von_geisterhand

If asked outright and out of the blue, I would certainly claim to be a fan of the "Hellraiser"-films and while I felt fairly blasé about the news of "Friday the 13th" and "Halloween" being rebooted, I am actually quite curious to see how the "Hellraiser"-reboot will turn out if it ever sees the light of the screen.
However, then I actually rewatch one of the proper* films and am reminded about just how flawed they are. "Hellraiser" seems fairly dated and somehow caught inbetween being the creepy, somewhat kinky british film it started off as and the bigger american mainstream film it was turned into. In this case it might actually be interesting to see what a "Star Wars"-style remastering might turn the film into. Keep the stop-motion effects but clean them up a little, give the characters back their English voices and if you must keep Christopher Young's score, at least reinstate some of the Coil tracks written for the film or get Sleazy to write some more. This, however, is never going to happen and maybe it is for the best that way. Certainly, if it's just about production values, you do get these in "Hellbound", which I feel is a considerably more coherent film and certainly the best in the series. Again, it is not without flaws and does show its age (The blond girl always puts me in mind of "A Nightmare on Elm Street 4", and not in a good way.), but here you have a fairly good combination of shocks, effects and glimpses of a non-Christian mythology. Plus, you know, Kenneth Cranham and Clare Higgins.**
"Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth" then jumped the shark and made Pinhead the wisecracking Freddie-clone he should not be, while I reserve judgment on "Bloodlines" until they release the original version.

A factor that excited me about "The Hellbound Heart" and which I feel the movies lacked on the whole was the sense that a) the Cenobites may be cruel and relentless but they are never evil as such. Their special attentions should only be open to those who desire them enough to make the box open itself. Bringing "Hell to Earth" would really be a waste of their skills/good suffering. Frank really wanted to open that box as did Dr. Channard and thus the Order of the Gash attended to them, Maybe somebody's desire is strong and twisted enough to call them and set them onto somebody "innocent" but making them malevolent for their own sake fudges their appeal to me.
I can obviously understand why fairly mainstream american films would not feature a strong sense of sexual desire but by leaving this out, you do make the Cenobites*** a lot more generic and a lot less interesting than they deserve.

*Any "Hellraiser" that actually went on general release at the cinema. I enjoyed "Inferno" and "Hellseeker" but could not shake the feeling that they were actually interesting small films that had been rewritten to crowbar Pinhead and the Cenobites into the story.
** That's another thing last night's rewatching reminded me of: The first two "Hellraisers" (and "Hell on Earth" to an extent if in a more generic way) have very strong and self-determined female characters in a manner that horror is normally considered as lacking.
*** And while he is obviously very enigmatic, the Cenobites can do very well without Pinhead, just as the "Alien"-films can do without Ripley..