Hellbound. Hellraiser II: Time to Play
Demon/Mad Scientist/Alternate Reality) 7*******skulls
*Blood* *Extremely Gory* *Very Violent* *Sexual Situations* *Some Strong Language* *Brief Nudity*
1988/Color/98 minutes/New World Video/New World Pictures in asoc. with Cinematarque Entertainment ltd./Film Futures Productions/Unrated
Director...........Tony Randel (Amityville 1992, Children of the Night)
Screenplay......Peter Atkins
Music..............Christopher Young (Hellraiser)
Producer.........Christopher Figg (Hellraiser)
Executive Producer Christopher Webstern & Clive Barker
Based on a Story by Clive Barker
Special Make-up and Effects by Geoff Portass
Dramatis Personae
Julia...........Clare Higgins (Hellraiser)
Kirsty..........Ashley Laurence (Hellraiser, Hellraiser 3, One Last Run)
Channard........Kenneth Cranham (Tale of a Vampire, Under Suspicion)
Tiffany.........Imogen Boorman
Kyle............William Hope
Pinhead.........Doug Bradley (Hellraiser, Hellraiser 3)
Female Cenebite.Barbie Wilde
Butterball......Simon Hamford? (Hellraiser)
Chatterer.......Nicholas Vince (Hellraiser)
Browning........Oliver Smith
Ronson..........Angus McInnes
Skinless Julia..Deborah Joel
Critique: The M.C. Escher theme is everywhere. The lighting and production values are first rate. This up to date version of Dante's inferno is a product that could only come from a decadent society. As in the night breed series, the eye sometimes tires at all the gore, the elaborate, fantastic sets, the pyrotechnics and atmospherics. The story becomes pretty unfocused at times, verging on incoherent. Why did Julia's skin fit Kirsty so well? And what was the operation that Tiffany seemed to be remembering? Is this all the product of her diseased mind? Certainly there's not much evidence in the film for that, but what's going on in that scene? Much of it verges on being a mere vehicle for the special effects. Those special effects, however, are truly remarkable.
Plot Summary: Someone is playing with the cube. A shock of blue light, the pattern changes and he is thrust into tortures--pins driven into him and a checkerboard pattern of gashes forms across his body. There is blood left over on the mattress. A neuro-anatomist, Dr. Channard, announces to some colleagues that the mind is the last unknown labyrinth. Dr. Channard comes to see Kirsty. Her incoherent ravings about another world and about the cenebites have led to her confinement at the mental institution. She says that the mattress must be destroyed: Julia died on it, she can come back now like Frank. She tells the story of how Frank had solved the problem of the box. He wanted and got hell, and then Kirsty's father's blood brought him back to life. Julia brought him men to make him stronger. Kirsty, in the cenbites power, had made a deal with them: Julia was left to the cenebites, and then they came for Frank. A mute girl called Tiffany in the same hospital sits and solves puzzles with cubes, fitting various parts together. This has a disquieting effect upon Kirsty. It has an effecton the walls as well, as a bloody being emerges. It disappears, but the blood written words remain: 'I am in hell, help me.' Kirsie takes this as a sign from her father who she vows to help. All this psychic activity has the rest of the mental patients looking pretty agitated today. It looks as though Channard has been doing research on the cubes with a set of mental patients all his own "assisting" in the research. He has a mental patient tearing at himself with a razor on the mattress that Kirsty spoke of, trying to get the maggots off himself, and then something comes out of the mattress and begins consuming the mental patient. It looks like Julia is on the way back too: she's escaped the cenebites. Doesn't Julia look funny with no skin on. He wraps her up, and Julia begins a sexual dance with Channard. Channard is a mad scientist! Kyle, a colleague of Channard's who had grown suspicious, watched that whole process, and upon his return to the ward lets Kirsty out. Back at the lab, Julia is feasting on the choice bits of a number of mental patients. When the wraps come off, she's back. Kirsty and Kyle arrive and Kyle walks in and sees the hanging dead mental patients. Julia has her way with Kyle, and soon he's added to her recovery. Kirsty comes up and of course she's disappointed that the process of Hellraiser I seems to be repeating itself. Dr. Channard now brings Tiffany with him. He apparently wants something from Julia now. The mute is now given the cenebites' cube. She manipulates it while Julia and Channard watch. It's what he'd always wanted. As she manipulates it, the pyrotechnics begin. She has opened the door to something. Cenebites enter. But pinhead says wait. It is not hands that call them. It is desire. They don't take the mute girl. Kirsty awakens from her own run in with Julia to find the place crumbling around her. She takes the cenebite cube and heads down to hell. She is treated to a number of Dantesque scenes such as a clown juggling his own eyeballs. Unfortunately, Kirsty finds that her father is in his own hell, unreachable to her. Julia lures Genard to where he is set up in a remarkable trorture device that looks like a big cenebite cube. Kirsty walks into a room where women are struggling on slabs beneath some gossamer sheats. Pull the sheat away and they disappear. The message from hell that Kirsty has been getting has been from Frank. Another disappointment for Kirsty. She throws a sheet in the fire, and Frank gets his skin burned off again. Julia reaches in and grabs Frank's heart out. That's tit for tat, he betrayed her in part I. A slashed up Channard is back out and walking. A psedopod comes down and appears to grind his brains. Julia gets skinned and they make it back to the "normal" world: the mental patients are all playing with cenebite cubes. Dr. Channard comes back as a cenebite and recommends amputation. Off comes a hand. Just when they're about to take her again, Kirsty shows the cenebites that they were once human. Channard comes back and has a standoff with the cenebites who are now on Kirsty's. Kirsty and Tiffany return to the mental hospital and see some real mayhem. A door opens in the wall and Tiffany runs in to get a shard that Julia had held. Just when Tiffany looks as though she'll solve the puzzle, which might end this fracas, Genard shows up with his drills and pseudopods. Tiffany adjusts the shard and it becomes a cube, Genard loses his head about the whole thing. The next thing you know, Tiffany is helped up by Julia who is in fact Kirsty with Julia's skin on. (awfully good fit). The central cube looks like it's ready top go really unstable. They return to the empty mental hospital.