Hellraiser II: A Nightmare on Hell(m) Street.

It might be filled with gore soaked mattresses and gratuitous chunks of flesh being torn about, but I’ve always refered to this as the “fun” Hellraiser movie... this thing just reminds me of like, a Dream Warriors vibe? I love the world building, the look of the cenobites, Leviathan, all the blood/goop/flesh chunks, and Dr. Channard—a sicko villain almost as wicked/worthy as Julia and Frank. My only wish would have been to see Barker direct this one as well, but regardless, Randel does a fine job with this intricately gross insatiable material and this is definitely one of my favorite part II’s out there—I love this movie and my boy chatterer looks awesome here.

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I think that this is a really solid piece of playful, grotesque craftsmanship by Randall and it has an ambitious vision of how to expand this mythos into a full-on gory fantasy/sci-fi labyrinth but both times I’ve seen it I can’t help but wish I liked it more. It has all the creature make-up, production design, matte paintings, and mood necessary to sell its transition from the original’s erotic Fulci movie to a more commercial absurd nonsense plot machine just fine but I find it a shame that in order to do that it drops nearly all the intensely perverted and incestuous character melodrama stuff which to me is just a much ickier and more skin-crawling way to explore Barker’s cosmic,…

They did go to hell. But, to be honest, I'd rather see Pinhead and the Cenobites get more screen time. They are the real reason why this franchise has grown in popularity. Despite its arguably more ambitious plot and accompanying aesthetics, it's simply a more straightforward story and, as a result, isn't as engaging as its predecessor. It was also far stranger than the first. It wasn't much sadomasochistic stuff, just strange stuff. Don't misunderstand me. I usually like weird, and I did enjoy some of the weirdness, but there were times when I had no idea what was going on. Everything seemed to be happening at random. However, it retains disturbing, undeniably inventive visuals and a generally ambitious, otherworldly…