“The fans are going crazy, and they’re doing it for a reason,

Cuz ’94 is the knickerbockers season”

– That New York Knicks song from the 90’s

About halfway through HELLRAISER: JUDGMENT, I became distracted by my own thoughts as I tried to figure out why exactly I was watching it. And on top of watching it, I was looking forward to the movie going into it. I WANTED to watch it. I don’t get. It’s not like I expected this to be “good”. I’ve seen all of the HELLRAISER movies, and I truly believe that the series is an endurance test that every horror fan should undergo at some point in their lives, but I know better than to look forward to one of these. The first film might be one of my favorite horror movies of all-time, but after that? Yeesh. I think I like part 2, and I like the one that stars Craig Sheffer and was directed by Scott Derrickson, but that’s about it. I barely remember movies 3-8, and I only remember REVELATIONS because I watched it recently and it’s probably one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen. HELLRAISER: JUDGMENT is from the same director as REVELATIONS, and I was excited to watch it! What the fuck is wrong with me?!  I asked that question throughout my viewing of HELLRAISER: JUDGMENT, and it lead to a surprising amount of self-evaluation on my part. A judgment of myself, if you will.

I grew up a sports fan–basketball and football, mostly, but I will watch any sport and find a way to get invested in it. I’ve recently watched a few rugby and cricket matches, and while I don’t understand either sport as of now, I still find reasons to be invested. Most sports fanatics share a passion for their team no matter what. A lot of times there’s no real reason to cheer for a certain team other than location, or tribalism, but whatever, it’s still a reason. Who really cares why you cheer for a bunch of guys putting a ball through a hoop,? You just do, and through the highs and lows, fans stick by their team no matter what. I don’t think this is a particularly healthy mindset for a film fan, especially when it comes to horror franchises which can be of varying quality, but I also think it explains why I was so excited to watch this. I really do love that first HELLRAISER movie, and each new entry feels like a new season–a chance to wipe the slate clean, and get things back on track.

Unfortunately the HELLRAISER franchise has become like a losing sports franchise under terrible ownership at this point. Still under the banner of Weinstein Co. (though only Bob is in the credits now lol), the owners of the HELLRAISER team don’t really seem to care much about winning, but instead are happy with putting enough butts in the seats to turn a profit. The HELLRAISER movies have become the New York Knicks, basically. Coasting on goodwill from years past, while posting nothing but losing records since. I guess the owners are still making money though, so whatever.

Here’s the thing with the Knicks: they were kind of exciting for the first half of this NBA season. Led by Kristaps Porzingis–labeled a “Unicorn” by fellow players, due to his freakish abilities that most players his size don’t possess–the Knicks weren’t necessarily good, or even close to what they were in their heyday, but they were at least fun to watch. Sometimes when you’re rooting for a bad team, especially one that has been beaten down by years of recent ineptitude, that’s really all you can ask for.  Porzingis can shoot. He can pass. He can handle the ball. He’s exciting. There was hope for the future, and even for the current season! Then Porzingis tore his ACL in February, and any hope for Knicks current season was gone. That’s essentially the story of HELLRAISER: JUDGMENT.

The cold open of HELLRAISER: JUDGMENT is something else –but in a good way–as it opens up the HELLRAISER franchise in ways that I wasn’t expecting. Here’s what I think happens in the first ten minutes: Pinhead is heard off-screen bitching about online porn. He’s really mad that the rise of technology has rendered his Lament Configuration meaningless. The movie then shifts to a house where a child murder has been lured to confess his sins. Sitting in front of him is “The Auditor”: a man with his face all sliced up and in front of a typewriter taking down the sins of the murderer sitting in front of him. When the murderer is finished with his confession, The Auditor brings in a fat man (John Gulager, director of FEAST) who eats the paper that includes the confession, and has now been soaked in the tears of children, and vomits it into a funnel that leads to a trough in the basement. That trough shoots the vomit into a trio of naked women, who in turn use that vomit to pass judgment on the murderer upstairs. They find him guilty, and then another fat guy comes in, along with someone called “The Surgeon”, who slices the child murderer up with arm blades before taking him to hell.

The beginning of this movie is nuts, and it gave me hope for the rest of the film. It felt different. It didn’t feel like the rest of the later HELLRAISER sequels, which were just scripts for other movies that threw Pinhead in there after the fact. This movie looked like it was going to explore new nooks and crannies in the HELLRAISER universe. It reminded me of a really cool HELLRAISER expanded universe comic, and I was on board. This was my Unicorn. But then the movie just starts ripping of SE7EN.

I’m not going to go into great detail about the rest of the film, as it’s honestly not that interesting, but while I don’t think it is good, I think it has it’s moments though. We go to heaven and meet an angel character for the first time in the series, I believe, so that’s pretty neat. There are parts of JUDGMENT that stick with me, which is not something I can say for many of the other sequels in this franchise. If someone were going to watch HELLRAISER: JUDGMENT they could probably do it in about 25-30 mins and be good.Here’s what I would suggest: Watch the first ten minutes, and then there is a kind of cool part in the middle 28-33 minutes into the film, and then watch the last ten minutes. For the rest of it just do laundry, or wiki the plot of SE7EN.

Barely any of the memorable moments that exist in JUDGMENT involve Pinhead, as the character is relegated to the background for much of this one. Or in a chair. He just kind of lounges around mostly. Maybe he’s watching the Knicks. It’s really kind of a bummer, because the new guy playing him isn’t bad. I know he’s not Doug Bradley, but it’s okay for someone else to take a shot at the role. Plus they are doing these things on the cheap and Doug is probably demanding a pretty penny at this point, as he should be. I would be. I guess it would be like the Knicks bringing back Patrick Ewing at this point. I bet he can still play, and it would be pretty cool, but I’m not sure it would be an effective long-term strategy, so I get it.

HELLRAISER: JUDGMENT is probably the 5th or 6th best HELLRAISER movie for me. Keep in mind that I do not hold many of these films in high regard, and I barely remember the vast majority of them. I think if you were to ask me my HELLRAISER rankings as of now, here is where I would land:

1) HELLRAISER
2) HELLBOUND: HELLRAISER 2
3) THE SCOTT DERRICKSON/ CRAIG SHEFFER ONE
4) THE ONE WITH ADAM SCOTT AND IS IN SPACE
5) JUDGMENT
6) ONE OF THE OTHER ONES
7) ONE OF THE OTHER ONES
8) ONE OF THE OTHER ONES
9) ONE OF THE OTHER ONES
10) HELLRAISER:REVELATIONS

JUDGMENT isn’t a good movie, but it’s probably an average HELLRAISER one, and it at least shows some spunk and gives you some hope before it tears its ACL. Sometimes that’s all I ask for.