Hellraiser 3 - Hell on Earth [IMPORT]

Rating:
Summary: Turn in series gets appalling DVD release
Review: Hellraiser III was necessary following the events of Hellbound, but I can see why this film isn't popular with a lot of fans.

Paramount took over the franchise (New World Pictures folded) and turned Hellraiser into something more akin to a slasher movie. They keep Pinhead on the screen far too long, which in a horror movie is a no-no. He suffers from Freddy Kruegerc Syndrome, where instead of finding the character creepy, you become familiar with him until he starts injecting humor into the whole thing.

This is not a good entry point to the series. The franchise comes across as plain cheesy at times in this entry. Yet, it seems like they had all of the elements in place. Clive Barker is producing, Tony Randle and Peter Atkins (who were involved with Hellbound) return to pen the story, and you've got the always-game Doug Bradley as Pinhead. Yet it is an unfortunate departure from the tone of the first two films.

Pinhead starts the movie trapped inside the Pillar of Souls, which is purchased by nightclub owner JP Monroe for his own collection. Meanwhile, the mysterious and head bursting death of a young man by way of hooks and chains in the ER one night leads intrepid reporter Joey Summerskill on the trail of the Lament Configuration.

This movie rounds out the origin of Pinhead that was touched on in Hellbound. Following the end of that film, Pinhead is free of his human half and comes to earth as a truly dark and unmerciful figure. Hell on Earth has a high body count, including the massacre of an entire club full of people. There is also the unforgivable sin of several bad one-liners following grisly deaths, namely by the Camerahead Cenobite. Speaking of Cenobites, Pinhead now seems capable of creating them at the drop of a hat for his own purposes. They cheapify the whole thing by giving us a CD-Cenobite who throws deadly discs, the aforementioned Camera Head guy with the awful lines, and a cool-looking but
equally pointless Bartender Cenobite who mixes fiery drinks. Cripes. Bring back the Chatterer!

Overall, the film just fudges with the Hellraiser mythos that made the first two films stand out from the rest of the horror movie pack of the time. Not a slasher series, Hellraiser is given a working over in Hell on Earth for some cheap thrills.

At the end of the day, I don't hate the movie as many fans do. I sat back and had some fun. I found the follow-up, Bloodline, to be an ambitious failure. I think the series returned to the spirit of Barker's original story with the later Inferno and Hellseeker, both released straight to DVD following the bad taste left by Hell on Earth and Bloodline.

The DVD is awful, one of the worst I've seen. It says Special Edition, but that's a complete joke. This looks like a VHS copy of the film. We get no widescreen, we get no extras, no sound work over, no nothing. The cheapest, barest bones DVD I've seen in a long time. This movie needs a proper release with some extras in the hope of some redemption.

Recommended for fans of the series, as you'll want to see them all. Otherwise this might satisfy genre fans on a slow night.

Rating:
Summary: Unbelievably Bad Transfer
Review: I am adding my voice to the others who criticized the quality of the picture. I thought my TV was broken when I first played the DVD. It is all dark and blurry, like a 4th generation VHS recording. Or a recording which was degraded by Macrovision copy protection. Now there's a thought, because I cannot believe that this DVD is authorized. It is that bad. This movie is very obscure and it might be difficult to find other versions. I am aware of a VCD version which might be worth a try. I should not post the link here (think "allvcds"). I have not viewed that VCD though. A well produced VCD is playable on most DVD players, and has picture quality comparable to a new VHS cassette. As for this DVD... the horror of the picture quality exceeds Pinhead's horror.

Rating:
Summary: Beware of this version...
Review: I bought a copy of this dvd which I have since returned. The company that released it is Lions Gate Films. The dvd is in stereo but has no extras/captioning, etc., despite the fact that the package says 'Special Edition'. I'm not sure what that means unless they are referring to price, I paid [dollar amount], which would be a steal if the video quality wasn't so poor, i.e: grainy. I don't know what was used to make the transfer but I am betting it was not an original print. Viewed on my dvd player through the component output, the video quality looked like a badly recorded VHS tape, that killed it for me, so I returned it. Is there a better version out there?

Rating:
Summary: Pathetic.... Cenobites laughable!
Review: I enjoyed HELLRAISER and HELLBOUND, but I knew the third movie would be pretty bad. And sadly, I was correct. HELLRAISER III was flat-out horrible. I have respect for Pinhead and his not-completely-evil but not-quite-good personality, and this movie disgusted me. The main character, a reporter named Joey, was both a bad actor and her character a bad idea. Pinhead's spirit apparently parts into one pure, goody-goody spirit and one flat-out evil one, your basic horror villian. The most exciting thing about Pinhead was since he was somewhat good, you were't sure what he was going to do. This movie ruined that. Pinhead's fellow Cenobites in HELLRAISER & HELLBOUND were extremely cool, and in the third film he creates new ones, and dear god, they are horrible. THEY SHOULD HAVE STOPPED AT HELLBOUND!!! If you want to continue the good vibes in Hellraiser one and two, spare yourself the ruin and don't watch this movie!

Rating:
Summary: Embarassing Follow-up To Two Incredible Movies
Review: I hate to be one of those people that gripes endlessly when a horror sequel changes things up and doesn't stick to the formula/rules that the original set-up, but this is ridiculous. Following up two mind-blowing and unique horror movies, "Hellraiser III: Hell On Earth" is limp on all accounts. In this installment, the film-makers opted to turn Pinhead into the star of the movie. These movies were never supposed to focus on Pinhead, rather, they revolved around ordinary people and how their decisions and lifestyles affect and destroy the lives of themselves and those around them. The story of Frank and Julia was compelling, because their severe selfishness and evil basically unleashed Hell on half a dozen innocent people. But I digress. Here, Pinhead is pushed into the spotlight and comes across as a Freddy Krueger clone. Obviously with the success of films like "A Nightmare On Elm Street" and "Friday The 13th" and their notorious villains, the people behind this flick had the mindset that they could do the same for Pinhead. Well folks, I have to say, it just did not work. For starters, Pinhead isn't funny, and shouldn't be funny. And don't even get me started on the mindless, droning speeches he would give throughout the film. Very frustrating and obnoxious to watch. And should I even bring up the CD spitting cenobite? The characters are way too cartoony and have no life in them. I didn't feel convinced or sympathic towards anyone. Whenever a plot-point would be presented that was supposed to enhance certain characters, it was never built upon correctly and was just presented very clumsily. A major slide from the first two flicks, which gave you colorful characters to love and hate as you wished. Another point that the movie fails on is it relies to heavily on gore. And I don't mind gore. I'm obsessed with horror movies, but gore is useless if it isn't accompained by suspense. Here, it just seems gratuitous and the effects themselves leave much to be desired. Towards the end, I started to fall asleep and didn't care too much to see how the movie ended up, the sign of a truly bad horror movie. "Hellraiser III: Hell On Earth" can be enjoyed on a somewhat superficial level. As a fan of slasher movies, I found this to be somewhat entertaining in bits, but overall, it's an utter failure. The DVD is pathetic. Special Edition? Hardly. There is not a single extra to be found on here. No trailer, no production notes, nothing. The only thing "Special" about this "Edition" is that it is hard to track down -- my copy is a Canadian import.

Rating:
Summary: average horror but better than than the first one
Review: I have only seen the first Hellraiser before I saw this one. I thought the first one was terrible. This was much better. The plot was better. There was more thrills. And the Cenobites were awesome(especially CD Man).

Rating:
Summary: Poorest of DVD quality
Review: I have seen this movie on VHS and it's one of the Hellraiser films that I enjoy. I liked the characters and the direction of the movie. When I watched this film on DVD last night, I was shocked at how poorly the DVD played. If the picture quality was like this on all DVDs, I'd still be watching VHS.

The DVD has Lions Gate Home Entertainment on the label, but that must be a mistake. I wouldn't believe they'd release a DVD of this quality.

A fun film to watch, but not on DVD. I hope they redo this DVD someday. I'd like to see it transfered properly

Rating:
Summary: Great Character, Crap Movie
Review: I love Hellraiser, I love the Lead Cenobite/Pinhead, I love Clive Barker and the work he influences, I love the mythology of the Hellraiser series....I hate this movie. Mind you the intentions behind it were clearly good. Pete Atkins wrote it so you know the guy was in it for fun and love of horror...but the ultimate carryout is terrible.
THe acting is by far the worst of the entire series...I mean, yikes did they even try to get a good cast? The Cenobites have crap conceptualization behind them (the Terry Cenobite burns people with her cigarettes ...pointless, the Camerahead Cenobite has a ....camera...head...and sucks because of it). The effects are shoddy and the whole picture looks like it was staged and carried out in a matter of days. Amateur work at best. Its a shame to say it but this is not a good picture.
Hellraiser gave us solid story and characters and a creepy concept of a hell taken over by this new breed of demons. The Cenobites (the aforementioned demons) are geniunely creepy and awe-inspiring. Overall a geniune masterpiece of horror. Hellbound: Hellraiser 2 gave us an expanded mythology of hell and the elements within it, a history of the Cenobites, a study of an infatuation with the occult and strange visuals that despite their "eighties" feel still work wonderfully in context to the picture. Part Three...stunk and ruined the concept. I suspect its mostly due to inappropriate budget, bad actors, and the fact that the franchise had moved on to another studio. Add to that overuse of the Cenobites, a plot for those afflicted with ADD, and just laughable production values and you get this tripe. Mind you i have been known to love cheesy movies also..but not when they are supposed to continue a serious and weird vein of films. Bad movie with a good heart, buy it if you a fan of Hellraiser. STEER clear is you are not!

Rating:
Summary: Great Character, Crap Movie
Review: I love Hellraiser, I love the Lead Cenobite/Pinhead, I love Clive Barker and the work he influences, I love the mythology of the Hellraiser series....I hate this movie. Mind you the intentions behind it were clearly good. Pete Atkins wrote it so you know the guy was in it for fun and love of horror...but the ultimate carryout is terrible.
THe acting is by far the worst of the entire series...I mean, yikes did they even try to get a good cast? The Cenobites have crap conceptualization behind them (the Terry Cenobite burns people with her cigarettes ...pointless, the Camerahead Cenobite has a ....camera...head...and sucks because of it). The effects are shoddy and the whole picture looks like it was staged and carried out in a matter of days. Amateur work at best. Its a shame to say it but this is not a good picture.
Hellraiser gave us solid story and characters and a creepy concept of a hell taken over by this new breed of demons. The Cenobites (the aforementioned demons) are geniunely creepy and awe-inspiring. Overall a geniune masterpiece of horror. Hellbound: Hellraiser 2 gave us an expanded mythology of hell and the elements within it, a history of the Cenobites, a study of an infatuation with the occult and strange visuals that despite their "eighties" feel still work wonderfully in context to the picture. Part Three...stunk and ruined the concept. I suspect its mostly due to inappropriate budget, bad actors, and the fact that the franchise had moved on to another studio. Add to that overuse of the Cenobites, a plot for those afflicted with ADD, and just laughable production values and you get this tripe. Mind you i have been known to love cheesy movies also..but not when they are supposed to continue a serious and weird vein of films. Bad movie with a good heart, buy it if you a fan of Hellraiser. STEER clear is you are not!

Rating:
Summary: Incredible!
Review: I purchased this DVD for five dollars because I heard the quality was really poor, but I didn't think it would be so poor that you couldn't watch it. I think "special edition" means unwatchable. Take my advice and the advice of the other reviewers, wait for a better edition to be released.