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Hellraiser VI - Hellseeker

Hellraiser VI - Hellseeker

List Price: $14.99
Your Price: $13.49
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Rating: 1 stars
Summary: DIMENSION FILMS has lost it...
Review: - Mimic 1 2 and 3, Scream 1 2 and 3, several Children of The Corn movies, Halloween H20 and Halloween Resurrection, Hellraiser Bloodline and Inferno... All worthless!!! Someone need to take a lawsuit against Dimension Films for making these kind of movies! Apparently they are planning a Pinhead versus Michael Myers... But, please dont! Please make a decent sequel for one of the many horror franchise you've bought! Like Bloodline (the only watchable Hell movie from Dimension) and Inferno, there is almost NO Pinhead at all. The movie attempts to go back to its roots but fails like never before. It is however more watchable than the ridicoules INFERNO chapter. Dimension Films has lost it!!! I would recomment everbody NOT to buy any more films from Dimension Films at all! We NEED to get rid of them!

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: A Review Of Yet Another Nail In A Dying Franchise!
Review: Imagine capatilizing on the "Halloween" franchise just to have Michael Myers show up for three minutes? Better yet. Does anyone remember the short-lived "Freddy's Nightmares" series where most of the episodes only featured Freddy doing hosting duties. If you're gonna turn a movie into a cash cow then you might as well pimp its most popular character for everything it's worth and give the fans what they want to see.

Sadly, this movie which seems promising (especially with the return of Ashley Laurance) is just boring. For a sequel with the heroine returning, it tries awfully hard to forget that it is even related to the other movies. Laurence despite a top billing gets very little screen time and if you watched the last Hellraiser, you are getting about the same amount from Pinhead as you did then...

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: "Hellbound to Hellsuck..."
Review: Okay, I will admit this, it is a good Hellraiser movie, and it doesn't rely on pitiful gore effects, it relies more on suspense and shadows on the wall. There are many disturbing images seen in this film as well, but the redeeming quality was Pinhead, he was great, and Doug Bradley's portrayal really resurrected the movie from the visions of Dean Winter's character, Trevor. The plot synopsis on the back of the cover art is far from what the movie is really about, it is actually about Trevor struggling to put the pieces back together about how his wife died, let alone finding out if she's actually dead. When the film is over, you get a brand new plot, and that leaves the door open for a sequel, and there actually will be two new sequels, Hellraiser: Deader, due out later this year, and Hellraiser: Hellworld, due out next year. Hellraiser: Hellseeker was a decent sequel, and had more Pinhead than the other movies.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: HellSurprise
Review: I was truly and pleasantly surprised by the sixth installment of the Hellraiser saga. In the horror genre, it is typical for sequels to turn into parodies of the original (e.g., Friday the 13th and Leprechaun went as far as placing the hero in outer space!) as the producers struggle to create a bigger and "badder" version of the same story. That is not the case with Hellraiser. But while there is no attempt to make a bigger and badder Hellraiser, clearly the story has morphed from the sheer horror of Hellraiser 1 into a more surreal, suspenseful drama ending with the ultimate horror: the ironic hopelessness of being forever trapped in a living hell. This transformation was most evident in Hellraiser: Inferno, which some found hard to follow with all its clever twists. Hellseeker is easier to follow, but every bit as eerie and surreal as Inferno. The strong points of Hellseeker are its ability to keep you guessing, the surprising yet logical conclusion, the overwhelming feeling of eeriness from beginning to end, and the scriptwriter's ability to keep key elements of the Hellraiser history intact while exploring new characters and a new approach. The weaker points, and they are few, are some pacing problems about half way into the movie where the story almost crawls to a halt, and at the ending, where Pinhead literally has to tell you he is going explain everything. It's almost as if the director felt that without Pinhead's intro, the movie would have been lost on the viewers. (Please give us some credit!)

By the way, what was with the packaging? The description of the story on the back of the DVD is way off target (did the person who wrote that even see the movie?).

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Not as bad as some might have you to believe
Review: I'm not sure I understand the hatred for this movie, the sixth installment of the Hellraiser film series. The negative online reviews I've read don't shed much light as to why they disliked this movie. At a guess, I'd say it's because Clive Barker has pretty much detached his name from the franchise. After watching some of the recent sequals (ex: "Bloodlines" and "Inferno"), it isn't hard to figure out why he'd wish to distance himself. "Hellseeker" on the other hand, while being far from perfect, took the essence of Barker's original story and began to tread new ground. At the very least, it was a far cry from "Hell On Earth," where Pinhead was no longer an indifferent presence, but a malevolent participant.

Like all the other horror movie "monsters" emerging from the late 70s and 80s, I think Pinhead and the Hellraiser franchise has had its day. There are bigger, better ideas to explore. Most of the newer horror films out there are formulaic, and leaves the viewer bereft of any sympathy for the characters. Hellraiser was interesting, because there was no formula to the story. And at a guess, it opened up the eyes of many closeted S&M fetishests. Pleasures and torments of the flesh and mind. It has a sort of grotesque/horrifying beauty to it.

Anyhow, the flood gates opened a long time ago. S&M has a very open following, leaving the horrors of Hellraiser flat and under nourished. The essence of Hellraiser has lost its sting, which is why I believe "Hellseeker" to be a worthy final chapter in the series. Of the myriad sequals that followed "Hellraiser," this movie seems to care enough about the characters to solidify itself as one of the better films from the series. And with the appearence of Ashley Lawerence, "Hellseeker" also radiates a full-circle aura.

And so...for "Hellraiser" completists, this is the film for you. For casual fans like myself, it's a good movie to have on the shelf next to "Hellraiser" and the first sequal, "Hellbound."

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: dissapointed???
Review: Why were so many people dissapointed with this film??
I thought it had a good mystery and was surrounded with the "Hellraiser" mythos..is it a Pinhead flick? no, is it well made? yes....If you enjoy a good mystery with some horror thrown in then this is a good disc to buy! however if you want mindless gore and guts and more pinhead , watch 1 and 2 again and again! This film shines where 3 didnt, not anywhere near the greatness of the first two , but it stands on its own! the twists and turns keep you guessing and pay off at the end....if there is another film they can go Many different directions now!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Probably the BEST
Review: I just can't imagine how anyone cannot like this movie. Hellraiser 1 i say only deserves 3 stars. Hellraiser 2 deserves 4 stars. Hellraiser 3 deserves 4 stars. Hellraiser 4 deserves 3 stars again. Hellraiser 5 deserves 5 stars and this one 5 stars again. The last 2 had to be the best. The First 2 films were very tacky and i wasn't scared at all. this is a improvement and whoever doesn't like it doesn't have good taste.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Another horrible sequal by "Dimension Films"!!!
Review: I have had enough of "Dimension Films" sequals. The Hellraiser series ended after the second one ("Hellbound") was made. Don't waste your time with this movie; it is far from living up to the first two Hellraisers.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A Refreshing Perspective
Review: I've been a fan of Clive Barker since his original incarnation of the Hellraiser series named 'The HellBound Heart', which appeared in a reprinted collection of short stories named the 'Books Of Blood'. I was very pleased with Hellseeker as it was not only a new perspective on the series, but also captured the essence of Clive's literary style; dark and twisted.

I'm grateful to all those involved.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Please put the pins back in. I can't watch anymore . . .
Review: It seems like an eternity ago when Miramaxs' genre label Dimension Films had acquired the rights to continue the story of Clive Barkers' dark and sordid 'Hellraiser' series. It seemed like the perfect partnership: 'Hellraiser' had become a strong franchise with the first three entries and Dimension was building its catalogue with rough and ready hits like 'From Dusk Til Dawn'. Oh, we rejoiced. Oh, we were wrong. Yeah for every 'From Dusk Till Dawn' there was a plethora of 'Children of the Corns', 'Mimic' sequels, and oh my, what had they done to 'Hellraiser'? Okay, I could go on about how 'Hellrasier: Bloodline' was akin to watching paint dry, how 'Hellraiser: Inferno' seemed like an episode of 'NYPD Blue' spliced with a Charles Band quickie, but these things couldn't get any worse. could they? Surely, someone at Dimensions Films must have seen the original 'Hellraiser' and realised the awful mistake they were making? Well, judging from this entry suitably called 'Hellseeker', no one at Dimension was watching anything (least of all Parts 1-3), and soon enough for Dimension, none of the audience will be watching either.

The bland, bland story concerns Trevor (OZ's Dean Winters) who survives a car accident. However, his wife does not. And, so begins 90 minutes of tedium as Trevor hallucinates dark sexual fantasies, gory happenings and visions of 'ol Pinhead himself. It seems, that Trevor once purchased that damn annoying puzzle box and given it to his wife before their untimely accident. Oh yeah, did I mention who the wife was? Well, 'Hellraiser' fans she's Ashley Laurence returning as Kirsty from the original trilogy. But, don't let that second billing fool you - she only appears for about 10 minutes max and the rest of the picture concerns Trevor bumbling around, jolting from one fake dream incident to the next. The film itself seems like an unofficial remake of 'Hellraiser: Inferno' and the sense of deja vu hits you around every five minutes of the (overly)long running time.

This sequels plus points are minimal. However, cinematographer turned director Rick Bota does a stirling job at helming the material. Its just that his film (as with all of Dimensions previous sequels) doesn't feel like a 'Hellraiser' movie, and you wonder why they don't just drop the 'Hellraiser' headline and treat these movies as another entity altogether. Its a shame that the obviously tacked-on Pinhead trappings couldn't have been jettisoned early on, and Bota could have delivered a stronger movie without the expectation of another film. On the acting front, Dean Winters is fine as the lead, and Doug Bradley is always welcome to see in full Pinhead make-up. Even, Ashley Laurences' brief appearance is siatisfying (check out her confrontation with Pinhead in the deleted scenes if you need a flashback to the original trilogy).

The disc is fine, with an audio commentary from Bota and a selection of deleted scenes. Picture and audio quality is pretty good. The 'Seven-esque' bleached-out picture quality is due to the look of the film, rather than the DVD presentation. To sum up, another disappointment for 'Hellraiser' fans, not a particularly bad film in itself, just not a brilliant one. It would help if Dimension sold this property on to other parties who probably want to make a genuine 'Hellraiser' movie, instead of these similarly themed time wasters that ultimately please no one in the end, especially those who were actually looking for a good time seeking hell . . .


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