The sequel to Hellraiser came out a mere year later, suggesting New World Pictures began production on it almost immediately. Or at any rate, as soon as Hellraiser’s return on investment suggested a good margin of risk – ah, the muse of sequels. Surely this must’ve been in response solely to Hellraiser’s box office take, for it wouldn’t have had the time to develop its home video cult yet.
With such quick turnaround, a few things are assured. One, much of the cast and crew remain consistent between entries – this is a good thing. On the flipside, such short time limits production’s ability to fashion a good and compelling story, a justification for this follow-up. Such a feat would’ve been best left in the hands of Hellraiser creator Clive Barker, whose involvement with this sequel is…tricky to parse out. Certain sources suggest an active hand, serving as producer and story consultant. Other sources imply that Barker was bought out, having sold off the film rights to “The Hellbound Heart” prematurely without anticipating its potential success. That his only credit is “story by” doesn’t help to clarify.
Anyway, with Barker…lessened, control of Hellbound: Hellraiser II (ah, sequel pretitles, a rare and strange phenomenon to irk alphabetizers) went to first-time director Tony Randel, Hellraiser’s editor. Writing duties fell to Peter Atkins, who brings none of Barker’s exquisite sexual deviancy to the table. With a notable uptick in budget ($6 million versus $1 million), pronounced sequel escalation could take hold, and with it the film’s central promise: This time, we are going to Hell!
It takes altogether too long for Hellbound to get Hell bound, leaving the first half a stultifying muddle. That’s the problem with designating a set piece, a setting as your central sequel hook. But like the hooks we get to see rend Frank Cotton in twain, in a needless replay of Hellraiser’s climax, this sequel hook renders all pieces strewn randomly, it the viewer’s task to sew them back together – man that was stretched!
Onward to new footage! Now tell me, what’s one of the surest ways for a horror sequel to crap the bed? Why, ruin the mystery behind its killer! So kudos to Hellbound for going that route the instant the second Hellraiser starts, with an extended flashback explaining the origin of the demonic Cenobite Pinhead (Doug Bradley). Mired somewhere in the oriental exoticism of Britain’s Victorian empire, Captain Elliot Spencer opts to purchase and unlock a familiar puzzle box. Just like Frank at this minute mark previously, doing so causes chains to rip him asunder. What comes next, though…Unholy mechanisms fiddle with Spencer’s noggin, inserting a geometric pattern of nails. And so Pinhead is born of a mortal man!
That was our fun opening violence to wake the audience up, essential because the rest of Act One is a desperate quagmire. Kirsty Cotton (Ashley Laurence), survivor of Hellraiser’s shenanigans, awakes in a familiar hospital cell, now explained as being in the Channard Institute – a mental institution. And while Kirsty was the necessary standard heroine of Hellraiser, in a tale otherwise overflowing with villainy, here she becomes our legitimate main character – this when Barker wanted the focus to remain on Julia. (Also, the fans’ love of Pinhead & Co. rather demanded their increased presence too – oh man, we’re getting lotsa bloody eyeballs to juggle here!)
And while Kirsty isn’t busy lying uselessly in her cot – you see why people demand proactive protagonists? – she’s busy answering the prying questions of Detective Bronson, Homicide. This affords extended spoken exposition trying to restate the events of Hellraiser – this nonsense goes on until the twentieth minute, when we get another footage “flashback” to tell us what most presumably already know…That lovers Frank and Julia conspired to cheat Hell all Faust-like, murdered many, then both perished upon the return of Hell’s schoolmarms, the Cenobites. Also, bleeding where a person died brings them back to life for some reason (keeps your cast small and your gore quotient high!), and puzzle boxes summon demons.
Mixed with this, we meet a new character – and a new character means a new subplot. Behold Dr. Philip Channard (Kenneth Cranham, of Layer Cake and Hot Fuzz), the institute’s demented brain surgeon with a yen for exploring the further reaches of the mind’s labyrinth. As the new human villain, Dr. Channard lacks for the dramatic passions of Frank and Julia, substituting with dry intellect and general eeee-vilness. A scholar and an occultist, Channard is obsessed with the history-long myth of the Cenobites – this is the true reason for Kirsty’s sequestering. He has also obtained the bloody mattress Julia died upon, with dire intents…
Meanwhile, Kirsty gets to know some of the institute’s figures – this plot ain’t goin’ nowheres! Of note is a young girl called Tiffany, though I kept wanting to call her Alice (Imogen Boorman), a mute taken entirely with solving puzzles – hmm, wonder how this’ll play out? Also there is male nurse Kyle MacRae (William Hope), a useless bit of bland man meat for Kirsty to lust after, seeing as the equally useless Steve is gone.
Enough of this nonsense, I want to see Hell!...Okay, they sate me briefly with a promise of Hell to come, as Kirsty envisions a bloody figure. Taking it for her dead father Larry, Kirsty also receives her call to action in the bloody scribbling upon the wall:
So, character motivation time! Kirsty wants to descend into Hell to rescue her father – that old Orpheus tale. Dr. Channard, the more interesting figure, simply wants to “learn” about Hell, in the broadest and least helpful sense. Knowing Channard is her likely key to the otherworld, Kirsty has useless Kyle tail Channard back to his boringly white, immaculate cottage. This is where they first start layering in Channard’s Cenobitic bric-a-brac, with it an old photo of Captain Spencer. Kyle also beholds Channard’s collection of puzzle boxes.
But hark, Channard approaches! Kyle makes himself more unnoticeable than usual, as Channard drags in his exceptionally insane buddy, Mr. Browning (Oliver Smith, the resident extremely skinny Hellraiser man). “Get them off me!” Browning howls, convinced his skin is crawling with insects. Channard grants the man a straight razor, to remove both those “insects” and his skin itself. Brr! Self-mutilation is always cringe-worthy! Of course, Channard sees to it that Browning eviscerates himself upon that bloody mattress. Thus, his blood resurrects Julia (Clare Higgins), who proceeds to suction out the rest of Browning’s life essence as she forms into a familiar blood carcass – the makeup on the bones and tendons has improved with budget. Calming, Julia asks more victims of Channard.
I understand the desire to bring Julia back, and can see why Barker wanted to focus on her. However, when your film’s purpose is to siphon all your characters off to Hell, running through the whole blood-monster rigmarole just stalls things. This means Channard’s procession of mostly female sacrifices is far more tossed-off than her sacrifices to Frank were in Hellraiser. Just like many an Alien sequel ruing the monster’s steady lifecycle, the Hell-meisters fail to have their blood-drenched cake and eat it too.
Nonetheless, they manage to squeeze some interest out of skinless Julia. She quickly develops a carnal yearning for Channard, and vice versa, because that’s apparently just what happens with these blood beasts. And because Julia is leaving her sloppy handprints all over the house like Tobias Funke, Channard clads her in gauze like a common mummy. Oddly, the soundtrack seems to regard this as a more horrific development than an unclothed Julia.
As somewhere between six and eight more humans fall to Julia’s thirst (by internal logic re: Frank, this is an odd escalation), Kyle informs Kirsty of Channard’s doings. This means at last Kirsty can take action, following Kyle back to the Channard homestead. Kyle’s scant usefulness having now been completed, he has a run-in with a fully-fleshed Julia, who proceeds to seduce him. “Come to Mother” is as obvious a nod to the original as it is unoriginal and not creepy. Oh well, Kyle’s dead.
Julia then appears ready to do in Kirsty as well – we know this ain’t gonna happen – equating herself with the Evil Queen rather than just the Wicked Stepmother as before. Yes, the whole fairy tale subtext is brought out with profound unsubtly, as she even calls Kirsty “Snow White.” Yeesh! But Julia is cut short as Channard returns with Tiffany. A moron expects she is Julia’s latest delicious sacrifice, but rather it’s clear Tiffany has been procured to solve a puzzle box and open the gates to Hell! And we’re only half way through! Considering the extreme ease with which non-puzzler Kirsty solved the box in Hellraiser, it seems a bit extreme for Channard to rely upon Tiffany. But so be it.
Thank you, thank you, things can start happening! With a sudden burst of expensive special effects without an iota of Hellraiser’s poetry, portals to the underworld manifest, as the Cenobite quartet simply strolls out to greet Tiffany. Betcha forgot about these guys! Initially they are prepped to do in Tiffany, but Pinhead suggests otherwise. “It is not hands that call us. It is desire.”
But in all your speechifying, Pinhead, you’ve allowed your quarry Julia and Channard to slip right past you, running right off into Hell for the sheer joy of poking around a bit. Seriously, that’s Channard’s sole intent, from what I can tell. So they run along down an endless dark corridor. Tiffany finds her day down an alternate portal, out of pure confusion. And Kirsty is also racing through the pits of Hell, though at least she has a purpose – to find her father.
Let’s talk Hell. The greatest accomplishment of Hellbound is its creation of a wholly unique otherworldly realm, hardly dependent upon any preexisting notions of physical damnation, be they Judeo-Christian or otherwise. And is this really Hell? An ongoing debate amongst Hellraiser fans is to what extent this series depicts religious figures as they are known, or if it is purely a distinct extra-dimensional menace. It’s maybe incorrect to even call this place “Hell.” “Labyrinth” is closer to correct, really, with its Grecian mess of endless hallways – man, do I ever get sick of those hallways! At Labyrinth’s center, over a matte painting which owes just a little to M.C. Escher, resides the mechanical master of the maze: Leviathan, a towering crystalline obelisk which emits a pure searching blackness. Yes, it’s Sauron. And the puzzle box, having entered Hell, has restructured itself to resemble Leviathan.
For the mortals now trapped here, their travails concern a series of separate “personal hells,” each one a chance for the production design team to show off their twisted notions, with neither rhyme nor reason. Really, at its best Hellbound is a sickly arresting visual effects reel, a sort of Nightmare on Elm Street for sadomasochists.
Tiffany’s trial is in a circus. Funhouse mirrors depict her mother, as evidence starts to suggest Dr. Channard silenced her as a means to gain control over puzzle master Tiffany. There is also an evil clown – naturally – who juggles his own gouged eyeballs. And a baby sewing its own mouth shut. Really, they just filmed whatever the prop guys made.
In Kirsty’s hell, she encounters reminders of her deceased mother – reminders which bloodily transform into images of the hated Julia. But no time for that now, the Cenobites are here! With this chance to reacquaint themselves with Kirsty, they assure her that in Hell there is no escape. In regards to the now-useless puzzle box: “How can it send up back, child? We are already here.” Instead, Kirsty simply runs away, which is perfectly fine with the ever-patient Pinhead. “We have eternity to know your flesh.”
Channard doesn’t get to know his personal hell, because he has Julia as his Virgil, who leads him directly to Labyrinth’s center to meet a certain something. “The god of flesh, hunger and desire. My god. Leviathan, Lord of the Labyrinth.” At Leviathan’s behest, Julia forces Channard into a biomechanical chamber, where penile-flower-tentacle-things sting Channard’s skull and inject him with blue liquid. What is this, hentai all of a sudden?!
Okay, what’s the plot here? Julia explains she was allowed back to Earth – by Leviathan – to summon Channard for this procedure, to transform him into a Cenobite. Considering Channard’s post-conversion antics, it’s hard to determine Leviathan’s intent.
Meanwhile, Kirsty’s dad-saving plot proves to be a complete red herring, a casualty of the casting process. See, Andrew Robinson didn’t want to reprise his role as Larry, even though the script was already written. Instead, they now explain it was Frank (Sean Chapman) who sent Kirsty the message, an inter-dimensional incestuous booty call. (Because Frank’s personal hell involves teasing him with abstinence.) If you think something important will come of this, it won’t. Kirsty is instantly able to set Frank’s hell ablaze. And for good measure, Julia shows up to rip Frank’s heart from his chest, killing him…Wait, killing him?! So…dead in Hell, you can die?! Hmm, I wonder what Sub-Hell is like.
Julia’s part in this over, an abyssal wind suctions her straight out of her own skin down a chasm. This wind has no effect on Kirsty and Tiffany, meanwhile, because they’re the good guys.
Her purpose in Hell a lie, Kirsty leads Tiffany back to the institute, as easy as pie. (Wait, is it the institute, or another personal hell, filled with soon-to-die patients? Who’s to say!) I assert it is still Hell, since the Channard Cenobite hovers in, his head hooked directly to Leviathan via yet another thing which looks like a penis.
Spouting endless lame medical-related “witticisms” like some surgical Freddy Kreuger, Channard runs amok through the clinic, massacring his inmates mostly off screen. His powers amount to whatever the effects guys wanted to do – that is, hand-tentacles sprout an endless variety of whatevers, from knifes to eyeballs, fingers, flowers, spikes, you name it. All done in cheesy stop motion – though I cannot fault a low-budget film for ambition, and thus conclude that these pre-CGI effects are wholly satisfactory (except for the stupid storm effects). Okay, it’s hard to describe Channard in this form…
That’s better.
Fleeing the hovering squid doctor demon, the girls return to Normal Hell, where they encounter – the Cenobites! Oh right, them. “Trick us again, child, and your suffering will be legendary, even in Hell.” (Okay, so it is called “Hell?”) But Kirsty has an ace up her sleeve, in that she has a photo of Captain Spencer up her sleeve. She reminds Pinhead, and all his playtime buddies, of his former humanity. This is the weakened state the noble Cenobites find themselves in when Channard makes his grand entrance.
They feint in the direction of an epic monster mash, which would be awesome, only…budget, script, whatever, it doesn’t happen. Instead, Channard easily hands the Cenobites their demonic asses, killing them all with nothing more involved than throat slashings. Wait…you can kill immortal demigods – in Hell – with blades?! Good to know.
Alright, what was Leviathan getting at with its new Channard toy? Methinks this is Hell’s equivalent of layoffs, employee turnover, Leviathan apparently having grown tired of Pinhead et al – engineering Julia and Channard to do them in. Still, I ask “Why?!” And Kirsty’s involvement – and how Frank was able to afford his booty call charges? Well, Leviathan needed her and Tiffany here too, in order to overcome Channard once his job was done. At least, that’s how I read it. An overall metaphysical changeover in Hell, the mortal figures mere pawns in this event.
The girls’ triumph over Channard in returning to Leviathan’s center, where Tiffany proceeds to revert the conical puzzle box back into a cube. This in turn transforms the very shape of Leviathan itself, which in turn rips Channard’s head in two horizontally. Kirsty gets in on this too, disguising herself in Julia’s skin to distract Channard with horniness. Because all he wants to do is smooch Julia day in and day out.
The girls flee the climactic, hellish lightshow, escaping unquestionably back to the terrestrial realm of Earth. The gate seals behind them, and they stroll off to a presumed happy ending of struggling to explain what happened to the cops.
But such infernal upheaval cannot occur without fallout, or sequel hook. The Hellraiser series has struggled against the clichés of 80s horror, and here it loses. Two movers clear out Channard’s cottage, and one is dragged to his horrible doom in the bloody mattress – and he didn’t even bleed on it! What the?! In his place rises a hideous spinning torture pillar, the series’ lost souls trapped within. It’s a great big visual mess, which is how Hellbound: Hellraiser II opts to end itself. Which is appropriate.
Despite all these criticisms, the makers of Hellbound did at least attempt a respectful continuation to Hellraiser. They largely failed, as the narrative is complete bollux, leaving the viewer solely with ghastly, random imagery – a much more niche proposition. It’s possible Hellraiser never lent itself to a successful sequel – not every film, even a genre film, can sustain multiple entries. Really, the main focus here is on mere Hellraiser trivia – the Cenobites, now unequivocally the focus of the series, even while Channard and the ventricles of Hell threaten to overwhelm them. So, we’re well beneath the level of almost-classic, left with something closer to the standard horror morass Hellraiser rose above. But we’re not there yet! That’ll hafta wait for further sequels.
Related posts:
• No. 1 Hellraiser (1987)
• No. 3 Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth (1992)
• No. 4 Hellraiser: Bloodline (1996)
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