HELLRAISER INFERNO

Directed by Scott Derrickson
Written by Paul Harris Boardman & Scott Derrickson
Produced by W.K. Border & Joel Soisson
Photography by Nathan Hope
Cast: Craig Sheffer, Nicholas Turturro, James Remar & Doug Bradley

2000/99 mins/Color/5.1 DD
1.78:1 anamorphic/English/US/NTSC Region 1

Review from the Dimension DVD

I might get killed for saying this but HELLRAISER INFERNO really surprised me! I really don't understand all the bad buzz this film has been getting is about. Ok, HELLRAISER BLOODLINE was painfully awful (in part thanks to Dimension for butchering it) but i don't understand why Clive Barker trashed HELLRAISER INFERNO so much. This fifth entry in the serie is a return to the first film. It has that same atmosphere quality. HELLBOUND, HELL ON EARTH and BLOODLINE turned Pinhead into somekind of Jason/Freddy/Michael type killer which was against the original nature of the first film since the real evil in the first HELLRAISER were the HUMANS! They were the ones ready and willing to do anything and everything to gain advantage over someone or something. Well HELLRAISER INFERNO is just about that.

Craig Sheffer plays a corrupt L.A. detective, he fucks prostitutes, steals evidences from cases he solves and will even blackmail his partner so that he can be clean of everything. One night, while investigating a murder he comes upon the mysterious puzzle box and makes the fatal error of opening it. From there on the ride begin has his life is in jeopardy and he needs to find the Engineer. While the story was nicely written, I figured out who the Engineer was right when the cop went to see his counselor for the second time and that the counselor talked about another cop looking for the Engineer 14 years ago and according to this cop, the Engineer was someone who knew all about the cops. Hint, hint!

Most of the actors gives great performances, there's some bloody and gory scene (look out for that cool scene with two female Cenobites are playing within the cop) and that girl playing the prostitute (Sasha Barrese) has to be the most beautiful woman i've ever seen PERIOD! I gotta admit that I am now deeply in love with her! If anyone knows how to get intouch with her, please let me know! For those bitching about the fact that we don't really see Pinhead, well if your a fan of the serie you must remember that in the first one we didn't see much of him either, hell he didn't even had a name back then. Part two was cheezy but remained interesting because we got to see where Pinhead came from and that Dr.Channard was one sick fuck. Part 3 was pure mindless fun but there's too much Pinhead and he kinda lost his onscreen "power". BLOODLINES simply sucked, the premise was good but the whole space thing was played out like a bad rip-off of ALIENS. Now HELLRAISER INFERNO is more like it, well at least that's MY OPINION.

Dimension's DVD is good. The film is presented in a 1.78:1 ratio (16x9), the colors are rich and vibrant, there's no signs of compression or artifacts. In the audio department, the 5.1 Dolby Digital audio track sounds nice and there's some cool subtitle directional fx in it giving the film a better atmosphere. There's a small interview with Doug (Pinhead) Bradley and a Secrets of HELLRAISER featurette. The film is separated in 19 chapters. As for the menu they are nice but without any animation or music. The DVD comes in the usual Dimension keep case and with a useless promo sheets for their other DVDs.

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Review by Kim Dubuisson. All Right Reserved. 2003. ©