Yes, let's address the elephant in the room, it's Christmas eve and I'm posting a Halloween review, there's late, and then there's this, but I said in my last Halloween review that this year it'd be six, and it's still going to be six, late or not. And if I'm honest, I wanted and excuse to watch Hellraiser II after watching the first last year and being left very confused and unnerved by a film I felt dirty about liking. Fast forward to now and I'm still very confused and unnerved, so merry Christmas boys and girls, let's get our kink on with the forces of Hell.
Hellraiser II kicks off right where the first left off, with Kirsty in a hospital bed being questioned about the murders while cops search her father's home and make one gruesome find after another. But in between the sort of previously-on sequence and the film proper is an intriguing little prologue where we see pre-Pinhead Doug Bradley opening the box and getting dragged to Hell. This scene is presented without context because Hellraiser II is a film that respects your intelligence, because it pays off later, like its predecessor, Hellraiser II isn't about instant gratification. That is unless you want gore, because the sequel takes the gore of the first film to new and even more extreme extremes, having a man without skin grow out of the floor is child's play compared to this film's offerings. Like the first film, Hellraiser II's characters are interesting, because some of them are likable, like Kirsty and Kyle, some even have good comedic moments like Tiffany, a mute patient at the hospital that finds herself lost in Hell after opening the box. Then some are likable in a different sense; Channard for example is one creepy mother fucker, being completely predictable as a mad doctor with evil plans for his helpless patients. Julia, who returns from the first film, is even more slimy and cunning than she was before, and I'll be honest, a lot of her scenes actually made me pretty uncomfortable. Yes, me, who always moans about the lack of blood in films, did genuinely struggle to get through Hellraiser II. We'll get to why later but in the meantime, let's talk about story, because this film has one, kind of. 
Like the first film, these characters are not deep, not in a conventional sense, but they never feel shallow thanks to the film's effective establishing of their motivations, and just like last time, this is where things start to go a little crazy. The film has it's more wholesome side for sure, Kirsty wanting to save her father and being willing to dive back into Hell to do it, and Tiffany, an innocent girl who gets dragged into this mess by Channard and his plan. And that's where the wholesomeness ends really, because Channard wants to go to Hell and Julia wants... I don't know, I actually don't know what Julia's plan was in this film. Channard embodies the film's more, shall we say, exploratory elements, as he wants to go to Hell because of his obsession with the mind, he wants knowledge and experience. But that's one thing the first has on this one, its story and character motivations were much clearer and more compelling; Frank wanted to be whole again and Julia helped him because she wanted to fuck him again, and Kirsty is our innocent girl that gets caught in the middle. Frank Cotton also returns briefly, and his motivations in this film are both very interesting and very, very fucked up, completely embodying this film's more sexual side in a very discomforting way. That being said, this film taking its characters to Hell is a perfect story for a sequel to tell, and it allows the film to be more extreme in its imagery and allows the Cenobites to have a lot more fun than they did last time. 
The Cenobites are in Hellraiser II more, that's true, and the film also dabbles in their pasts, but the film still isn't about them, it's about Kirsty looking for dad and Julia doing whatever she was doing. But like before, when they show up, it's awesome, their reunion with Kirsty in particular is an amazing scene, maybe my favourite scene in the film. But with this film not really being about them, how their story ends in the film does come across as a bit anticlimactic, and sadly, that's not the only issue I have. Probably the biggest one I have after the weaker story is some the film's effects and editing. I'm going to sing the praises of some of the effects later, but some other effects in this film are really rough around the edges; one of the downsides of sending your characters to another dimension in 1988. There's an uncanny look to a lot of the effects in this film, and sometimes it looks really, really good, and other times it looks like the film's ten years older than it actually is. I'd say this is one of those films where you need to be in the right mood, but that's a bit of an understatement, because being in the right mood isn't the only requirement, making sure your parents never find out is another, and perhaps most importantly, making sure you, yourself know what you are in for before you watch it, because if not, you might find getting through it to be a struggle. I'm not one to turn squeamish in a film, one of my favourite films is The Thing and that film is gruesome like few others, but this one is worse, much worse. 
On top of the people without skin, this film has a scene where a hospital patient goes to town on himself with a razor blade, imagining that he's covered in flesh eating maggots. Then we have Julia, without skin, getting all seductive with Channard after writhing around the floor in pursuit of our helpless maggot man. In addition to not having skin, we later get to see it literally get peeled off of her, along with the usual Hellraiser fair of chains, hooks and needles. Nothing is ever as visually retched as Frank getting torn apart in the finale of the first film, but overall, the sequel is a lot more graphic, to the point that it might hurt the film's ability to tell a story. While Hellraiser II lacks any conventional sex scenes, it makes up for it by leaning hard into this series' more sexual elements. If sadomasochism isn't your cup of tea, this film will scare you, like truly scare you, and even me and my hardened heart sat in my chair when the film ended, clutching my Doom Slayer for protection. I'm not going to lie though, as uncomfortable as a lot of this film was, I was leaning forward in my chair for a majority of the runtime, I wanted to see the payoff of every scene. Just like the first film, I was fascinated, the world building is as strong here as it was in the first, made all the stronger by the film's new setting of Hell itself, an endless labyrinth overseen by the Leviathan, the god of Hell, a being that's never really explained, nor does it need to be, because the mystery is a lot more intriguing. It's a strength both of these films have, and in this case, when combined with the usually amazing visual effects, it makes the film's shortcomings easier to ignore.
Time to Play
Hellbound: Hellraiser II is a lot like its predecessor, but like a lot of sequels do, it goes bigger, and that might not always be better. A lot of the strengths of the first film have carried over; the good characters, world building and amazing visual effects, but this time some of those characters' motivations are less clearly defined, and some of the special effects are rough around the edges, which I think are both downsides of Hellraiser II raising the stakes in the way it does. That being said, this film is every bit as intriguing and fucking weird as the first, the effects that have held up all look amazingly vile, and the film's sadomasochistic elements are still as gripping as they are discomforting. Hellraiser II is another one of those films that really isn't for everyone, but once again, I did kind of like it, and I'd say it's worth watching.
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