It's A Hellworld, After All: #TweetWithBGH is Back for Hellraiser: Hellworld

The plotholes of Hellraiser:Hellworld are like a roller coaster: staggering in their enormity, but also kinda fun. Yet again, we’re faced with someone else’s original script that got Pinhead scotch-taped into it (this is the fourth in a row, in case you’ve lost count). This sequel involves a group of teenaged friends who become obsessed with a Hellraiser themed video game (it takes place “outside” of the franchise, until it doesn’t). When one of their friends, Adam, becomes so involved with the game that he kills himself, their lives are torn apart….just kidding! Actually they all go to an awesome Hellraiser themed sex party thrown by--who knows!--because Adam would have wanted it that way, probably. After being shown around the mansion by their creepy host (Lance Henriksen), they hook up with strangers and are summarily killed. Fasten your seatbelts, gang.

We had some differing opinions about the Hellworld party

And right away, the logistics are called into question

Then there was a brief spell when I wondered where all of my friends went. But I soon had my answers

(It’s OK, Sophie, we’ve all done it! If you search #TweetWitBGH there’s a secret cache of tweets we’ve all mistakenly sent into the ether) At this point in the film, all of the characters are ears-deep in the weird sex party, which we all found pretty incredulous. The characters are giving papier-mache masks to keep themselves anonymous, and old-school Nokia cell phones so that they can keep in touch with each other.

At this point, Evan makes a crucial observation about the anony-hotties populating this anything goes sex romp

And it just kind ofoes on and on for a while...

It takes a while, but eventually a few of the characters wander off alone to empty rooms in the house, and, as typically befalls characters who wander off alone in movies like this, they are brutally murdered. Soon one of the white guys, I forget exactly which one, goes down into the basement--full of fetuses in jars because where else would you keep them--and discovers the corpse of his friend.

All along, the movie had been trying to shoehorn itself into some sort of post-Scream, self-referential, pop culture aware box, but it finally became impossible to ignore.

Eventually, surviving leads Chelsea and … the other guy … are left to run around, victim to Pinhead’s mindgames

Now, up to now some of the Hellraiser movies had some preposterous twists, but this one really went there.

Because it turns out the entire movie was the group-hallucination of several teenagers trapped in coffins

Do they really need to open all the coffins and make body burritos right in front of her? These are the worst cops ever. #TweetWithBGH

— Sophie Day (@philliesfemme) October 5, 2015

Oh, but it’s not done. Chelsea learns she was freed when the police got a ~mysterious phone call~, and then her epilogue road trip is cut short by even more unasked for, phone-related twists (apparently the writers of this film just found out about cell phones pre-production and were REALLY EXCITED to use them in every possible plot point)

Hey everyone! Can you believe we only have one Hellraiser movie left? Please join us next week at an unusual time--8:30 PM EST on Monday, October 12 -- for the final Hellraiser live tweet. There may be a drinking game.

Spencer

Contributor

A loophole in his parents' "anti-scary movie, pro-literacy" policy meant that Spencer had read Stephen King's entire body of work by the time he was in middle school. He soon discovered the horror and B-movie offerings on late night cable TV and was hooked for life. He currently lives, works, and writes in North Carolina.