Hellraiser 7: Deader

Charles: "Tell me it's real."
Amy: "It's real...or I'm crazy."

release year: 2005
genre: horror
viewing setting: home DVD 4/8/23

synopsis: A reporter who thinks she's tough foolishly takes an assignment that gets her involved with a death cult and worse.

impressions: By the way, the numbers aren't in the movies' titles anymore - I just put them there for reference. In this seventh installment, we have a hot young reporter who wants to be tough and edgy but can't handle actual tough and edgy things (such as...the smell or presence of a corpse, seeing a guy jump in front of a train, stepping in deep mud, a wall covered in roaches, and so on.) She chain-smokes and acts all tough but she's quickly in over her head...going to a foreign country by herself and exploring its less-savory areas. Even after being warned, she continues on her merry way. As with the last few of these movies, it is often unclear whether things we just saw happen actually happened, or were hallucinations. That gets annoying after a while. Other notable elements: the degenerate youth culture of Hungary, the director not skimping on the gore or nudity, a shifty editor, ill-conceived and -prepared underground explorations, a weird cult, the solution to the problem of how to remove a knife stuck deep in your own back, Pinhead laying it all out for the reporter, numerous ripping-apart-with-chains scenes, Pinhead giving the idiot cultists what they want, some new Cenobites. A parting idea: the filmmakers really need to set down some hard rules for how exactly the box works, rather than just letting it do whatever the plot calls for in each movie.

acting: Kari Wuhrer is the wannabe-edgy reporter who finally encounters something she's not edgy enough for. Doug Bradley is back as the head demon-creature and has some interesting dialogue, delivered in his unique vocal style.

final word: Yet another smaller-scope tale involving the Cenobites but focused on some sort of human drama.

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