By Richard Harrington
Washington Post Staff Writer
March 09, 1996

"Hellraiser: Bloodline" was in trouble long before yesterday's nationwide opening. Not only was the horror movie much delayed by reshoots and restructuring, its first-time director, special effects wiz Kevin Yagher, took his name off when he saw the final cut. It's now credited to Alan Smithee, the Directors Guild's designated pseudonym for unhappy campers.

Yagher's move was a good one, for this fourth installment in the Clive Barker-inspired "Hellraiser" chronicles is the least imaginative. It does, however, have the widest scope: The story actually spans three distinct eras and 400 years, from the 18th-century Parisian origins of the "Lament Configuration box" (which proves to be a doorway to Hell) to modern times and finally to the year 2127 and a gigantic spaceship where the forces of good once again seek to triumph over evil. Forget saving the world: The only thing really at stake is another sequel.

Aside from the genuinely mysterious Configuration, the episodes' connecting threads are Bruce Ramsay as the various incarnations of toymaker Phillip Lemarchand/architect John Merchant/scientist Paul Merchant; Valentina Vargas as the sensuous demon Angelique; and Doug Bradley as the aptly named Pinhead, who spouts somber lines like "I am pain!" If Bradley had the same writers as Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger, he could be Punhead; unfortunately, the "Hellraiser" films are nothing if not portentous.

They are also bloody and sadistic. There are two basic gore effects: In one, heavy chains fly through the air to impale people with sharp hooks, which then separate those people from their skin, or worse. Elsewhere, flesh crawls and melds with nearby flesh. There are also close-ups of various bloody, flesh-dripping tools and assorted maggots. All this is decidedly gross but not particularly frightening.

The three episodes do not hang together all that well and the Configuration mythology is never really illuminated. Even poor Pinhead seems bored; other visually distressing creatures don't show up until the last reel, far too late to rescue the film. The Lemarchand/Merchant character says that he wants to catch Hell and destroy it, but for that he'd need a far bigger budget and some real input from horrormeister Clive Barker, who should be ashamed for lending his name to such a lowly venture. Forget the bloodline—this should be the end of the line for "Hellraiser."

Hellraiser: Bloodline is rated R and contains gore, sadism, nudity and so on.