Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth (1992)

Wow, this is a REALLY bad movie!

People are voting emotionally.

Too much about the plot just didn't add up, the writing was bad, some of the scenes were cringey and awkward,

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

If one can overlook the needless steps toward mild comedy, and a more mainstream feel to this entry, it can be a gruesomely good time, with Doug Bradley in fine form as the s&m demon from Hell, now known as Pinhead. His entrance in the church, as well as his subsequent monologue, is chilling. A horrifying image of him, briefly losing his control, as he shoves the cross off the altar, before, arms outstretched, he then calmly, intensely declares, " I am the way " , immediately before the Gothic windows explode, is the film's most memorable scene. The movie veers off into action film explosions at one time, in a simultaneously out of place, and also fun, scene.If only the filmmakers would have dropped the cameraman's annoying attempts at humour ( every time he answers his brick-sized cell phone, he annoyed says, " Speak. " Seriously? How did that cringe-inducing line make it past the first draught of the script? )

Hellraiser III Hell on Earth is a decent sequel mainly because of the story it presents everything else is meh. Now this movie does miss the dark creepy atmosphere the first two had which is one of the big things I loved from the first two however with this movie it has more of a eighties slasher feel to it which I liked with Pinhead being all over this film but I still however missed the dark Gothic feel of the first two. Now the story was pretty unique and different and am glad they didn't decide to do the person comes back from hell gimmick which would have got old quick. The story however involves a news reporter Joanne 'Joey' Summerskill played by Terry Farrell (who turned in a surprisingly great performance) investigating Pinhead played by Doug Bradley (who was just as great as he has been in the other film)and the Cenobites and must send them back to hell. Overall I would check this one out and give it a shot because its extremely underrated just don't go in expecting anything like the first two and also if your looking for a lot more Pinhead and cenobites these movie is easily for you.

Hellraiser 3 is one of those lame attempts at continuing a horror franchise that audiences were subjected to in the 90's. Child's play, Friday the 13th, Halloween, etc. These movies just got silly and poorly produced by the early 90's.As for the movie at hand, it's almost totally lacking in the relatively sophisticated mood and creativity of Hellraiser (1987) and Hellbound: Hellraiser 2 (1988). These were movies about the dark aspects of the human condition, about authentic human beings falling prey to lust and temptation. Their misadventures opened the door to the Cenobites, those sinister BDSM icons. Besides punishing sinners, the more innocent also would end up drawn into the mess.In the 3rd film, we instead get unpleasant and shallow characters that we just don't care about. The compelling thing about the earlier movies was how seemingly ordinary and unpretentious people were seduced by their base impulses. We didn't hate or ridicule these people. The guy who brings the Cenobites back in this movie is a twenty-something L.A. club owner who looks, talks, and acts likes a total jackass. With his shaved and toned chest, he seems like some kind of G.Q. or Playgirl reject who inexplicably got cast in a series which had established a seriousness and maturity with the first two movies. The heroine of this movie is played by a fairly likable actress, but her character isn't interesting and her dialogue/character building scenes come off as flat, like the director couldn't wait to get to the "good" parts.Also, the first two movies had a kind of stately British vibe to them. Part 3, on the other hand, is very obviously a lowest common denominator L.A. B movie. It tries hard to be "hip" (e.g. now very dated) with it's locations, rock music, and young cast. Sure, some of the 80's hairstyles of the first two films haven't aged all that well, but besides that the first two movie were not about fashion, they were sincere and moody explorations of sinister things. In part 3, the excruciating club scenes are shot and edited frantically, like a music video complete with mediocre 90's hard rock. Not even scary, odd that a "horror" movie would have long stretches that are not even tense, let alone scary.Being "fashionable" is something that badly hurt 90's horror. Jamie Lee Curtis wore J.C. Penney in Halloween; Tommy Hilfiger got his logo in the credits of The Faculty (1998). Another element to this is the dialogue content and delivery in 90's horror; in 70's and 80's horror characters even when teenage were more low-key and unpretentious. By the 90's it seemed like every script writer and actor came off as trying way to hard to make characters "witty" or "clever". In practice this led to snarky and shallow characters that were hard to relate to.The movie climaxes with an orgy of mass-violence (shot and edited in an overactive way, just like almost everything else in the movie) that reinforces the notion that overuse leads to boredom. Pinhead and his new cast of Cenobites (that are more poorly designed and acted than the earlier Cenobites) murder more people at a faster rate than any other "slasher" villain ever did. I'm sure it seemed cool at the time, but it's not scary and it destroys the credibility of the villains who were more restrained in the first two movies. Also, having everything be on "Earth" (or at least a theatrically flamboyant early 90's version of Earth) means that we don't get the ambitious Hellscapes that were well-realized in the 2nd movie. The stop-motion wonders of that film's climax are gone too, as for this movie it's just Pinhead and his new boring crew giving the F/X crew opportunities to hone their make-up wound skills. After you see a neck slash or head gouge for the tenth time, who cares? So it's a three for me. It isn't as aggressively sloppy as some of the other "efforts" of it's period, so if for no other reason than that, I'll give it credit.

I guess they must get Mtv down in Hell, huh? Because without doubt, if there's any way to describe director Anthony Hickox's "Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth", it's this: This is the 90's alt-rock, music video variation of the franchise. It's practically oozing of all things early 90's. Over-stylized, kinetic visuals where the cameras zoom and flow about like an over-caffeinated bird. Odd transitional fashion trends that feel like the dying throes of the 80's. Amusingly dated optical and early digital effects that would look out of place just a couple years later. So much grunge. Jaded punk- rock mindsets of rebellion against "conformity." And on-the-nose visuals and commentary that seem jarringly out-of-place.Yes, this is certainly a "Hellraiser" from the early 90's.Some time after the events of the previous film, the mysterious "Pillar of Souls" is purchased by spoiled-brat nighclub owner J.P. Monroe (Kevin Bernhardt), who soon enough realizes that it houses the eternal evil of the demonic cenobite Pinhead, once again portrayed with delightful depravity by Doug Bradley. As Pinhead manipulates Monroe to bring him sacrifices so that he may be freed, reporter Joey Summerskill (Terry Farrell) begins to piece together the backstory of Pinhead, realizing that his soul has been fractured into two pieces... the evil and unrestrained Pinhead and the much more sympathetic British Army Captain Elliot Spencer. And thus, Summerskill must go on a dark and twisted journey to stop the now-freed Pinhead, and reunite the two halves of his spirit in order to restore balance and stop him.Written by Peter Atkins and Tony Randel, the script is a bit of a tangled swarm of notions and ideas that on paper may sound fascinating and hard-hitting, but don't come together as any sort-of cohesive whole. At times, the narrative is lost in what feels like a swirling storm of half-baked sequences, where story and character development takes a backseat to action-oriented set-pieces and buckets of blood. You really do get the feeling that somewhere behind-the-scenes was a producer standing over the two, forcibly making them eject key sequences from the script and demanding the insertion of new scenes specifically modeled after music-videos and video-game advertisements... all in a desperate attempt to appeal to the youth demographic who might have found the previous films "boring." I really can't imagine it happening any other way, especially after their much strong, earlier work on the second film in the series. And it all comes down to a story that feels like it was created to sell soundtrack albums and novelty t-shirts for High School students first... and to tell a compelling story second.Director Anthony Hickox seems a bit in over-his-head here. While I'm not overly familiar with his previous work, his guidance of scenes and character feels a bit too "off." Like he's easily distracted. This is especially true of the slower and more deliberate sequences of dialog and character development, which feel very disjointed and sloppy. I can't help but get the feeling he's afraid of losing his audience, so he instructed everyone to over-emphasize their words and move in big, broad motions. It's frankly bizarre at times. One of the more amusing sequences being a key scene where Pinhead is first revealed to Monroe, which feels both boring and over-the-top all at once. Only later in the film when things really start to go crazy does he start to get a handle on things and seem more confident in his visual choices... but he's still far too blatant for his own good, lending to a feeling of disconnect from the intended horror. It's too much like you're watching a low-budget action-picture... it stops being scary when every scene has the camera zoom or turn to a dutch-tilt or end with a quippy one-liner from our villain.Outside of that, the rest of the production really is a disappointing mess. Outside of Bradley, the performances are all uniformly bland, with far too much over acting and smart-alec dialog for you to really care. The new music cues by Randy Miller are very forgettable, with only the returning themes composed by Christopher Young standing out. The editing is jarring and gives you a sense of whiplash, as it's cut with lightning faces pacing- again in an attempt to make this a "Hellraiser" for the Mtv crowd. And even the cinematography seems a bit uninspired. It's just... sub-par in essentially every way conceivable.Still, all of that being said, I can't help but feel this is still worth watching for series fans. It may sound paradoxical after all of my droning complaints above. But there's just such a fun and frenetic sense of entertainment value on display that I can't completely dismiss the movie. It's bad... Oh, it's bad! But it's bad in that way that you'll still have a big grin on your face while you scoff and roll your eyes over how stupid it all is. And I think a lot of that has to do with the delightfully dated quality it has as an early-90's release. It's never boring. The aesthetic style and camera-work can be a lot of fun to watch. You'll certainly get a lot of laughs from the misplaced humor and wildly over-the-top characters and gore effects. And there are a select handful of scenes that do work in their own silly, demented ways. It's not the high art of Clive Barker's iconic original. Nor is it the twisted labyrinthine puzzle that was "Hellbound: Hellraiser II." No, this is just plain-old "dumb fun." Filler fluff that's good for a gasp and a laugh on a slow, rainy day when you don't have to go to work and wanna just veg-out watching some visual junk-food. It gets the job done."Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth" easily earns its score of 3 out of 10. It's a bad movie. Quite bad, actually. But it's a fun bad movie.