Review: Hellraiser: Inferno (2000)

People in the Movie:  Craig Sheffer, Nicholas Turturro

Director:  Scott Derrickson

Pigeonhole:  Thriller / Horror

The Basics: Denver police detective Joseph Thorne (Sheffer) is living a double life; he is a capable, bright, crime solver, a seemingly loving father, and a competitor in contests of skill and intelligence.  But, Joseph also uses drugs, has sex with prostitutes, and steals evidence from crime scenes.  He becomes entangled in a murder investigation in which the prime suspect, who is enigmatically being referred to as “The Engineer”, beings to taunt Joseph directly.  Even worse, Joseph seems to be slowly degenerating into madness: hallucinating and having waking nightmares about the case and disfigured demons attacking him.

Recommendation: This Hellraiser plays out more like a psychological thriller than a horror film, which could be a negative for some.  In my opinion, this is one of the best sequels in the Hellraiser series and should be checked out.  As a standalone (meaning you had not watched any of the prior films) this will still work.  All plot elements relating to the Hellraiser mythology are otherwise explained.  ‘R’ rating is for violence, gore, language, drug use and a scene of sexuality.

My Take:  This is the 5^th Hellraiser film, and the first to go direct-to-video.  Despite being direct-to-video the production, direction, effects, and cinematography were still very good; the atmosphere and scenes were dark, creepy, and foreboding.  If you did not otherwise know, this looks and feels like a full budget release. 

**spoiler alert** Inferno succeeds, in my opinion, because it gets back to the idea that it is the humans who are “bad” where our favorite horror mainstay Pinhead (Doug Bradley) and the other Cenobites are dispassionate characters who are only there subjecting people to torture because they were “called” to do so.

Joseph discovers a strange puzzle box (yes, the same one from the prior films) at a horrific murder scene early in the film.  The victim appeared to have been torn apart by hooks attached to chains.  Joseph after some preliminary examination with his partner Tony Nenonen (Turturro) walks off with the box, some cocaine, and several hundred dollars cash.  He then proceeds to pick up a street walker and heads to a hotel to engage in said vices.  After his hedonistic urges are satisfied, he goes into the bathroom where he solves the puzzle box, which, of course, is a huge mistake. 

Joseph leaves to continue the murder investigation, only to be called back to the same hotel where the hooker has now been killed.  He pleads with Tony to help him conceal any evidence that he had been there having sex with the girl, which Tony reluctantly does.  Joseph also realizes that this murder is tied to the first, with a similar clue left at the scene.  Next, Joseph contacts a drug dealing informant who reveals to him a story about the suspect, The Engineer.  Hours later the informant is found dead.

Further and further down the path Joseph goes into this case the closer it seems that both the demons from his nightmares and the suspect are getting to him.  By the time we reach the end, it appears that Joseph’s partner, his wife and daughter, as well as his parents (who were living in a care facility nearby) are all now dead.

The Reveal: As the movie is drawing to its frightening conclusion, Pinhead appears and reveals to Joseph that he is already in a “hell” he created for himself, trading love (which we see in flashbacks that he previously had) for sins of the flesh, and that he will spend eternity there suffering.

This ending sequence, as much as the journey up to it, is what made Hellraiser: Inferno a great horror film.  It captured what I considered to be the essence of the Hellraiser theme that Barker had always intended.  There is something satisfying about witnessing the age old adage of reaping what we sow, and using Dante’s timeless work as part of this horror theme was masterful.   

Final Thought/Extras/For Fun: Doug Bradley was only on screen for about 5 minutes… The Engineer was a character from Clive Barker’s short story “Hellbound Heart”, which the original Hellraiser was based on…