User reviews

Hey you wanna know what I hate? 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. That, being said, let me tell you what I have figured out.

After years if deliberation about what it takes to make a good horror movie and what is missing in a bad one, after countless theories (the presence of teenagers or college-age kids being near the top of that list, by the way), I have finally discovered for certain the exact point at which a movie stops being scary and good and instantly becomes stupid and bad. There is a perfect illustration of the solution near the end of this film, when Chelsea gets locked in the room and Adam starts calling to her from under the floor.

She has becomes absorbed in some photo album despite having found herself locked into the creepiest attic imaginable, and she hears someone whispering her name from behind her. She spins around just in time to see a hand disappear beneath a crack in the floorboards, and she cautiously moves over to investigate. As she peers into the hole, she continues to hear her name being called and she can see the tiniest glimpse of a face in the darkness, and at this point I am absolutely cringing in my chair. No matter how sure I am that something is going to spring out in a situation like that it still gets to me.

And then she did something stupid.

Literally the instant Chelsea put her hand through that crack in the floorboards, I immediately relaxed, almost to the point of breathing a sigh of relief because I didn't have to worry anymore because I completely stopped caring. And it's not just because she doesn't realize she's in a horror movie (despite the fact that the entire cast of this movie are hardcore Hellraiser fans, so the fourth wall has already been breached), it's because the moment her hand crosses the threshold of that crack in the boards she instantly ceases to be a victim.

And you know what my analogy is? Suicide! When someone in a horror movie does something that stupid, it is generally because the filmmakers need to have the character killed off but can't think of a really clever way to have it happen, so they just have the character do something monumentally stupid, but the problem is that this places the blame for their death on themselves, and in a horror movie, it's not only not scary when someone is attacked after doing something as idiotic as putting her hand through the crack in the floorboards because she thinks she sees her dead friend down there, it's satisfying, and not in the good way either.

Stupidity should be painful, but in the movies, it should be lethal.

That being said, it's amazing how little effort was made into making it clear what exactly was going on in the movie. It starts out with the funeral of a college age kid having been killed because of his over-involvement in something called Hellworld, which itself is never very clearly explained. 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. Either that or he doesn't know the difference between a website and a video game.

The story follows the death of their friend, something about that game, and then cuts to a few years later when all of his friends get invited to a party celebrating the said video game. Needless to say, it's kind of like an overblown Halloween party where everyone seems to be fascinated with the macabre (serious macabre, too, like dead babies in jars, sounds like a blast), and girls randomly pull their breasts out (curiously, the first bit of wildly gratuitous nudity is followed by the following exchange – "Gratuitous breasts?" "Necessary breasts! Ha ha ha!" Clever.).

When all is said and done and you finally realize what has been happening throughout the entire movie, it is such a ludicrous and ridiculous twist that it distantly surpasses the Saw movies for absurdity. 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? I see an Oscar in that ride's future!

Now, don't get me wrong: the movie by itself wasn't *that* bad, it was just horrible (no, not in *that* way) in the Hellraiser context. 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. From the beginning things seem weird and soon our heroes start to die one by one... And that's it. Pinhead, once a scary creature from Hell, has basically been turned into a serial killer with minimum imagination. The whole "you dared to open the box, we came, now you'll be tortured for all eternity" is gone. It's quite obvious that this script wasn't written with Hellraiser in mind. It's actually a mystery why it was even made part of the series, when it'd worked quite nicely independently... 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... beside the fact that it's all just fiction).

But all in all I'd give it a 4 out of 10 - not enough deaths, lame story, has virtually nothing to do with the Hellraiser franchise, but the deaths were OK and Lace played along.

I've got to say i wasn't too impressed with this to be honest. 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. The real shame is that there's some good ideas in it. They just don't seem to have been pulled off.

Don't go out of your way to watch this unless you're really into the series. It doesn't add anything, just offers a slightly different slant on the story.

This movie was terrible. I can't believe all the good reviews it got. This is easily the worst movie ever to bear the name Hellraiser, and if it weren't for Lance Henriksen, it wouldn't have even been a 2 in my book.

The acting ranged from mediocre (Chelsea) to downright abysmal (Jake), with the lone exception being Henriksen in his usual calm and menacing demeanor. The dialogue was clichéd, and Pinhead was turned into a crude mixture of Freddy Krueger and Jason Vorhees. He is supposed to be an arbiter, a ferryman to the other-worldly pleasures of the Hellraiser world, not some mindless killer of teenie-boppers. I couldn't care about any of the characters, which is what so painfully divides this movie from the 1st, which was built upon its characters. This is like Scream, except without any meaningful attempt at suspense or scares. The whole movie was so damn predictable that I was able to call every surprise.

I could tell though, before any of drivel that passed as "horror" in a franchise that isn't even supposed to be horror, that this movie would suck based on the Pinhead shirt one of the characters was wearing. That and a guy in a cenobite mask removed all attempts at a dignified motion picture before it even really began.

What disappoints me so much though is not the crappy acting, the swiss-cheese plot, or the sheer failure to achieve even mediocrity. Its how far this movie has fallen form the 1st or the 5th. Hell, Deader was worlds better than this, and even 3 and 4 had at least good quotes. This movie is an embarrassment, and Clive Barker should be infuriated at how his once-noble franchise has been mutilated.

i want that hour and something of my life i spent watching this back. how this ever got greenlighted, for god's sake? the previous installment was excellent, but this one is simply abysmal.

i am a HUGE fan of the franchise and never got bored watching any of the previous movies, but i couldn't finish this one. what a bore... easily the crappiest movie i have seen this year.

plot - what plot ? acting - what acting ? scenes lifted from other movies all around. even lance seemed bored, the expression on his face, clearly saying - i know it's crap, but, hey, at least it'll pay the rent...

Hellraisers tend to have a code that each film fallows. Though the plots often have nothing to do with each other, you can still always tell it's a hellraiser movie because it fallows the formula of one. What is the formula? An original and smart plot(the series main highlight) a very dark, but artistic tone, and gore used as an art form (this may make some people sick. How can death be an art? Well, Hellraiser films tend to show death at its worse, which shows all the more why it's wrong, so I see nothing bad about these films being artistic with death. In fact, I think of it as another highlight.) Well anyways, this movie brakes all of the golden rules. The plot has been done before (all the movies were just movies, but we're in the real world now!) in films like New Nightmare, and to a lesser extent Seed of Chucky. The dark tone is frown right out the window. Dare I say it, but this Hellraiser has comedy elements. A thing unheard of in this series.It's stuck full of one liners.

"You want to see my Lament Configeration?"

LMAO!

Luckily the comedy is dropped whenever somebody dies and there are still quite a few serious and even one or two creepy scenes to be had.

The third and last rule is also broken. The gore, though there is a tone of it, is not artistic, it's just splatter. Hellraiser would show you a man's skin be ripped off let's say, while this just has blood spray everywhere. Nothing really visually impressive about it. And the trademark is gone. Sorry guys, no chains coming out of the wall to rip a man apart.

But, there are still some things that stay the same. Pinhead is once again, like always, not the main bad guy and is kind of just along for the ride, but thankfully this time he gets a tone of screen time. 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. With it's one liners and sense of humor it does seem to be making fun of itself, and doing a darn good job of it. This makes the thing oddly very enjoyable. It's a lighthearted slasher. Imagine Scream meets Hellraiser, that's this film in a nut shell. We even have some bad acting and horror clichés thrown in. Oh, you just had sex, YOU MUST DIE! All of this is out of place in a Hellraiser film. I'm sure Clive Barker is out throwing up right now in fact, but by golly, it's just so fun and cheesy it's hard not to love. I laughed, cheered, and loved the rather clichéd multiple twist ending.

This is more like a fan film, so keep an open mind while seeing it and just enjoy the thing.

After seeing a bunch of these negative reviews, which are completely unwarranted BTW, I feel compelled to speak up in defense of Hellworld.

First of all, this movie is not *NEARLY* as bad as these people are making it out to be. And I have been a fan of Hellraiser since the first movie.

I go into movies not knowing what to expect, and therefor not expecting anything, aside from expecting to enjoy the movie on some level.

That said, this movie is completely and entirely different than any of the other movies in the series. Obviously you can say that about any of the Hellraiser movies compared to any of the others, but this movie is on an entirely different level.

I felt this movie is all around a whole lot of fun, almost a "valentine" to fans of the Hellraiser series. Like you step back and take a look at the first seven movies as a series (of sorts), and then this as a separate entity dedicated to their legacy.

This movie is not about Pinhead, Leviathan, the Box, it's history, an individual's internal evil, or their own personal hell. 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. I wonder if these folks have actually watched the movie.

Do not go into this movie expecting something intellectual, because you won't find it. This movie has a lot of fun, and it does it well. You also can't go into this movie expecting to see something like any of the other movies, because you won't find that either. "Dark," "creepy," and "twisted" are probably the adjectives you use to describe the other episodes in the series. Those don't apply here, except maybe "twisted" to some extent. You probably won't be frightened watching this movie. 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. I thoroughly enjoyed it on the level mentioned above. And I will watch it again.

I don't see it as an extension of Clive Barker's original vision for these movies, but rather a tribute to some part of that.

I give this movie a 7 out of 10. I give it a 7 because I enjoyed the movie, but the acting by most of the leads could have used a bit of work. OK, maybe more than a bit. But Lance Henriksen, as ALWAYS, was simply fantastic. Long live Lance! If you enjoy any of the Hellraiser movies, I recommend you at least rent this movie and give it a chance. Watch it like a tribute to your favorite series. I think you'll enjoy it.

I don't waste my words for this movie. I knew the Comics the movies and the novel. The first from Bota was good. Better then INFERNO. I make it short. Bad acting. Bad Pinhead. Bad Light. Bad music. Bad writing. Bad. bad. Bad. Bad DIRECTOR. The Horror in this movie is very small. The actors plays like bored first time actors. And this modern editing with Rockmusic and speeder velocity is out. And why teens. Why not older People? Please Mr. Bota. Stop to direct the Hellraiser movies. Every Hellraiser fan would make a better Hellraiser movie. A bad 3 from a bad 10. I couldn't believe it how bad and uninspiring that movie is.

I hope Barker never see this. ;)

What is this, what has this to do with Hellraiser, nothing at all, sure the lament configuration is there and there's an online game but let that be all. And pinhead do appears but he isn't what he is used to be. No punishment at all, okay, here we do have back some cenobites but that's it.

Pinhead is really forced into the story to make a Hellraiser flick but it didn't work at all. He do uses his one-liners but it's so forced and I really got pity with Bradley that he was involved in this little stinker.

Also, it's the first Hellraiser with that amount of nudity. Sadly, it doesn't add a thing to Hell. It's also the franchise that we see Bradley performing for the last time as pinhead, Revealtions (2011) was the follow-up and we all knew what that was, a flop.

Gore 0,5/5 Nudity 1,5/5 Effects 2/5 Story 2/5 Comedy 0/5

He youngsters Chelsea (Katheryn Winnick), Allison (Anna Tolputt), Derrick (Khary Payton) and Mike (Henry Cavill) are grieving the suicide of their friend Adam (Stelian Urian), who became obsessed with an internet game called Hellworld. Their former friend Jake (Christopher Jacot) blames the group since they have not stopped playing the game even when Adam was unstable. When they receive an invitation to a Hellworld party in an isolated mansion, the reluctant Chelsea decides to join the group and they surprisingly find Jake in the party. He explains that he was invited by a girl he met in a chat room. They are hosted by the owner of the place (Lance Henriksen), who shows them his private macabre collection. Along the night, they find that they are in a party in hell.

"Hellworld" certainly is not a good movie, since it is full of clichés and has many silly dialogs and situations. However, it is not also as bad as indicated in many reviews. With the exception of the excellent classic "Hellraiser", and the sequel "Hellbound: Hellraiser II", all the other movies of this franchise are only reasonable entertainment. I have just watched "Hellworld" with a very low expectation, and in the end I found an average teen horror movie. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "Hellworld – O Mundo do Inferno" ("Hellworld – The World of Hell")

as usual, being a big hellraiser fan i was looking forward to the next episode; after seeing hellworld, there is only one conclusion: this time the really f... up!!!! i cannot understand how the makers of this movie did their job; the movie is really bad, weak plot, bad cast... pinhead does not deserve to be mistreated that way; the end of a legend? i hope not, but this sequel must be forgotten asap. I have seen a lot of B-horror movies that were much better. the story is really awful!!! according to hellraiser standards this is the worse that has ever been made, and a slap in the face of every pinhead fan. I wonder why Doug Bradley even accepted to play that part after reading the script! a first class shame

Another one in a series of scenarios that are obviously not originally written for the franchise, but subsequently adapted to fit into it. Not particularly successful this time. Frankly, I was bored. I can not specifically point a finger and say, "This is bad." Nothing in this movie is particularly bad, but nothing is particularly good either, so it's all together forgettable and leaves no impression. The premise is interesting, but it is developed to the unconvincing and unexciting story. The music is not annoying, but it's not catchy either, and by no means contributes to the atmosphere. But there's really no atmosphere, or tension, or fear... Not even decent jump-scares. The acting varies from bad to mediocre, and even famous names such as Lance Henriksen, Katheryn Winnick (Lagertha from the "Vikings") and Henry Cavill (the last Superman) are totally unimpressive. I did not even recognize Lagertha until the end credits. In short, to answer the question from the headline: No, it isn't LIKE a bad horror movie - it IS a bad horror movie. However, the premise brings refreshment in the franchise, there are beautiful and naked girls and some nicely done gore, and I liked the final twist, so I can not completely bury it (pun intended).

5/10

I made myself watch this just so I could say I've seen all of the Hellraiser films. The cover of the DVD has Pinhead in a kind of Matrix-esque green hue with computerised text, so my original fear was that he was now stalking and killing people online with the internet being a gateway to Hell. I was wrong, but I'm not sure if the actual concept for the film is better or worse than that.

It's not so much that this film has plot holes, it just has ridiculous things going on that make no sense, such as one character wearing a t-shirt with Pinhead's face on it. Not a caricature, but a picture of Doug Bradley as Pinhead. Are we meant to believe that between collecting souls to take to Hell, Pinhead works as a freelance model for horror t-shirt companies? This nonsensical moment made me wonder for a good 20 minutes if I was watching one of those films about a film, like Wes Craven's New Nightmare or The League Of Gentlemen's Apocalypse. OK, the latter was a TV show, but my point still stands.

The 'kids' (yes, we've gone from the occult horror of the last 7 films to a teen slasher - though the teens are, as always, all played by people in their 30s) are all as badly written and one dimensional as the Wayans brothers' Scary Movie characters, but at least they're knowingly terrible. Each has his or her own trait/weakness which leads to their demise (asthma, womanising, an inquisitive nature, loneliness). Lazy writing also means the black character is the token horror movie black character (jive-talking, occasionally exclaiming "Day-amn, Girl!", etc) who won't live to see the see the second half of the movie. His excuse for missing the rest of it was death, what was mine for watching it? Maybe I wanted to see if it could possibly gets worse.

I do love a bad horror film just as much as a good one, but what really annoyed me about this were the missed chances, the things they could have done to make it enjoyable, but then decided not to bother. Doug Bradley is always a pleasure to watch - even if Pinhead does sometimes wander into Freddie territory with quips and superhuman abilities, but again this is a writing/directing problem, not at all a swipe at Bradley - and it was nice to see Lance Henriksen appear so late into the franchise, lending it a dignity and gravitas it doesn't at all deserve. Sadly, the two actors only share one scene and I don't think they were even in the same room when it was filmed by the look of it. Some kind of exchange between the two would have made up for the previous 90 minutes of badly delivered lines and clichés pulled from 50 other awful horror movies, but its all over far too quickly.

Fans of Pinhead have complained that since parts III and IV, he hasn't appeared enough in the movies. The point they miss is that Pinhead was always meant to be a minor character yet remaining an ever-present threat, even if he's not always seen. The monster in the movie becomes less scary the more you see it and this is one thing this film does right.

If you want to watch all of the Hellraiser movies, give it a look, but don't expect it to hold a candle to any that came before. If you could happily live without seeing one of the greatest characters and franchises ever made turned into Dawson's Creek with demons, don't bother. I hope Clive Barker was paid handsomely to see his creation sodomised in this way. He's done so much for horror (movies and literature) that it's a shame to see the series limp out on this very low note.

One interesting thing about this film, British viewers over the age of 30 may recognise Victor McGuire as the cop. He's best known for his roles as Jack Boswell in 'Bread' and Ron in 'Goodnight, Sweetheart', two well known British sitcoms.

I found this a refreshing change of pace for the Hellraiser series. After Hellraiser Bloodline, each of the new additions to the series have been different and capable of standing on their own as a story and this one is no exception. The actors play the parts they need to in an acceptable to better than average fashion and the story unfolds at a good pace which leads to an unexpected climax. I wonder at some of the commentary left about this film-- I wonder if the people who slammed it so heavily really understood it. As for me- this was an unexpectedly good addition to the Hellraiser series. If you are a devotee of Hellraiser, you owe it to yourself to ignore some of the negative reviews and just see and judge this one for yourself. 10 stars for an inventive and original storyline.

A group of college kids who have messed around with the Lament Configuration in an online Hellraiser game, resulting in the death of one of the group before the movie has begun, are invited to a party at the mansion once owned by the man who created the puzzle box in the first place. There they are met by Lance Henrickson (!), who is hosting a big party for Hellraiser game fans. From this point, confusion reigns until the last five minutes when all is neatly explained away. The ending definitely contains a neat and unexpected twist, but one cannot forgive what has gone before and which takes well over an hour to get to the point. Decent gore, although true Hellraiser fans will be puzzled (no pun intended) by some of the goings-on,which bear no resemblance to the Hellraiser canon -- that is, until Lance explains all at the end. Pinhead is strictly a fleeting guest in this one, which has happened before, God knows. The film is new enough to have been influenced by the SAW series and the basic plot as such (discounting the explanation at the end) is straight out of the HALLOWEEN flick where the crowd gathers for a night of live televised fun and terror in Michael's family home. Shot back to back with HELLRAISER: DEADERS by the same director in Romania, this one is a notch above that incredibly dreary effort. Ah well, we can only await the cinematic remake of the original HELLRAISER.

I had high hopes when watching this movie. I have to say this is one of the worst ones yet. There wasn't much of a story and where is the mind game. I think they wanted to make a saw movie and a Hellraiser mix. This isn't Saw this is Hellraiser. In my opinion Hellrasier is about coming to the realization that your stuck in hell and paying for your sins. Its a mixture of the real world and Hellworld. It keeps the viewer guessing what is going on and what world is this. This movie didn't show that very well. I didn't think pinhead had enough parts in it. I just hope Hellraiser isn't heading the wrong direction. I think the best Hellraisers are: Deader, Inferno, Hellseeker, and Hell on Earth.

So once again, we have a good premise for a story that isn't fully developed, which in turn weakens the film. Hellworld is a computer RPG and puzzle game starring Pinhead and the Cenobites. Years later, a party is being held for a select group of gamers. To get an invite you just have to solve a puzzle. A group of five friends solve their way into the party. Once there, they meet the host, a mysterious man who has decked out the mansion with a whole host of gruesome oddities. It's not long before the blood starts to spill...

It was a treat to see Lance Henriksen in a Hellraiser film... except that it's not a Hellraiser film. Out of the new series, this is the furthest off the mark... however, it is more enjoyable than the rest. Even though the twist in the tale spoils the film, in respect to it being a Hellraiser movie, it actually makes it a decent psychological thriller. Not the best as it's all been seen before, but still very watchable.

The other point at odds is the acting. This isn't as strong a cast the previous flicks only Henriksen and Bradley stand out. The rest of the cast is quite average. I'll also wager this film wasn't mentioned when Cavell went up for the Superman role, But for once, the direction helps to keep the audience's attention. Bota is quite good at creating a lively party atmosphere. He even keeps the pace tripping along to the beat. This is a great surprise as his previous takes on the Hellraiser mythos have been quite meandering, even verging on boring.

The major drawback to this film is the gaping holes in the story, which I cannot go into detail about because it would spoil the film for those of you thinking of watching. There are way too many inconsistencies to be explained in the film and this damages the story and lessens the enjoyment.

What this film needed was a much better thought out story taking into account the Cenobites as main characters and not just add-ons. It could be done and it wouldn't have taken too much to accomplish.

If you are thinking about watching the film then I would say to give it a go but remember it's not a real Hellraiser story... in fact, it's not actually a horror film. If you like psychological thrillers, with a dark supernatural twist, then you should delight in this movie.