The Hellraiser franchise hasn't exactly been respectable in a long time, with 1996's Hellraiser: Bloodline the last movie in the horror series to get a theatrical release. Four direct-to-video sequels followed, the last in 2005, before the folks at Dimension decided to reboot the whole thing with a high-profile remake of the 1987 original. But when that movie stalled in development and the company was in danger of losing the rights to the property, executives instead green-lit a new direct-to-video installment, Hellraiser: Revelations, produced as quickly and cheaply as possible to fulfill contractual obligations. Even longtime franchise star Doug Bradley, who endured bad dialogue and
minimal screen time while playing the evil Pinhead in all eight previous
installments, balked at showing up for this one. If you've seen the
kind of stuff Bradley was willing to put up with in the past, then you
know how bad Revelations must be for him to take a pass.
The basic idea here isn't that much worse than the set-ups for previous Hellraiser sequels: A pair of obnoxious young dudes head down to Mexico for some good old-fashioned drinking and having sex with prostitutes, bringing along a video camera to document their exploits (for a few minutes it seems like Revelations is going to take the popular found-footage approach, but that device gets dropped early on). Things take a dark turn when the two friends come into possession of the demonic puzzle box that summons up Pinhead and his fellow sadistic Cenobites. Cut to several months (or maybe years?) later, and the parents of the two young men are having dinner together and trying to avoid talking about how their sons went missing a while back.
Revelations switches back and forth between flashbacks that reveal what happened to Steven (Nick Eversman) and Nico (Jay Gillespie) after opening the box and the present-day story in which Steven mysteriously returns, bringing all sorts of evil in tow. The low budget is evident in the single location (a secluded house) for the main story and the minimal sets for the flashbacks, and the limited scope makes the movie feel constrained rather than intimate. The original Hellraiser took place almost entirely in one house as well, but it had the innovative vision of creator Clive Barker behind it. Here, writer Gary J. Tunnicliffe (who worked on past Hellraiser installments as a special-effects designer and second unit director) and director Victor Garcia (who also helmed direct-to-video sequels to Mirrors and House on Haunted Hill) seem to be trying for an homage to Barker's original in certain respects, but their efforts are limited in both resources and creativity.
As bad as previous Hellraiser movies could get, Bradley could usually be relied on to bring some level of grandeur to Pinhead's ridiculous dialogue, and Revelations suffers greatly from his absence. Replacement Stephan Smith Collins is a poor substitute, looking less like an all-powerful demon from hell and more like a guy in a Halloween costume. His wavering accent never captures Bradley's menacing cadence, so even the scenes of Pinhead ripping apart characters' flesh come across as underwhelming. Collins is far from the worst actor in the film, though, and the consistently bad performances undermine any sense of dread or terror that Tunnicliffe and Garcia try to create. Eversman is especially awful as the returned Steven, whose scary, intense moments are all completely laughable.
Clocking in at barely more than 70 minutes, Revelations radiates indifference, practically announcing its status as a studio write-off. There's a glimmer of a decent idea here from at least one person (Tunnicliffe) who has a connection to the franchise, but no one seems to care enough to properly pull it off. Now that all the licensing has been duly renewed, maybe Dimension will put some actual effort and resources into a remake that treats the franchise with respect instead of disdain.
