A take on Clive Barker’s 1987 horror classic where a young woman struggling with addiction comes into possession of an ancient puzzle box, unaware that its purpose is to summon the Cenobites. (IMDB)

The second movie of our Halloween evening was a blast and probably our favourite of the franchise.

Changing the cenobites to female characters probably made more than a few fans angry but I love it. Jamie Clayton (The Priest) and Selina Lo (The Gasp) managed to breath new life into their characters while remaining twisted and super creepy.

Doug Bradley, who originated the role of the Hell Priest/Lead Cenobite/Pinhead, had this to say about Jamie Clayton’s take in a Twitter post: “I’m a bit blown away by this! The clever re-design of the make-up; the shimmer of the “pin heads”; the palette; whatever that keyhole/locket/tracheotomy thing is at the throat. It’s simple, subtle, disturbing and sexy. Everything it should be.”

The new cenobites aren’t the only change I enjoyed… To be honest, I never really enjoyed the hell dimension and I was very happy to see a Hellraiser movie happening in our reality.

The plot was excellent and managed to keep us on the border of our seat during the entire movie. David Bruckner did a fantastic job bringing an 80s classic to this era.

The movie began with a strong opening scene that looked promising. I remember Chris and I looking at each other like “wtf did I just look at?”. It looked gore, disturbing, and very different from what we’ve seen these last days. Unfortunately, it slowed down on the horror the closer we were getting to the end.

I have to admit that I’m not familiar with the Hellraiser franchise so, I didn’t know what to expect. I remember trying to watch the first one, and I had cut it in the middle. Maybe not my favourite kind of horror.

There was a scene with vomit and saliva that still makes me gag every time I think about it. So no, unlike my plan on putting a picture of this scene on my blog, I decided not to (a very wise decision if you ask my keyboard).

Anyway, my verdict is fifty-fifty. I didn’t have a bad time watching it, but it didn’t blow my mind either. At least I got to see Pinhead in action once.