Hellraiser: Judgment (2018)

Wow! Such a good movie.

Fresh and Exciting

Wow! What a bizarre film! Unfortunately the few funny moments there were were quite overshadowed by it's completely weird and random vibe throughout.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

In the intro Pinhead complains that in this corrupt digital era, a wooden box doesn't really to much, that it's obsolete when people can easily satisfy their every desire.Some bum gets a typewritten letter from a "friend" asking him to go to some address. He does. Then he finds himself bound to a chair and a creepy scarfaced character asks him about his crimes and types all that on a typewriter. He is The Auditor. The bum turns out to be a child molester. Then the Assessor arrives, some nasty fat guy who drops children's tears on the confession and then eats it. Then he vomits into a funnel and the vomit ends up in another room where three girls (The Jury) put their hands in it and declare a verdict. Then another set of three girls (The Cleaners) presumably lick the bum "clean" and do something else off-camera to clean him from the inside as well. Then The Butcher arrives from his back crawls out The Surgeon a creepy figure that delivers the sentence and slices the skin off the bum. Pinhead is nearby just sitting there listening to all this. All this is filmed in a pretty cool way in a sepia tone. Then we meet two brothers who are also detectives. They are partnered up for some reason but don't get along all that much, at least one them, Sean, has nothing to say to the other, David. At the crime scene, a dead woman is on the floor, in blood is written "I am a jealous God." Then a female detective, Christine, arrives, who's been sent to be part of the investigation. It turns out the cops have been pursuing a serial killer called "The Preceptor" and this is his 12th killing. The killing are based on the biblical commandments. He provides some literary letter with every killing. But they also find the woman's dog inside her womb. The cops have little to go on. We learn that Sean is an army veteran who is in marital troubles with his wife. The next crime by The Preceptor they find on a playground involves some limbs that are holding organs and some jars with blood, all this relates to missing children.When Sean goes back to the bum's pad he finds an address and goes there. It's where The Auditor and his gang are. They take him and Sean starts his confession, which apparently is pretty gruesome, and it ends up causing The Assessor to choke to death. Still Pinhead decides to let Sean go, suspecting that he will come back.By now the detectives make a discovery that finally advances their case against the Preceptor, with one last commandment to go. There's a surprise and a confrontation between the parties involved. And finally Pinhead makes his hellish entrance and forces two people to open the Lament Configuration. Then another character appears, something of a rival to Pinhead and some surprising things are said about the dynamic between good and evil. Pinhead doesn't budge and in turn suffers judgment himself.Hellraiser: Judgment is something of an improvement overall considering where the franchise has been going. The entire audition process looks cool and is pretty strange and new. At the same time why introduce this new group of Pinhead underlings instead of just sticking with Pinhead and his cenobites? At least the sepia coloring is a welcome departure from Pinhead's domain which is cold blue/grey/black. Also, why focus on cops again instead of on regular people doing bad stuff, no to mention that here we arrive so late to The Preceptor's shenanigans. Gary J. Tunnicliffe, now promoted to director, does a good job. Unfortunately he also figured he'd take on the role of The Auditor and that was a mistake. Aside from him, acting overall is strong. Alexandra Harris is a just lovely as Christine. This movie makes for a good horror thriller one that is more like a spin-off from Hellraiser really. As a Hellraiser movie it's of course disappointing because again Pinhead, the Lament Configuration, and the Cenobites are barely featured, and again they picked some actor entirely unsuited to play Pinhead. Doug Bradley has been in some terrible Hellraiser sequels, not sure why he thought the last two weren't worth participating. But if that's the case surely there are actors who can do a better job and look more appropriate. There's also not a whole lot of gore and violence. Us usual with some of the recent sequels there aren't many good lines for Pinhead. But I like the twist that the new character represented where the issue of good and evil comes up. However the ending is just terrible, and makes you wonder about where this franchise will go, especially if they can't come up with a good reboot, which looks to be on hold again. Perhaps Pascal Laugier is available. I can't think of a better writer/director to take on a Hellraiser reboot.

Grab a 4k camera. Point it at a freshly painted wall and record. Now play this footage back and watch. Note it would be unfair to compare this movie to paint drying. Painting can sometimes be very rewarding.

WOW. I love how film makers think its okay to use a film title to hook horror lovers in, only to realise the film was a complete and utter waste of time.FIRSTLY: can they please PLEASE stop trying to remake Hellraiser, no ONE can recreate the original pinhead, those films are a classic!.SECONDLY: this film was weird and original i will give it that, how ever WTF, it wasn't even centred around pinhead, he was just in some scenes in a super weird way., It was just so so disappointing, they just need to stop. For the love of horror, just stop.

This film got alot of hate from reviewers, but if you like the franchise i believe this is one of the better ones of the bunch. If you ignore some of the plot holes and continuity of the film it is entertaining. I think this is probably the most disgusting of all of them though lol. Some scenes will make you gag. The new character the Auditor is a great character i think. I hope if they do more films we see him again. Definitely worth a watch