I'm old enough to remember the original Hellraiser (1987). That was a true horror film. There were horrible people, doing horrible things. It left you feeling really quite disturbed about the worst aspects of human nature.
The follow-up Hellraiser 2 (1988) managed to recapture a small part of that. But after that it was downhill fast. The sequels were nothing but parodies.
Well, for some reason, Hulu decided to remake it.
Shamefully, the film fails on nearly every level. It's not well written (terrible dialogue) and poorly acted. There's little horror and you simply do not care about anyone or anything happening in it. It doesn't give you a reason to care either. The Cenobites are not scary, or grotesque looking... they just look like cheap make-up and some bad CGI.
Like the later Hellraiser films It has more in common with trashy slasher flicks than anything else. Poorly done ones at that.
As is common today they gender-switched the main role. Did it add anything? Nope. In fact, I keep hearing about what a good performance Jamie Clayton was as The Priest. I don't know what they were watching. There isn't a performance, it's literally all make up and some lines read out flat. Look at the originals: Pinhead's character is all about small, slow movements and looming dread. He's literally an overwhelming threat and you are the prey. Not in this one though.
Or look at the secondary villain. In the original it's Uncle Frank, who is an awful person who fully deserves his fate. Even in the end as he's pulled apart by the Cenobites... he's drawn to it, and much as he tried to run he still wants what the Cenobites offer. In this new version... there's none of that same grimy, disturbing look into subcultures. It's all clean, boring and badly acted.
Watch Hellraiser (1987) and Hellraiser 2 (1988) and stop there. They did it better on much smaller budgets.
