A horror directed by Clive Barker, Tony Randel, Anthony Hickox, Kevin Yagher, Joe Chappelle, Scott Derrickson and Rick Bota, starring Doug Bradley.
A magical puzzle box opens a doorway between hell and earth to let demons through into the real world.
Get ready for what I will term "the rainbow effect" because there are a lot of films of varying qualities in this series.
The first film was made in my favorite year and is grisly and gruesome as well as being directed by the writer. The plot is good and the characters are decent. The second film is a continuation of the first where instead of Frank coming out of the floor skinless, Julia comes out of Frank's mattress skinless. Kirsty gets a companion in this film named Tiffany. She is a girl who won't speak, but only solves puzzles and is used to open the box. The last part of the film takes place in hell, where one of the doctors turns into a cenobite. This film was good as well. The third film was horrible. The owner of a bar buys the pillar of souls and when his bar is attacked by Pinhead, some of the victims turn into cenobites with cheesy powers like CD throwing or a drink mixer full of gasoline. In the fourth film, the history of the puzzle box is explained as well as the future. This is also the only film to feature the dog cenobite, so it gets an awesome rating. The fifth film follows a corrupt police detective who is following a trail of nasty murders as he goes insane. It's adequate. The sixth film is the story of a man who is married to Kristy and gives her the puzzle box as an anniversary present before supposedly killing her in a car accident. It was o.k. and I could tell that the series was getting stale. In the seventh film, a news writer goes to investigate a group of people who apparently come back from death with the help of their leader. It was really stretching the limits of the series and gets a poor rating for this. The eighth film sucks even worse than the third as young people go to a "hell world" (a popular video game depicting hellraiser memorabilia) party only to get killed. The soundtrack features some whiney alternative rock and nu-metal that will destroy your brain cells. It gets a shit review. How's that for rainbow effect? I'm including a little known picture, the bone dragon who used to be the hairy homeless guy.
