Hellraiser: Bloodline Hellraiser: Bloodline (Air Date: Week Of 3/13/96)
Evisceration. Bloodletting. Barbed hooks piercing skin. A night in the honeymoon suite of Charles and Diana? No, friends, it's the new love fest featuring everyone's favorite lord of the Pit, Pinhead. Not Zippy the pinhead, mind you, but the "real" Pinhead from the gory horror series begun by the twisted ramblings of Clive Barker. "Hellraiser: Bloodline" is both typical and atypical of the series in that it features extreme violence and just gobs o' blood, but also has an interesting plotline and fairly well defined characters. Uh, sort of.
Doug Bradley reprises his role as Pinhead in "Hellraiser: Bloodline" and spouts off all sorts of stuff about "endless pain", "oblivion", "sweet agony", and the like. He threatens people, laughs maniacally, and makes a general nuisance of himself as he tries to open a permanent passage between Hell and Earth. The story revolves around a family of French descent and how an ancestor built the little toy box that became a gateway to Pinhead's penthouse. If you've seen any of these movies, then you know what the box can do. Suffice to say that it's kind of like an E-ticket to some serious suffering. The family's bloodline is cursed, and they are all condemned to an eternal struggle to destroy the box by building another box that will counteract its effect. All of which leads to a showdown on a space station between Pinhead and the last surviving member of the family.
So, is this great science fiction? No. Is it great horror, sending endless chills down one's spine? Not really. What this movie is, though, is a decent distraction. It's certainly not a bad little time at the movies, but it's not exactly a rip-snortin' good time either.
Copyright 1996 John A. Lavin