On a giant cheap-ass CGI space station in THE FUTURE, a man named Paul Merchant summons Pinhead and the Cinobites. He is interrupted in his actions by a military unit who are there to take the space station back from its designer. As they question what he is trying to do, he tells the story of his family's history, and the history of the infamous puzzle box.
Beginning in 18th century France (featuring some of the worst French accents ever captured in film) with the toy maker who created the box, Philip LeMarchand. He delivers the box to Duc de L'Isle, the patron who requested it be built. He, in turn, uses the box, a skinned-alive prostitute, and arcane magic to summon the demoness Angelique, brought forth to do his bidding.
We then see Angelique in the 1990s as she tries to put an end to the bloodline of the toy maker, the one family who could create a new box that could send her and the Cinobites back to Hell and bind them forever.
The uneasy alliance between Angelique and Pinhead leads to arguments over the best way to achieve their nefarious goals - temptation or suffering. On the one hand, this leads to too much talky-talky between the two demons. On the other hand, it leads to Pinhead's pronouncements about pain, which are some of the best things in the movie. Doug Bradley still brings his "A" game in this fourth installment, even if the material is a step down from his character's origins.
The set dressings, with all sorts of hanging chains and bloody body parts on the walls, are also plusses here. The blending of our world with the Hellscape had always been an intriguing and entertaining aspect of these movies, and it continues to be so here.
Where this movie falls down, other than in the cgi budget for the parts in THE FUTURE, is the script. Other than some of Pinhead's dialogue, this is just a terrible script. It's confusing and frustrating trying to follow along with the leaps the movie makes, to understand what the Cinobites are actually after, to know how it is that some characters manage to know what's going on and how to proceed when they haven't previously been privy to any of the necessary information.
It's my understanding that this went through a lot of scripts, so some things may have been left in that shouldn't have and some things have been left out. Between the multiple scripts and multiple directors (the final film being credited to the infamous Alan Smithee), I guess it's a bit much to ask to have a fully coherent final product. It's obvious the studio didn't care and just wanted it finished.
Still, I remember hating this a lot more than I did this time. It's cheap and dumb, but Doug Bradley is great as always as Pinhead, and it's bloody, gory, and gross. That's all I ask for at this point in this franchise, so I guess I can't complain.
Note: This is the last of the theatrically released Hellraiser movies. The next five movies (for a total of nine!) are straight-to-DVD cheapies where apparently Pinhead is just kinda slapped onto some script the studios had lying around and are terrible. I have zero interest in bothering with any of those, so this is the last Hellraiser movie in my book, at least until the inevitable remake.
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