Hellraiser: Bloodline

HELLRAISER: BLOODLINE

The fourth film in the series takes place across three different time periods: the years 2127 and 1996 plus sometime in the 1700s.  At last addressing the question of how the puzzle boxes at the center of the Hellraiser mythos originated, Bloodline shows an 18^th century toymaker who creates the first box on commission for an occultist (who then conducts a dark ritual in which he sacrifices a woman and brings her back as a demon).  Somehow this imbues the box with the power to open gateways to hell.  The summoned demon (Angelique) still roams Earth in 1996 and sets out to find a descendant of the original toymaker.  The descendant (John Merchant) is a successful architect in New York and apparently is the one who designed the building glimpsed at the end of the third Hellraiser film.  Angelique for no apparent reason lures a man to the basement of the building and has him mess with a Lament Configuration box, which leads to the fellow’s death and the arrival of Pinhead.  The motivations of this pair of antagonists (Angelique and Pinhead) are fuzzy at best, but Pinhead kidnaps Merchant’s son and wife to use as “live bait.”  Pinhead for some reason needs Merchant to open the floodgates of hell.  When Merchant discovers that his family’s missing and his home is trashed, he immediately heads to his place of work instead of, like, phoning the police.  There he and Pinhead face off, and Merchant ends up decapitated.  On a space station in 2127, Dr. Paul Merchant (who has been recounting his family history as depicted in the film thus far even though he has no way of knowing in such detail just what transpired) wants to complete his life’s work: slamming shut the gates of hell that his toymaker ancestor unwittingly helped to open.  Pinhead and a couple of additional Cenobites wander around the space station, unaware that Paul has lured them into a trap.  Will Paul’s ploy work?  Watch the movie to find out.

Bloodline contradicts a rule that’s established in the third film: Pinhead cannot take a puzzle box but must have one given to him.  Thirty-six minutes into Bloodline, Pinhead walks to a box and picks it right up.  This is unfortunately the least of the project’s problems, though I do acknowledge that Bloodline has the best production values out of the first four films in the series.  The use of three different eras is an interesting departure from past installments, but Bloodline (like parts two and three) suffers from unclear character motivations.  Also, with no single protagonist to root for throughout the tale, the viewer might not be as invested as he or she would be in a story with a sympathetic main character.  Though Bloodline runs less than ninety minutes, it’s not worth your time.