Hellraiser: Hellseeker (2002)

Directed by Rick Bota [Other horror films: Hellraiser: Deader (2005), Hellraiser: Hellworld (2005)]

I’d say that largely, Hellseeker has the same appeal as Inferno did. I don’t think it’s as good, despite a surprise returning character, but it’s along the same psychological mold. There can be okay scenes, but the disjointed plot sometimes hinders enjoyment, and it’s never been a favorite of mine.

Unlike Inferno, which I had seen multiple times before finally writing up on it, Hellseeker is a movie that I may have only seen once before. I knew the basic gist going in, so nothing here surprised me (and on a similar note, if that ending surprised anyone, I’d be amazed, as it was about as shocking as my shoes), but it was interesting to watch this with somewhat fresh eyes.

In many ways, it really does seem similar to Inferno, which makes sense, as, like Inferno, the script here wasn’t initially a Hellraiser movie. It was refitted to make the Cenobites work into it, and they did as well as they probably could have. Honestly, I don’t mind the idea of the movie, but there’s the thing: when you have a character that has constant hallucinations, and from one second to the next he moves from hospital to office building without realizing it, you know that a lot of the stuff seen isn’t real, and hence, why bother caring?

It’s in the same vein of later movies like Delirium and Dry Blood. When there’s a hallucinating character who constantly sees things that aren’t there, how are you supposed to take any of the movie as real? Could not the whole thing be fake? Is that perhaps exactly what this movie does? Some say the journey is more important than the destination, but when the destination is so easy to see coming, and the journey is a hallucination-filled waste of time, it’s hard to care that much.

Which is where I think Inferno did a slightly better job. I think it had some creepier scenes, a marginally more interesting story, and things made a bit more sense in that movie. In this film, the lead character Trevor (Dean Winters) is bombarded with mental images of unsavory things he may have done before the amnesia hit – yet he keeps insisting he “wouldn’t do that,” as he “knows who he is.” If you have amnesia, at least to the extent this movie portrays it, you don’t know who you are, and you can’t keep insisting innocence when you have no idea.

Despite my issues with the story, Dean Winters was fine as the lead. In fact, most of the performances were okay, from Jody Thompson, Trevor White, and Kaaren de Zilva to William S. Taylor and Rachel Hayward. Ashley Laurence, returning as Kirsty from the first Hellraiser, was nice to see, but I don’t really think we saw enough of her to make a great impression, and while it’s always good to see Doug Bradley as Pinhead, he didn’t appear too often, and rarely had anything of interest to say.

At least he appeared, though. We do get small glimpses of other Cenobites, but nothing especially concrete. Even Inferno gave us a lot more when it came to Cenobite action, but aside from Pinhead, we get very little here. We saw what looked like Chatterer for a split second, so that was cool, but I would have loved less hallucinations and more Cenobites.

Hellseeker isn’t a good movie, and it’s definitely not a good Hellraiser movie. It’s also not as palatable as Inferno, which was already below average. For what it is, I guess it’s an okay way to spend your time – I don’t find the film entirely without merit. Even so, it’s not a good film, but at the very least, it’s better than Bloodline.

5.5/10