So close to being done with this series now. This is the last of the sequels before we get the full on reboot of the franchise next time. As you can see with the time elapsed being about the same between movies as it was between the last two movies, this was made just so Dimension Films could retain the rights to the franchise. This time, though, there was a script ready to go because Gary J. Tunnicliffe, the effects guy that had been working on these films since the 3rd one, already had one he had been shopping around and, just for good measure, they let him direct it too. Also he is one of the main characters. Oh no, it’s one of those.

Our movie opens with The Auditor (Tunnicliffe) telling Pinhead that puzzle boxes are so last century and we live in an age where humans can get their depravity online. This means nothing and the Cenobites will not use the internet or computers. Anyway, the actual plot is literally just what if the movie Se7en also had some actual demons in it. Two brothers that are also detectives are on the case to find The Preceptor, a serial killer that murders people based on the Ten Commandments. One the brothers is straight laced and proper, the other is rough and tumble but book smart. Then they get assigned a lady detective!? No way! Also, in this movie, instead of using the Lament Configuration there is just a house where if you go to it the Cenobites get you and give you a demonic job interview before killing you. Also also, this movie decides to throw in angels because fuck it, why not?

Holy shit what a steaming pile of garbage. Gary, my man, what the actual fuck? At least the script you wrote for Revelations was a rip off of the first movie in this franchise. That can at least be seen as trying to “get back to the series’ roots” or something. However, then you just ripped off Se7en but made it much worse and also you made up an entirely new and unnecessary thing for the Cenobites just so you could be the new main character. The full ditching of the puzzle box concept almost in its entirety in favor of having what boils down to a haunted house sucks absolute shit. Instead of the Cenobites being this perverse, otherworldly thing that the desperate or the depraved seek out only to find it isn’t what they imagined; now it’s just a place you might stumble on accidentally and whoopsy daisy, I guess I’m getting my skin peeled off now.

There is also almost no interplay between the main police procedural storyline and the Cenobite stuff until the very end of the movie. They capture one of the Detectives at one point when he checks out the haunted house but then he just escapes with a puzzle box so he can use it at the end and that’s pretty much it. Which means we are left with two parts of the film that don’t touch. One side is a bad version of one of the best cop movies ever made. The other side is taking what should be an inscrutable dimension of pleasure and pain and turning it into a tidy, structured intake procedure for processing new applicants to Hell Co. Ltd. a wholly owned subsidiary of InfernoCorp. When the two do finally mash together at the very end, it’s briefly interesting before an angel shows up again and starts talking about heaven’s jurisdiction and a bunch of shit that has absolutely no place in a Hellraiser movie.

Holy fuck, this movie can eat every ass. I am entirely ready for a reboot but even more ready to be done.

Score: 1 out of 5