Hellraiser: Judgement is currently the most recent Hellraiser film as of 2020. It’s the 10th film in the franchise. The same people that own the rights to this franchise also own the Children of the Corn franchise, and it is funny because I have compared the two. It now makes total sense. This and CotC: Runaway were filmed in Oklahoma at the same time, I guess. Look, I only have one expectation. I expect this to be better than Revelations. The director of this sounds like a guy who legitimately cares about the franchise and really did his homework. I am oddly enough excited to see what he came up with.
Heather Langenkamp is in this, and you know her as Nancy from Nightmare on Elm Street 1, Part 3 Dream Warriors, and Wes Craven’s New Nightmare. She was also in Truth or Dare and Shocker. I regret mentioning Shocker. Okay, I have some pineapple and it is time to finish this franchise on schedule. Yay. Let’s see what Hellraiser: Judgement is all about. Oh yeah, I apparently bought this on digital some time ago. I must have always known it would come to this.
Start Film
Okay, I already like this Pinhead better than the one from Revelations. He has a better look and voice. We get a new Hell-ish character known as The Auditor. A man named Mr. Watkins was invited to a place and is now being held captive by the Auditor. The Auditor is a pretty interesting character. Watkins did some shit to a little girl. His name is Karl He mentions there being so much blood. This news will be passed on the Assessor and then to the Jury. The Assessor pours tears of children from a bottle onto the documents and then he eats the documents. Then he pukes them up. Hello partially skinned beautiful topless women that are also the Jury. They said that he is guilty. Now Karl will have to see the surgeon. He is strapped to a large woodblock. Some nude women come in an eat his flesh. Here comes this hoss, I assume to be the surgeon and the Jury is watching. From behind the hoss comes a person all in black who slices up Karl and removes his skin. Okay, so far, so good. Really good start.
Hello pretty lady, Crystal, who wants to have a quickie with Josh. It’s not Josh in there. She had a good line about drying up. Some dude just punched her and wants to make a lesson out of her.
Now we get David and maybe Sean Carter. They are detectives. In the apartment is a video of Crystal repeatedly saying “I worship this little guy” while referring to her dog. Detective Christine Edgerton has been assigned to this case, as well. The murder is called The Perceptor. Something is moving inside the lady. It’s the dog and he put it in her womb. Okay, well played. Sean’s wife is pissed about her birthday. There’s been 14 victims and 2 commandments to go. This has a very similar vibe to Seven, only more pure horror.
Another murder and crime scene. A bunch of hands grasping teeth and eye. They are alluding to an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. Then there is a big jug of blood. They consider that it may be Karl. There’s Heather! She is a landlady. Karl’s room had no window. Heather was fun for a very brief scene. Sean decides to go back and investigate the apartment by himself later on and the landlady turned the power back on for him. There’s a computer that dings and leads to the house that Karl visited in the opening. Sean visits.
He wakes up and now he is tied to the chair and talking to the Auditor. They both want to know about the Preceptor. Sean asks about all the puzzle boxes. The Auditor explains that they are a conduit of sorts. He asks Sean when was the first time that he hurt something. He was 4 and had a pet dog. When he was 25, he apparently shot a man. Then as a soldier, he killed two kids with a grenade. Sean has quite the history. Next up is the Assessor. This guy cracks me up. He is shoveling the pages in his mouth, but he starts choking. Black is coming out of his mouth and this is painful for him. The Auditor checks on the Jury and they are also sick too. Sean was going to be taken to be cleaned, but something has happened. This blond is telling the Auditor that he must let Sean go. Don’t give her a reason to return there. There was a lot of white light and it was blurry.
Sean is tied to the wooden block and the women come to clean him. They all spit into these little cups and then that is poured into a mug and then into his mouth. Ohhhhhhh, that was gross. Good job. The Auditor finds Pinhead and the Chatterer. All of the Cleaners are on the ground and not moving. Sean escaped with one of the boxes. The Auditor wants Pinhead to go after him, but he assures him that Sean will be back. Sean has David meet him with a flashlight and they go right back to where the Auditor is. It’s 2:30 in the morning and they go busting in. There’s nothing. David is asking questions. Already halfway over. This has been good.
I just hope this isn’t all going to be a dream moving forward. Sean is having a dream about Cenobites putting an iron mask on him. A Cenobite pours something hot onto his face and he wakes up screaming. God damnit, I said not to be a dream. Sean has sex with Allison but he is still thinking about the dream and freaks out. Good times. He leaves with a bottle in his hand, but someone was behind him but then he isn’t. Some guy hits him and he is skinless and 3 other ladies with him.
David talks to Christine about Sean. She asks if he ever suffered any PTSD. Christine reveals that she was assigned there also because of Sean’s behavior. David gets a call from Allison. David gets Sean and tells him to watch out because of Christine. Is Sean the Preceptor? He knows a lot about religion. He likes Charles Dickens. That’s all the proof I need. Crystal’s phone was jammed down her throat per the medical examiner. The Medical Examiner has a fantastic Hawaiian shirt on. She wasn’t killed at her apartment. They tracked it via the GPS.
They go to the location and call for backup, but Sean wants to go in now. I hope it is Sean and that he is going to kill her and that he didn’t really make the call. This appears to be the hideout. All the victims on the wall with the final one covered by a red curtain. He reveals it to be David in bed with Allison and then Sean hits Christine. Woohoo, nailed it. He beat the fuck out of her. David ha snow arrived. Sean has some loud ass music playing and Sean tells David to drop his gun. David says that backup is on the way and Sean says no they aren’t, but somebody else is. And that will be Allison, and right on cue.
Allison cheated on Sean after he left for his first tour of duty. Sean killed that dude. Sean makes then sit down in front of each other. He makes them hold the puzzle box together and open it. Here comes the pain and the chains. There’s the pillar! And finally, here’s Pinhead. Sean wants to make a deal with Pinhead, but he can’t make a deal because the other group wants Sean, not Pinhead’s. Sean has been found guilty by the Jury. He is going to be cleaned. Haha, David and Allison were dragged to Hell via chains. Ohhh, the white light and beautiful lady shows up. God wants Sean out there to keep the sinners scared and fearful. Sean thinks that he has been forgiven. Haha, but there will be judgment. Sean tries shooting them, it was funny. The lady of light says to send him back. So he is sent back and immediately gunned down by Christine. She calls it in.
The light lady is pissed that Pinhead knew that is how it would play out. She tells him that he will suffer, and he is like, bitch please, I welcome suffering. It’s his dominion. So now he goes after the light lady with his chains. He pulls out some pins from his head and sticks them in her head, like a crown. He has her face chained. She says “Jesus wept”, just like Frank did. She is ripped apart.
The Auditor suggests that maybe Pinhead shouldn’t have done that since she is the angel that banished them from the Garden of Eden. He suggests that there may be a type of torture that they cannot endure: banishment. Back to a mortal world. Pinhead is now a human again.
End Film
The angel lady was Jophiel. I just read that. I am too lazy to go correct myself with a random name. Oh, a post-credit scene in Germany. There are 2 Jehova’s Witnesses and they end up meeting the Auditor.
End Film for real.
Oh, I loved that ending!!! This was a lot of fun. I think this may have been my second favorite Hellraiser. Unbelievable! This was Hellraiser meets Seven and I really liked how fast everything happened. The gore, special effects, horror aspects were all there. Pinhead felt normal again without long-ass speeches that went nowhere. This feels like a real Hellraiser him. I definitely would love to see what the director’s cut would look like since I read that Gary Tunnicliffe had to cut a lot of excess stuff out due to gore or sex or violence. Gary did a great job with this.
Rating: 6.1 – I have no complaints. Yes, it was pretty obvious with all the clues, but it is like in wrestling. When something obvious is going to happen, like a wrestler suddenly becomes a bad guy, that doesn’t matter as much as the story reaches its logical conclusion. That’s what they accomplished here.
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