Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth (1992, Anthony Hickox)

Beginning of a long line of ill-reputed Hellraiser sequels and remakes, but I have a soft spot for this one, having watched it so many times on video as a teen. And compared to the stuff I’ve seen lately – The Mist, Books of Blood, Langoliers, this is shockingly well made (by the Waxwork guy). So, do I like this because I’ve seen it so much, or did I watch it so much because it’s actually good? Nostalgia, objectivity, always you wrestle inside me.

Fancy leather art collector buys the rotating pillar, which comes with an embedded hellbox and the hell priest himself. Failing young reporter Joey is ambulance-chasing with cameraman Doc when she witnesses a stray hellbox victim, picks up club girl Terri and starts investigating. Some promises and betrayals later, everyone’s a cenobite but Joey, who harnesses her dreams about her war-killed father to contact the pre-ceno Doug Bradley and summon him against his pinheaded self.

Tiny cameo by Ashley Laurence, who didn’t have a huge post-Hellraiser film career, appearing in a Warlock sequel that doesn’t even have Julian Sands in it. Lead girl is from Deep Space Nine, leather guy cowrote 3000 Miles to Graceland, Doc was involved in Phantom of the Paradise, and club girl Terri returned a year later in the director’s Warlock: The Armageddon, missing Ashley by one Warlock sequel. Sometimes I look up Barker online; he’s the Ween of authors, every year announcing new works that don’t materialize. I read his 2015 The Scarlet Gospels during a movie-sequel dry spell, now just killing time until the new HuluRaiser comes out.

Me trying to decide what the hell to listen to: