10 Bad Movies That Killed Great Horror Franchises

5. Hellraiser: Hellseeker

Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation Renee Zellweger Matthew McConaughey
Miramax

Few big-name horror franchises have as many outright misses as the 11-movie Hellraiser series. And in terms of misses, no Hellraiser movie was as all-out dreadful as 2002's Hellraiser: Hellseeker.

Remarkably, this series managed to chug along for a further four pictures before the call was made to reboot the franchise with last year's impressive Jamie Clayton-driven Hellraiser. Truthfully though, even most die-hard fans of the series stopped giving a damn once Hellseeker had soiled this once-great franchise.

Sure, 2000's Hellraiser: Inferno did split opinion at the time of its release - though thankfully has been reassessed in more recent years - but Hellseeker bettered that split opinion response and delivered a film that everybody thought absolutely sucked.

Making things worse, Hellseeker actually had plenty of goodwill ahead of its release, as it brought franchise fave Kirsty Cotton (Ashley Laurence) back for the first time since Hellbound: Hellraiser II. Well, bar an extremely brief cameo appearance in Hellraiser III. Considering it was 14 years between Hellbound and Hellseeker, intrigue was certainly piqued for Kirsty's return.

It's just a shame that such intrigue was rewarded by Kirsty being killed off in the opening minutes, as the attention centred on her memory-loss-strickend husband Trevor. Not just that, but it would later be revealed how Kirsty was alive, that she'd actually made a deal with Pinhead, and that Trevor - who admittedly was a total d*ck - was the one who was dead and had been living in Hell.

Hellraiser: Hellseeker just fell absolutely flat, was absolutely awful, and was merely a Hellraiser movie in name only.

Senior Writer
Senior Writer

Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main dayjob, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg.