As much as I hate ’90s horror, here is Hellraiser III almost making me nostalgic for it. Shot like a grunge-era MTV music video with a cast of stereotypical yuppies and gorgeous pseudo-freaks that appear borrowed from a network TV drama from the same period, this movie is a fucking time capsule. It looks really good, though the aesthetic is all gloss and no grit – every apartment is spectacular and every actor looks like a model. But that doesn’t stop director Anthony Hickox from mounting some well-executed scenes of tacky, baroque grotesqueries.
The inane story is best epitomized by the character of J.P. Monroe, a womanizing, mega-rich hunk of an artist who lives above the S&M-themed rock club/fancy restaurant he owns. Sure, nothing makes sense, but make it through a first half in which Pinhead is stuck in a statue and you’ll be rewarded with an extensive, special-effects-laden finale replete with cheesy one-liners. The new Cenobite designs are bizarre, outrageous, and completely stupid – one has a video camera for a head, another is a pyromaniacal bartender, and one even shoots deadly CDs out of his dumbass face. It’s all in delightfully poor taste.
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