Hellraiser Review: 6 Ups & 4 Downs

Even the Hellraiser series' most hardcore fans will surely admit that the franchise has been on the skids for a long, long time.

Not a single of the series' nine sequels has managed to fully live up to the ominous brilliance of Clive Barker's 1987 original, and in recent years, it feels like everyone involved with the IP basically gave up trying.

But Hellraiser's new eleventh movie is something quite different - far from the micro-budget releases that have plagued the series in recent years, 2022's Hellraiser reboot promises a return to the glossy, gonzo form of the earlier films in the series.

And to a point, that's actually what we've ended up with here, even if this new take from talented director David Bruckner (The Night House) isn't quite the homerun fans will be hoping for.

At once a disappointment and yet still the best Hellraiser film in many, many years, this direct-to-streaming reimagining avoids many pitfalls of horror franchise reboots, and at least suggests a far more promising future for the series, whatever that may be.

But first, here's what Brucker and company didn't quite get right...