10 Great Horror Movies That Fell Victim To Franchise Fatigue
8. Hellraiser: Inferno (2000)
Don't hate me, but there is a Hellraiser sequel on this list.
After acquiring the rights to both the Hellraiser and Children of the Corn franchises in 1991, Dimension Films hoped to make some quick cash with cheap horror sequels.
If we know anything about the Weinstein brothers, it is that they were notorious for interfering with movies during production. This would be the case on both 1992's Hellraiser III and 1996's Hellraiser: Bloodlines, with the latter having such a truncated and difficult production that original director Kevin Yagher took his name off the film. For all the meddling, the films lost money as well as the public's interest, and the franchise became somewhat of a joke to audiences after going direct-to-video in 2000.
Having acquired nine sequels by now, the Hellraiser series remains dogged by poorly executed, poorly written and cheaply made installments, often made solely to keep the rights to the series alive. So, there's no way one of these plentiful sequels could actually be decent, right?
2000's Hellraiser: Inferno follows a tough, troubled detective as he traverses the seedy and increasingly surreal world of downtown Los Angeles in his hunt for a serial killer. And wouldn't you know it, but that pesky puzzle box is at every crime scene.
What separates Hellraiser: Inferno from the litany of bad sequels surrounding it are two things - a strong script and an equally strong performance by lead actor Craig Sheffer.
As Detective Joseph Thorne, Sheffer shines as first an arrogant rogue and then a mentally tortured soul losing his grip on reality and his sanity. Writer/director Scott Derrickson - who would later go on to tackle the likes of Sinister and Doctor Strange - handles the material well and captures the tough, gritty vibe we associate with being an inner-city cop. While it is obvious this was not originally a Hellraiser story, the inclusion of the Cenobites doesn't feel as forced as it does in later films due to Sheffer's believable performance as someone on the edge. This is a cop thriller with a sprinkling of supernatural torture.
It's also worth a look to see the house from Wes Craven's The People Under the Stairs again.