a_chinn Best of the many (and mostly bad) sequels to Clive Barker's original film. This was also the last of the Hellriaser films that Barker had a significant hand in the creative process, staying on to write the story as well as producing. I remember watching this film way back in the day when it first came out on VHS and the one scene that had burned itself into my memory was still as horrifying now as it was then. This sequel picks up right after the events of the first film, with Kristy being brought to a mental institution after the death of her dad and stepmom after encountering Pinhead and the Cenobites (not a boy band). Unbeknownst to Kristy, the head doctor of the hospital, an excellent Kenneth Cranham as Dr. Channard, is darkly interested in the occult and has been searching for the Lament Configuration for years. He listens to Kristy's account of what happened to her and instead of destroying the bloody mattress she's pleaded with him to destroy, he decides he wants to resurrect Kristy's evil stepmother, Julia. As with the first film, a resurrection requires massive amounts of blood for a body to reform, which brings us to the aforementioned horrific scenes that was burned into my teenage memory. In order to resurrect Julia, Dr. Channard takes one of his mentally ill patients who believes he has bugs crawling all over his body and who has to wear a straight-jacket at all times to prevent digging at himself, places the patient on the mattress, removes his straight-jacket, and hands him a straight razor to slice at his imagined bugs crawling over his skin. That scene was just as unsettling now as it was 30 years ago, which is saying something in a post Takashi Miike and "Hostel" horror film world. Beyond that one shocking scene, the story involves Channard seeking the Hellraiser puzzle box and Kristy tying to again escape Channard, Pinhead, the other Cenobites, and hell itself. Without spoiling anything, this film reveals more about the Cenobites history and origin, which is interesting and also feels canon since Barker was part of the story (more was told in the subsequent sequel, but Barker had little to no part in those films). Although his film lacks the interesting visual style Barker brought to the first film, with it's dichotomy of beauty and blood, director Tony Randal does and effective job of building suspense, horror, and a fair amount of visual style to the film. Similar to the first film, both good and bad, the gory practical special effects are top notch and wonderfully (and horrifically) executed, but the other special effects look like they were done with Magic Marker. The super imposed images of Hell are visually striking, but not even close to looking as if the characters are really in this location (it's super fakey looking). Despite those shortcomings and although "Hellbound: Hellraiser II" is not a classic horror film, it is a worthy sequel to the original Clive Barker classic. On a side note, rewatching this film mostly made me wish that Barker can somehow regain the film rights to his creating and have the opportunity to reboot the franchise, just as James Cameron is getting to do with his Terminator franchise.

qmtv The story was a mess. All over the place. The story, acting, cinematography and atmosphere in the first movie was much better. But this movie still had something else. They should have hired Lucia Fulci to direct both the first and second films.Kirsty in the mental hospital. She's just an OK actor, nothing great. The mute girl puzzle solver – sucks as an actor. She finally speaks towards the end of the movie and it's just a cliché garbage. The Assistant doctor's acting sucks. His dialogue sucks. He breaks into the Doctors house, what the hell was that, besides to move the plot along. At least he was killed off fairly quickly. The Doctors acting was good, but it could have been great with some better dialogue. As a Cenobite he was intense, but then goes comical cliché. Towards the end when he starts killing his patients, it sucked. Julia was great and she was given some great dialogue, but it should have been more. Frank was underused, and burning down his part of hell, and killing him in hell was nonsense. Cenobites were good, but underused. And I did not like that they were killed.What was great was when the Doctor was turned into a Cenobite, and then he says "to think I resisted" – that was good. The fx Claymation sucked.They should have elaborated on the Leviathon, and the original cenobites, & Pinheads human background, of why he searched out the box, like Frank.I've seen this movie many times. Last time was Nov of 2015, and now again Nov 7, 2017. So, no more surprises. And for that it had a bigger impact at first. Watching it now, it loses the impact, and the plot holes come out, and all the stupid decisions made. The first film is much better. It is not a perfect movie. But it had better story, acting, atmosphere, and cinematography. The music is good in #2, the acting is decent, but not great, the visuals are better in #2, but the comic dialogue and clichés are there and that hurts it.In the past couple of weeks I have watched parts 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 1 and 2. 1 is the best. 2 follows 1. 3 is a joke cliché mess. 4 is a mess. 5 is interesting and could have been much better. 6 is full on garbage. 8 is full of cliché and could have been much better. What 3, 4, 5, 6 and 8 have is decent horror scenes with Pinhead that is lacking in 1 and 2.Rating for #2 is a B for a B movie. 7 stars.

trashgang One year after the release of Hellraiser a sequel was made and started immediately with a summery of the original one. The tone was set, welcome to hell. Be aware to see the full uncut clocking in at 1 hour 39 minutes. A lot of versions are 4 minutes shorter some even clock in at 78 minutes!The story continues after what happened in part one, Kirsty's family is dead and she's in some kind of asylum. Sadly for her, the head of the institution, Dr Channard, is an occultist and resurrect the cenobites.If you haven't seen part one, there's enough of samples shown to understand it all. We also see how pinhead was created and who he was in real life. On part of the effects, just wait an 26 minutes into the flick and the gore comes already in. But once Channard is falling in love with Julia things go wrong and hell breaks lose but things also go wrong with this flick. The cenobites are destroyed as is pinhead and let that be the strength of part 1. Without pinhead you don't have a hellraiser flick. He's in it but not that much it's all about Dr. Channard and Jennifer, a child which can solve puzzles. So she will open hell.What annoyed me was also the fact that the effects used are outdated right now. The gore is in tact but the other effects are not, some are done in stop/motion and that's not exactly what we want to see even back in 1988. Still above mediocre but worse was yet to come as we all knew.Gore 2/5 Nudity 0,5/5 Effects 2,5/5 Story 2,5/5 Comedy 0/5

Leofwine_draca HELLBOUND: HELLRAISER II is the horror film that shows such nasty horrors that other late '80s horror films can only dare to hint at, and to boot it's a film made at Pinewood Studios. I have a feeling that this was the last horror film made in Britain (not counting amateur productions of course) to really offer up graphic, depraved horror, the stuff of nightmares, and we've never seen its like since. This is in some ways a superior sequel to the first film and I would rate the two almost equally as horror classics of the 1980s; it's merely that HELLRAISER came first with a delightful and raw simplicity that gives it the edge. HELLBOUND: HELLRAISER II takes the basic premise of the first film, only to expand upon it, explore the mythology created, and deliver an even bigger and better adventure.The gore and violence certainly hasn't been toned down, and in some ways it's even nastier than before. There are skinless people, hooks ripping flesh and, in a moment of pure evil, a man who hallucinates that his body is covered with grubs is given a straight-razor with which he proceeds to slash himself before a living corpse comes out of the mattress he is sitting on and devours him - if that isn't spine-chilling then I don't know what is. This is a very visual movie which is one of the few to offer up a depiction of hell; the resulting images are both creepy and highly disturbing. The hell displayed here is a labyrinthine maze of ancient corridors, populated by the weird figures of giant babies with their mouths sewn shut, undulating bloodstained bodies, and a clown who juggles his own eyeballs. Then we get skinless corpses writing "I AM IN HELL HELP ME" on walls with their own blood and one of the scariest mental asylums I've seen on film (you know, the 'maintenance' level).The special effects are varied and entertaining, aside from the huge spinning demonic shape in the sky at the end which is a little bit rough around the edges. The makeup is gruesome and the cenobites are as disgustingly awful as ever. Even some cool stop motion animation pops up at the end of the movie to menace our heroes. The music is evocative, the pacing excellent and Tony Randel's direction top-notch - compare this to a pitiful mess like DREAM DEMON and you'll see what I mean. The film also benefits from a high calibre of acting from most of the cast, some of whom return from the first film.First up is Ashley Laurence reprising her role to good effect as the feisty Kirsty, although Imogen Boorman stands out more as the strangely beautiful mute girl who has a way with jigsaws. Clare Higgins is back and even more deadly-but-beautiful than ever. However, the film is commanded by Kenneth Cranham playing the fiendishly perverse Dr. Channard who eventually ends up becoming a new, even more horrific Cenobite (one with plenty of comedic one-liners too). Cranham's initially decent doctor soon turns out to be a sweaty bastard as the cracks start to show and it's another excellent performance from the underrated actor. Watch out for William Hope playing a young male doctor, Kyle, who helps Kirsty in her quest.Doug Bradley is perfect as Pinhead although largely underused here, what with all the other sub-plots going on. HELLBOUND: HELLRAISER II is an imaginative piece of work with a truly unique visionary style, a masterpiece of the macabre and not for weak stomachs - this comes highly recommended. Unfortunately it marked the end of quality in the series which, with the arrival of HELLRAISER III : HELL ON EARTH, turned into just another US horror franchise, albeit one with a little more class than most.