Detectives Sean and David Carter are on the case to find a gruesome serial killer terrorizing the city. Joining forces with Detective Christine Egerton, they dig deeper into a spiraling maze of horror that may not be of this world.
After a series of gruesome killings baffle detectives Sean Carter (Damon Carney) and his brother David (Randy Wayne), newcomer Detective Christine Egerton (Alexandra Harris) is assigned to the case to help them with their investigation. They are dealing with a serial caller who calls himself The Preceptor, whose murders are based on the Ten Commandments. When a clue from one of the victims leads them to Karl Watkins (Jeff Fenter), a local criminal who went missing near an old abandoned house, Sean decides to go check it out by himself. Once he enters the house, however, he loses consciousness and passes out.
He wakes up sometime later in the Stygian Inquisition’s domain in hell. There, he is to be judged for the sins he has committed in his life but before the verdict is passed down, the angel Jophiel (Helena Grace Donald) appears and demands he be released. Before he leaves, Sean manages to grab one of the puzzle boxes, the receptacle that opens the doorway to hell, and takes it with him. Determined to obliterate the house and its occupants, he returns with David but upon entering the habitat, finds it completely empty. Later that evening, Sean has nightmares and visions of the Cenobites, led by their leader, Pinhead (Paul T. Taylor), who warns “judgment and redemption” on anybody who opens the box.
In their office, Christine admits to David that she was assigned to the case because the powers-that-be were concerned about Sean’s wellbeing and mental state and wanted her to tag along to make sure he was up to the task. Shortly after, Sean and Christine go to the coroner’s office and discover that a cell phone from one of The Preceptor’s victims was sewn inside of her body. They decide to use it in the hopes that it will lead them to The Preceptor’s location, which it does, but once they arrive there, Sean disarms Christine and reveals himself to be the killer. David, meanwhile, after looking through clues left behind by The Preceptor, determines that Sean is indeed the killer but by the time he reaches the location, he too is disarmed by Sean.
We soon discover that David has been having an affair with Sean’s wife Alison (Rheagan Wallace) and Sean intends to offer them up to the Cenobites for their adulterous ways. He orders David and Alison to open the puzzle box at which point Pinhead and his Cenobites appear. Offering them to Pinhead in exchange for his soul, Pinhead refuses, stating that a separate department of hell wants his soul and no deal can be made. David and Alison are whisked away to hell by Pinhead but before anything happens to Sean, the angel Jophiel appears once more, stating that nothing can happen to him as he is a part of heaven’s plan to instill fear into sinners but Pinhead has other plans!
The problem with the Hellraiser films over the years is that they have all been relegated to low-budget productions and while many movies are made on low budgets, the Hellraiser series demands a certain amount of money in order to make the locales and creatures realistic. Imagine trying to shoot an Avengers film on a $1 million budget, the effects would look horrendous. The first three Hellraiser movies were the best. It is when nobody knew anything about Pinhead and his Cenobites and when we are first introduced to them, they are genuinely frightening and scary but like any horror franchise, with each entry in the series, they become less scary and, at times, more comedic, whether it is intentional or unintentional. Hellraiser, like Friday the 13th and Leprechaun, has even ventured into outer space!
If the studio is not willing to allow these films to have a certain-sized budget, then they shouldn’t be making them at all. You want Pinhead to be scary and for most of his big-screen iterations, he is exiled from the protagonist role to that of a glorified cameo, appearing from time to time to remind the audience that this is a Hellraiser movie. “Hellraiser: Judgment” isn’t an abomination, some of the murders are bloody disgusting and well-choreographed but the story tries to interject a more human element, which most horror fans don’t care for in this type of film. Pinhead is played by newcomer Paul T. Taylor, who does a credible job as the Cenobite leader but there is no denying that original Pinhead, Doug Bradley, is sorely missed. Keep an eye out for Heather Langenkamp, Nancy from “A Nightmare on Elm Street,” she has a tiny role you might miss if you so much as blink. The producers announced it only took them three weeks to shoot “Hellraiser: Judgment,” my question is, what took them so long?
Available on Digital February 22nd and on Blu-ray & DVD March 1st
