2011 October Horror Movie Challenge Movie 23: Hellraiser VII: Deader

I like Kari Wuhrer, so I wanted to like this movie even before it started playing. The premise is an interesting one: a reporter (reporters don't fare well in this series of movies, if you'll recall part 3) views a mysterious video of a girl apparently being raised from the dead, so she goes to check out what happened, hoping to get a big scoop. What she finds, of course, is that coming back from the dead causes all sorts of problems, and when she gets her hands on the titular puzzle box, all hell breaks loose (hahahahaha...ok, I promise never to make that joke again). Like most of the characters in this series, Wuhrer's reporter Amy doesn't know when to leave hell enough alone (the puns just keep getting worse as the review drags on, don't they?) so she watches another video tape with a woman muttering crazy things, and she ignores the woman's warnings and uses the box to open a portal to hell and summon Pinhead. This is why you shouldn't ignore crazy people. Even if they ramble about weird sounding shit, sometimes they have a point.

The scenes with the cenobites and such are pretty cool. Other aspects of the story, like the mysterious "Joey" and his hangout, are kind of stupid and make me want to fast forward to get to the next scene of demonic mayhem. Plus the whole premise kind of starts to fall apart when you scrutinize it too closely. I mean, originally people bought the box and opened the portal to hell INTENTIONALLY for the thrill of it, didn't they? But in this movie, the reporter accidentally solves the puzzle box and gets all damned anyway. Whatever happened to that "It is not the hands that call us, it is the desire" stuff from part 2 of the series? In that installment, even a girl who opened the puzzle box didn't draw Pinhead's wrath because he knew someone put her up to it, so he went after that guy instead. Maybe Pinhead is getting cranky in his old age.

I guess Amy is kind of asking for it anyway, what with how she chases the story even after it becomes clear it's dangerous. Then even after a bunch of creepy shit happens and she knows her life is in danger, she STILL insists on going after the story, so the whole "curiosity killed the cat" warning applies, I guess. that ties everything together with the rest of the series. Who cares about all that continuity garbage, anyway? Just sit back and enjoy the show. When you don't think about it too much, the movie is kind of cool (plus anything is better than Pinhead in Space).