworld" revolves around a group of teens who receive invitations through a Hellraiser website to attend a Hellworld party.They then find themselves in a huge mansion party with plenty of sex and booze.The party is hosted by the Lance Henriksen character.Then one by one the gang start to die at the hands of Pinhead and the Cenobites at the urging of the host,who apparently has a hidden score to settle with each of the teens."Hellraiser:Hellworld" is a crappy teen slasher flick with little bit of gore and sex thrown in.The characters are obnoxious and stupid and the action moves at snail's pace.Pinhead is used sparingly and his dialogue sucks.The direction by Rick Bota is uninspired and the script by Joel Soisson is extremely predictable.Like "Hellraiser:Deader","Hellword" is beyond bad and even Henriksen's great performance can't save the film.3 out of 10..
The plot does, however, have a little more about it than you would expect, and if you ignore the fact that none of the lead characters look or act like the sort of people that would become obsessed by an online game called 'Hellworld', the plot of them going to a heavy metal 'Hellworld' party at some old house is easy enough to buy into.Lance Henriksen sums up much of the film with the line "it's like something out of a bad horror movie".
Director Rick Bota returns to the Hellraiser franchise for a third time, bringing with him another twist-ending chapter that departs from the original themes only slightly, but which maintains enough Cenobite screen time and gore to please most fans.While not the intelligent man's horror film of Hellraiser 7: Deader, Bota's previous installment, Hellworld is ultimately redeemed by its ending and the creepy performance of Lance Henricksen, always a welcome  if gnarled  face in films of this type.The story assumes that the Hellraiser mythos  complete with Lament Configuration, Pinhead and Cenobites  has seeped into popular culture and attained a cult status within the clove cigarette, rave club crowd of present day.
Acknowledging the poseur lifestyle adopted by these neopreppies, Hellworld pokes fun by in a scene were our leads ooh and ah while looking at torture devices, pickled baby carcasses and other horror scenery, but whine like children when stuck with a tiny pin.The film opens at a funeral for Adam, one of a group of teens (portrayed by bland twenty-something actors with perfect bone structure, of course) who  we're told  were addicted to the online Hellworld role-playing game; Adam, it seems, had taken things too far in his game play, and wound up dead.
Fans who have read plot summaries that talk about a Hellraiser website or hackers being the focus of the film need not fear: there is not a single cyber Cenobite to be had; this is not Pinhead meets Tron, thank God. We never actually see the online game at all, and it's just a plot device to get the characters into the film's real setting, a haunted house.Two years after the funeral, another Hellworld website pops up, granting site guests invitations to a Hellraiser inspired rave party.
The newer films are different than the first two, but in some ways they are better, more contemporary and still chilling.It's not the best of the series, but Hellraiser 8: Hellworld is better than its tag line and promos suggest, and still a top notch horror film that features a great ending and  thankfully!
With idea stolen from Fredie's new nightmare, big boobed main characters and "virtual lament box??" (what's up with that) and poor acting this is for sure one of the worst hell raisers and one of the worse horror movies i have seen ( and i have seen a lot of them trust me on that people).
I don't no what to say.The story is quit good.Also Henrikson who opens the box is a great scene.Watch it,you will like it.What else to say?Oh yes.So pinhead has a knife and thats why i loved the movie so much!It's different then the hooks and the chains.It is also quit gory.My feelins about hellraiser is fresh again!I cannot wait till the 9th hellraiser.Also pinhead is very cool.Cooler than inferno..
It is not completely without redeeming merits but the bad outweighs the good significantly and it's abysmal as a 'Hellraiser' film and very bad as a film on its own.Not much to recommend it, but Lance Henriksen does bring menace to the main villain and Doug Bradley still has it as Pinhead.Katheryn Winnick does her best and is serviceable and it begins sort of intriguingly.On the other hand, once again like all the sequels since 'Inferno' Pinhead and the Cenobites are very poorly used, merely being thrown in to try and remind us that the film is part of the franchise and serve no point to the story.
I thought last was really bad but this one even worse one in the whole series (No I won't counting in the Revelations as not going bother with it all )Gamers playing a MMORPG based on the "Hellraiser" franchise find their lives endangered after being invited to a rave whose host intends to show them the truth behind the Cenobite mythos.I found first half of hour of movie was just a waste of time, were nothing really happens, I Don't mind slow start, at least give us something to chew on for a bit but nothing.Then the teens are getting killed in this movie , some of the death scene are bloody but in a way they looked really cheap.the effect were not that good at all, However did seem have a bit more bloody moment in this movie then last few sequels (Which dose not make good Hellrasier movie)The acting ( If you can call it that) from all teens.
The gore is limited compared to Hellraiser 1,2,3,and 4.A big twist is how the movie ends, with Pinhead only given 2 minutes total screen time throughout the whole movie just like Inferno,Hellseeker and Deader.
I feel so embarrass watching it.Brief: Four friends win a ticket on the Hellworld.com to enter the house of the Hellraiser.This movie fails so bad that it can't even be call a horror.
I think they do it well, and Pinhead, the Cenobites the puzzle box, everything about the Hellraiser mythos makes this movie a lot better than other modern horror movies that have sucked..
i enjoyed this eighth and final(so far)movie in the Hellraiser series of movies.like the majority with the Hellraiser name,that's the only connection to the series,the name.however,i did enjoy it.at least they something interesting with the movie.not necessarily original,but a refreshing change form number four on.i found myself immersed in the story at times,and there was actually some suspense here.having Lance Henrikson in the cast didn't hurt matters any.he can usually be counted on to give a decent performance,even in a real crap movie(which this one is not).Rick Bota,who directed the two previous movies in the series,helmed this installment.as much i was entertained by this one,i really hope they don't make anymore sequels.eight in the series is enough.or too many,depending on your point of view.
Hellraiser: Hellworld (2005) ** (out of 4) The eighth and so far final entry in the HELLRAISER series has good old Pinhead (Doug Bradley) back and this time he's given more screenplay and gets to mix it up with Lance Henriksen.
HELLRAISER: HELLWORLD certainly isn't a good movie but it's about what you'd expect from a film like this.
At the end of the day, you feel dumber having watched the film, but at least you got some cheap and cheesy b-horror amusement out of a cash-in flick with the "Hellraiser" name slapped on it.In all honesty, "Hellraiser: Hellworld" is hardly the worst thing to happen to the "Hellraiser" series.
Lance Henriksen sums it up himself the best stating at one point: "You feel like your in a bad horror movie?" Hell, yeah.
A bunch of cool style kids (punk girl, heroine, jerky guy, hero, and black guy) play a computer game and win a chance to go to a lame as hell (get it????) party run by Lance Henriksen who starts killing the kids off one by one because he blames them for the death of his son who poured gasoline on his body because Rick Botard wanted him to be in a Hellraiser sequel.
If there was any justice in the world, Doug Bradley and Lance Henriksen would get better movie gigs, Rick Bota would stick to directing bad TV movies and Clive Barker would come to his senses and force them to remove his name from this garbage.The sad truth is the Hellraiser franchise has been deader than Uncle Frank for over a decade, but Dimension are determined to hammer more nails into the coffin until they have rung the last cent out of it.