Hellraiser: Deader Movie Review

It doesn't take long for most horror franchises to peter out. Eventually all of these series take their cast to space, end up on direct-to-video discs, and feature Kari Wuhrer in the starring role.

Hellraiser: Deader is the impossible seventh film in the increasingly staid Hellraiser franchise (and believe it or not, an eighth DTV title is due out in September).

Wuhrer picks up the magic box in this outing, which launches with a tepid story borrowed from another bastion of great cinema, 8mm. Wuhrer is a headstrong reporter, and she's given a kind of snuff tape to investigate from her boss. Only there's a twist: After getting shot in the head, the girl on the tape comes back to life, revived by some kind of mystic also on the tape.

Kari packs her bags and she's on the case! And here things quickly devolve into her being sucked into the box and living a kind of nightmare that reduces her to a kind of zombie: In the film's most absurdly funny moment, she stumbles around a bathroom with a butcher knife stuck in her back, trying to figure out a way to get it out.

Hellraiser's usual ghouls and demons are sadly lacking here, and even the box barely makes an appearance. (Remember how hard it used to be to open? Kari figures it out in about five seconds.) Even Pinhead is reduced to a cameo role. We figure most viewers want their horror films to be, you know, scary. Which Deader is not.

Sad, sad, sad.