Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth (1992)

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

The acting is not great (quite bad, actually) and the actors are not very convincing, especially Kevin Bernhardt as club owner JP Monroe. Even Doug Bradley as Pinhead is not convincing. Pinhead doesn't even look scary. On the contrary, he looks quite serene and sweet, actually. Pinhead is supposed to be this great demon, but he relies on mortals for help. Really?? The plot is ridiculous. Why is Pinhead now killing everyone in sight and not only the ones who opened the box? What's the purpose of the box then? The film became a slasher for no reason. Nothing about this film makes any sense. Why have the rules changed? Why are Pinhead and Captain Elliot Spencer separated if they're the same person? Oh, and what a silly ending...

I admit that this isn't a film I enjoyed but I ended up disliking it a lot less than most people. I can't say it's a guilty pleasure because I still didn't enjoy it, but I enjoyed it a lot more than most people? This is notable in being the movie in the series where Pinhead gets the most kills. I think it technically has one of the highest kill counts in any slasher movie. Pinhead initially appears without his henchman but they do come later. In the first couple of movies, most of the kills were done by other characters oddly enough. It actually was pretty creative.The main problem is that it is hard to take some of this stuff seriously. It doesn't really get entertaining until the last third or so. It's hard to take seriously a lot of the goofy special effects but to be fair, some of them do work. I don't like how it tries to look like some artsy film when it's often an excuse to show disgusting stuff. This was gross even by the standards of the other movies. There is some good dialogue, especially when the priest says there are no demons and they are just parables and metaphors. **1/2

"Hellraiser III: Hell On Earth" came out four years after "Hellraiser II: Hellbound" which is a bit strange considering that "Hellraiser 2" came out a year after the original was released. As a viewer, I'd be more skeptical of "Hellbound" when it came out considering the quick turn around, but with a four year gap between films, surely they've used that time wisely to craft a great story and film right? "Hell on Earth" picks up sometime after the events of the second film, when we are introduced to a young, swaggering asshole named J.P Monroe who purchases the "Pillar of Souls" that was briefly shown at the end of "Hellbound" from a random homeless man in an art gallery. Pinhead and the box are trapped within the pillar, and while as a piece of art, it's quite exquisite, it's not exactly something you'd really want in your living room.thanks to special effects by Bob Keen, who did everything from EVENT HORIZON to THE NEVERENDING STORY. For example, when Pinhead finally -- and expectedly -- becomes free to make people suffer horribly at J.P.'s club The Boiler Room, he slaughters the entire club, laughing himself silly while doing so. (At least the guy enjoys his work.) The effects here are excellent.Terry Farrell really shines as Joey. The role is a pretty standard nosey reporter just looking for that big scoop but for whom nothing ever works out. As clichéd as the character's setup is, somehow Farrell makes it work. She sounds sincere and thoroughly innocent, which obviously works nicely to contrast the pure evil.What really makes HELLRAISER III stand out is the sheer messed up nature of it all. The violence. The gore. The anarchy of death left in Pinhead's wake. That's shown in graphic detail when one of J.P's bimbos get her skin ripped off like a piece of meat. The music by Motörhead's "Hellraiser," written by rock gods Lemmy, Ozzy, and Zakk Wylde. That alone makes it all worthwhile.0

I guess they must get Mtv down in Hell, huh? Because without doubt, if there's any way to describe director Anthony Hickox's "Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth", it's this: This is the 90's alt-rock, music video variation of the franchise. It's practically oozing of all things early 90's. Over-stylized, kinetic visuals where the cameras zoom and flow about like an over-caffeinated bird. Odd transitional fashion trends that feel like the dying throes of the 80's. Amusingly dated optical and early digital effects that would look out of place just a couple years later. So much grunge. Jaded punk- rock mindsets of rebellion against "conformity." And on-the-nose visuals and commentary that seem jarringly out-of-place.Yes, this is certainly a "Hellraiser" from the early 90's.Some time after the events of the previous film, the mysterious "Pillar of Souls" is purchased by spoiled-brat nighclub owner J.P. Monroe (Kevin Bernhardt), who soon enough realizes that it houses the eternal evil of the demonic cenobite Pinhead, once again portrayed with delightful depravity by Doug Bradley. As Pinhead manipulates Monroe to bring him sacrifices so that he may be freed, reporter Joey Summerskill (Terry Farrell) begins to piece together the backstory of Pinhead, realizing that his soul has been fractured into two pieces... the evil and unrestrained Pinhead and the much more sympathetic British Army Captain Elliot Spencer. And thus, Summerskill must go on a dark and twisted journey to stop the now-freed Pinhead, and reunite the two halves of his spirit in order to restore balance and stop him.Written by Peter Atkins and Tony Randel, the script is a bit of a tangled swarm of notions and ideas that on paper may sound fascinating and hard-hitting, but don't come together as any sort-of cohesive whole. At times, the narrative is lost in what feels like a swirling storm of half-baked sequences, where story and character development takes a backseat to action-oriented set-pieces and buckets of blood. You really do get the feeling that somewhere behind-the-scenes was a producer standing over the two, forcibly making them eject key sequences from the script and demanding the insertion of new scenes specifically modeled after music-videos and video-game advertisements... all in a desperate attempt to appeal to the youth demographic who might have found the previous films "boring." I really can't imagine it happening any other way, especially after their much strong, earlier work on the second film in the series. And it all comes down to a story that feels like it was created to sell soundtrack albums and novelty t-shirts for High School students first... and to tell a compelling story second.Director Anthony Hickox seems a bit in over-his-head here. While I'm not overly familiar with his previous work, his guidance of scenes and character feels a bit too "off." Like he's easily distracted. This is especially true of the slower and more deliberate sequences of dialog and character development, which feel very disjointed and sloppy. I can't help but get the feeling he's afraid of losing his audience, so he instructed everyone to over-emphasize their words and move in big, broad motions. It's frankly bizarre at times. One of the more amusing sequences being a key scene where Pinhead is first revealed to Monroe, which feels both boring and over-the-top all at once. Only later in the film when things really start to go crazy does he start to get a handle on things and seem more confident in his visual choices... but he's still far too blatant for his own good, lending to a feeling of disconnect from the intended horror. It's too much like you're watching a low-budget action-picture... it stops being scary when every scene has the camera zoom or turn to a dutch-tilt or end with a quippy one-liner from our villain.Outside of that, the rest of the production really is a disappointing mess. Outside of Bradley, the performances are all uniformly bland, with far too much over acting and smart-alec dialog for you to really care. The new music cues by Randy Miller are very forgettable, with only the returning themes composed by Christopher Young standing out. The editing is jarring and gives you a sense of whiplash, as it's cut with lightning faces pacing- again in an attempt to make this a "Hellraiser" for the Mtv crowd. And even the cinematography seems a bit uninspired. It's just... sub-par in essentially every way conceivable.Still, all of that being said, I can't help but feel this is still worth watching for series fans. It may sound paradoxical after all of my droning complaints above. But there's just such a fun and frenetic sense of entertainment value on display that I can't completely dismiss the movie. It's bad... Oh, it's bad! But it's bad in that way that you'll still have a big grin on your face while you scoff and roll your eyes over how stupid it all is. And I think a lot of that has to do with the delightfully dated quality it has as an early-90's release. It's never boring. The aesthetic style and camera-work can be a lot of fun to watch. You'll certainly get a lot of laughs from the misplaced humor and wildly over-the-top characters and gore effects. And there are a select handful of scenes that do work in their own silly, demented ways. It's not the high art of Clive Barker's iconic original. Nor is it the twisted labyrinthine puzzle that was "Hellbound: Hellraiser II." No, this is just plain-old "dumb fun." Filler fluff that's good for a gasp and a laugh on a slow, rainy day when you don't have to go to work and wanna just veg-out watching some visual junk-food. It gets the job done."Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth" easily earns its score of 3 out of 10. It's a bad movie. Quite bad, actually. But it's a fun bad movie.