Hellbound: Hellraiser II

The Film: Hellbound opens with a brief flashback scene set during World War I in which Captain Elliott Spencer (Doug Bradley) sits in a Nissen hut tracing his fingers along the intricate lines of the notorious puzzle box. As Spencer solves the box we see his transformation into Hellraiser’s signature monster Pinhead. This transformation sequence will have relevance later on. In the meantime, the film proper picks up right after the events in the first film. Kirsty (Ashley Laurence), our survivor from the first film, finds herself in a psychiatric institute due her recent traumas which include, but are not limited to, being hit on by a salacious uncle who happens to be wearing her father’s skin, and being stalked by creatures from Hell bent on dragging her down for an eternity of sado-masochistic “delights”. I guess some people just don’t have the mental fortitude to take that kind of stress in stride and carry on with their lives.

Kirsty is made to recount her tale to the police and the psychiatrists and while tales of Cenobites and puzzle boxes and the dead coming back to life don’t really mean much to the cops, the psychiatrist Dr. Channard (Kenneth Cranham) is intrigued. Channard’s assistant Kyle (William Hope) is also interested in Kirsty but not because of her batshit crazy story (wink, wink). Dr. Channard takes possession of the bloody mattress found at the house from the first movie and raises the suspicions of Kyle who decides to do some snooping. He finds a treasure trove of creepy artifacts in Dr. Channard’s study including several puzzle boxes, a photo of good old Captain Spencer, and other Hell-related paraphernalia that would indicate that even if Kirsty’s story were b.s. someone else believes in it too.

During Kyle’s snooping he hears Dr. Channard returning so he has to hide to keep from being caught. Kyle witnesses Dr. Channard offering up one of the mental patients as a sacrifice to the bloody mattress which, as it turns out, is a great portal for Julia, Kirsty’s wicked stepmother (again played by fantastic Clare Higgins), to return from Hell. There’s a lot of creepy erotic tension between Channard and the skinless, but no-less seductive, Julia who smooth-talks Channard into bringing her victims in order to restore her to her full form. We see that play out in a montage reminiscent of the first film where Julia sacrificed men to bring Frank back to life only here Channard is using his ready supply of mental patients.

While all this is going on, Kirsty is having visions in which she thinks her father is still trapped in the box and begging for Kirsty to help him escape from Hell. During her stay at the institution Kirsty befriends another patient, Tiffany (Imogen Boorman). Lucky for everyone, Tiffany is a puzzle-solving savant. The Kirsty and Julia stories converge when the puzzle box is used to take us back to the magical land of Puzzle Box Hell. Julia didn’t really need to convince Channard that he wanted to visit, he was pretty much primed from the get go. And Kirsty took the opening as an excuse to try to find and rescue her father. It’s pretty much just Tiffany that has no interest in going to Hell (go figure) and just wants to sit in her semi-catatonic state and just solve puzzles. Is that too much to ask for? Yep!

Now we get to see who has been manipulated this whole time and by whom:

Channard: Even though he really wanted to see what the mystery of the box was all about, he’s been offered up as a sacrifice by Julia in a move that should surprise no one.
Kirsty: Actually, sort of a surprise but a neat payoff. Turns out that lecherous old uncle Frank has been using Kirsty to try to get himself back out of the box again.

Now why all the manipulation?

Julia: In a great bit of character evolution, Julia has been transformed from lustful temptress to full-on religious zealot. She’s now a follower of Leviathan, the dark “god” at the center of Puzzle Box Hell. She’s out farming for souls and Channard is a great offering. It’s not all bad news for Channard though as he does get rewarded by being transformed into a Cenobite with some nifty surgical appendages.
Frank: This is pretty much just Frank being Frank. Hell-box sucks and Frank wants out. Frank is the one-trick pony of Hellraiser.

So now Cenobite Channard really embraces his new lifestyle (good for him!) and for some reason he thinks it necessary to kick the other Cenobites’ asses and assert himself as the new leader. Maybe Hell rules are like prison rules and the new guy just needs to take on the biggest guy so nobody else will mess with him? Either way, we get Pinhead versus Channard as a nice little break from the rest of the film’s goings on.

And that gives us a chance to discuss a side item. In the first film we’re meant to think that Cenobites are a species of their own, hellspawn that have always been and always shall be. Pinhead even comments in this one that the Cenobites are some otherworldly creatures. It’s Kirsty that convinces them that they were once people which really messes with their minds. As they try to cope with that truth bomb we see that our Cenobite pals revert (at least for now) to their previous human forms which gives everyone else a chance to run off and attend to their affairs (i.e. getting out of the box).

The end wraps up nicely, with devils getting their due and the good “guys” getting to keep their souls for now.

Random thoughts:

I love the Julia character! Her arc really continues strongly in this one and I love her line about going from wicked step mother to evil queen. Well done, ma’am.

The Channard character really deserves his trip to the box. There’s a great shot where you see his schizoid patients all bed-bound and working out all this other collected boxes. Brilliant! This guy is an evil bastard worthy of the series.

Cenobites are people… PEOPLE! I thought I would be irked by this but it’s actually not a terrible idea. I would liken it to angels; do “good” people who die become angels or just dead spirits with wings? There were angels before people so maybe there are “real” Cenobites and then these post-human entities as well. It’s a big universe so maybe they can shed some light on it one day.

I enjoyed that Tiffany and, to a lesser extent, Kirsty, actually got better after going to Hell 🙂

All in all this was a pretty good follow-up to the first film!

Images: