The fourth Hellraiser film – and the last one to escape the straight-to-video oubliette until 2022 – decides that the natural progression for a franchise about BDSM demons and puzzle boxes is, obviously, to span several centuries and end up in space. Because if you’re a few films deep into a horror franchise and you’re an utter hack, going to space is inevitable.
Hellraiser IV: Bloodline follows the LeMarchand/Merchant bloodline across three timelines: 1700s France, where the infamous Lament Configuration is first created; 1990s America, where its consequences continue to ruin lives in increasingly unpleasant ways; and a late 2100s space station, where one poor sod decides the only way to deal with Hell is to launch it into orbit and politely ask it to fuck off.
In practice, the film jumps between these timelines showing how toymaker Philip LeMarchand, under the influence of the occultist Duc de L’Isle and the demon Angelique, accidentally invents the worst family heirloom in history. Cut to the ‘90s and his descendant is getting dragged into the same nonsense, and then to the future where another Merchant decides enough is enough and builds a giant space-trap designed to box in Pinhead and his merry band of surgical enthusiasts. Unsurprisingly, this goes tits up almost immediately.
It’s an ambitious story, one that’s also borderline stupid, but credit where it’s due, at least it’s trying something. I really enjoy this film and always have. I’m not going to defend my reasons in depth, but it actually has some fucking ambition and decent concepts behind it. Which is more than you can say for any film in the series that followed (except maybe the 2022 instalment).
And honestly? It’s just a fun film. There’s something inherently entertaining about watching a series this grim and sleazy suddenly try to graft itself onto sci-fi, even if the execution is a bit ropey.
I also much prefer Bloodline to Hellraiser III, which, outside of the admittedly fun idea of a sleazy nightclub owner feeding victims to the obelisk containing Pinhead’s soul, barely even feels like it belongs to this franchise. That film was where the rot really set in: Pinhead cracking wise like a budget Freddy Krueger, Cenobites designed like rejected MTV mascots, and all the uncomfortable, sexualised menace of the original films sanded down into something far more marketable and far less interesting.
Bloodline, for all its Frankenstein editing and obvious studio meddling, at least feels like it remembers what this series was supposed to be. Not just gore (though there’s plenty of that), but this grimy, perverse fascination with desire, pain, and the idea that Hell isn’t fire and brimstone; it’s something colder, weirder, and far more personal.
The earlier films thrived on that sense of wrongness, that feeling that something deeply unpleasant was happening just beneath the surface of normality, whether it was a suburban house or a psychiatric hospital hiding something far nastier underneath.
What I like about Bloodline is that it isn’t just another “idiots open the box and get chain-hooked to death” entry, it tries to expand the mythology. You get the origin of the box, the idea of a cursed bloodline tied to its creation, and even an attempt to set up a deeper mythology for Hell in the form of Angelique. It doesn’t always land, but at least it’s aiming higher than most of the straight-to-video landfill that followed.
Visually, it’s a proper mixed bag in that mid-90s “we’ve discovered computers and immediately abused them” sort of way. Some bits look great, others look like they were rendered on a haunted Sega Saturn. The practical effects, especially when it comes to the gore and the Cenobites, are where the film really earns its keep (the fused Cenobite monstrosity is metal as fuck).
There’s still that tactile, nasty quality the series thrives on. Flesh tears, bodies warp, and everything looks unpleasantly real in a way CGI just can’t replicate. It’s mostly when the film shifts into the space station section that the wheels start to come off, with the digital effects dragging things into that awkward, plasticky territory.
That said, the film absolutely looks and feels its best in the 1700s segment. It just seems right; ornate, grimy, steeped in decadence and occult weirdness. If anything, it feels like the purest expression of what Hellraiser is supposed to be: aristocrats dabbling in forbidden pleasures, accidentally opening the door to something far worse. It’s a shame that portion was cut down as heavily as it was, because you can see the bones of a much stronger film in there and a lot of that comes down to Angelique.
Valentina Vargas as Angelique is the absolute standout of this film. Less cold and ritualistic than the Cenobites, she’s all temptation and manipulation, and a more traditional demon who actually seems to enjoy the whole process rather than treating it like a job.
The best Hellraiser films have villains who are more prominent than Pinhead, which is exactly how it should be, I’m thinking Frank and Julia in the first film, or Dr. Channard in the second. Angelique fits neatly into that mould, representing a looser, more chaotic version of Hell compared to the Cenobites’ rigid, almost bureaucratic approach to suffering.
Her presence adds this intriguing three-way conflict between herself, the Cenobites, and the humans, giving the film a bit more texture than you’d expect from something that also features a space station designed to trap Hell like it’s a wasp in a pint glass. But again, you can feel the interference, her role was clearly cut down, and while the elements are still there, it never quite becomes what it could (or should) have been.
And that’s kind of the story of the whole film. There’s a better, stranger, more cohesive version of Bloodline buried in here somewhere, one that leans harder into the 1700s setting, gives Angelique more room to breathe, and maybe doesn’t rush headlong into space quite so quickly. Instead, what we get is something stitched together, compromised to the point that even director Kevin Yagher ended up disowning it (credited under the pseudonym Alan Smithee).
But underneath all that is something that feels oddly sincere. A film that, much like then second one, is less interested in being tidy and more interested in throwing grotesque imagery, half-formed ideas, and the occasional moment of genuine inspiration at the wall and seeing what sticks. And when it works, it reminds you why this series was ever worth a damn in the first place.
Still… what’s left is messy, but there’s enough good, weird, properly Hellraiser-y stuff in there to make it worth the ride. And for this franchise, that counts for a lot.
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