Post by Mr.HoRrOr on Oct 24, 2004 1:17:08 GMT -5
Plot:Kirstie Cotton (Ashley Laurence) and her husband Trevor (Dean Winters) get into a fatal car crash, and their car winds up at the bottom of the lake. Trevor escapes, and his wife, well, shes missing. Or is she?and As far as him actually escaping, did he?
Cast:
Dean Winters
Ashley Laurence
Doug Bradley
Rachel Hayward
Sarah-Jane Redmond
Jody Thompson
Kaaren de Zilva
William S. Taylor
Michael Rogers
Trevor White
Ken Camroux
Dale Wilson
Gus Lynch
Kyle Cassie
Alec Willows
My Thoughts:After the pretty bad 4th film that was "Bloodline", I looked forward to a better installment with the fifth film. However, I'd heard from many it was dreadfully bad, thus I avoided it. I decided to see the 6th effort (Hellseeker) since they were bringing Kirstie back. Sadly though, her nor Pinhead, spend alot of time on-screen.
My Review:The film starts off with Kirstie and her husband Trevor driving down a rain-slicked highway. When Trevor and Kirstie (stupidly I might add) start kissing while hes at the wheel, their car swerves to avoid an oncoming driver and plunges into a lake. Trevor escapes, but Kirstie isn't so lucky, she drowns. Or does she? Trevor is questioned by the cops, only to learn that his thought dead wife is missing and not deceased. This movie basically spends most of it's time in flashback/hallucinagenic mode. Basically it's a puzzle left up to the viewer to solve. What we are shown, is that the car accident, Trevor, a few of his co workers, and pinheads puzzle box, all connect somehow to Kirstie and Trevors hallucinations. Trevor after the accident wakes up in the hospital, and asks where his wife is. He gets no answers from any of the hospital staff, and is sent home. The case is being investigated by two detectives, one of which thinks Trevor was just in a terrible accident. The other, well he thinks Trevor somehow created the accident in an attempt to kill his wife Kirstie for her large summed trust. Trevors hallucinations range from his boss screwing him in all sorts of different positions, to him being hit on by his hit female neighbor. Interestingly enough, his first hallucination scenes early in the film, take on the form of pleasure. Later on, they get violent, and bloody, and people start to die in his fantasies. I suppose theres a subtle irony to it all seeing as how this is a "Hellraiser" film and the continuing plot point is lust, greed equals pain, suffering, torment, etc. The film basically wanders around aimlessly trying to figure out what exactly to do next. When Trevor isn't at his ratty apartment, or on the bus hes at the police station, hallucinating, or being followed by a man in a cloak (yes its the mysterious hooded man in a cloak routine at work again). One of Trevs co workers notices his strange behavior, so he gives him the address to a therapy chick named Sage. Supposedly shes supposed to be able to help him look into his soul to find out whats wrong with him. This scene is when Pinhead finally shows up for the first time, however not for long. As the film continues, we get more and more clues as the hallucination scenes change. The big payoff becomes pretty obvious as the film nears it's climax,which includes Trevors friend, the one who gave him the therapy womans address, blowing his brains out right in front of him. But just to keep us watching until the very end, the writers were sure to leave out a few details here and there. Eventually the film finally decides it wants to end, and goes into an eerie few scenes in the police station, and Pinhead is brought back into the picture to give us the viewer and Trevor the final wrap on what exactly the heck is going on. It then becomes clear that Trevor wasn't as much of a mr nice guy as we thought, among a bunch of other things that were thought to be true at the start of the film, revealed to be the exact opposite. I won't give away the entire ending, but lets just say someones assumption of having survived was a bit skewed, to say the least, and Kirstie shows us a little bit of a darkside.
Pros-Nice opening credits musical score, Ashley L. is looking hot as ever, shes one of those rare actresses that gets hotter with age. Twist ending while given away a bit too early, still was one hell of a twist ending, and everyone got what they deserved. Especially Kirstie.
Also nice to see The Chatterer, and Butterball again.
Cons-Overall musical score and one plot device was completely ripped off from "Children of the corn 7". In fact, two people from that film (the cop and the gun nut) are in this film. Only the cop from "COTC 7" is playing an EMT and the gun nut dude plays a detective. Also as in "COTC 7" where we had the mysterious priest who popped up in a few scenes, here, we have the mysterious cloaked person who shows up alot. Entertainment factor. Like I said in the review, this film had no idea where to go or what to do. We just follow some guy along in his twisted hallucinations, where hot women are throwing it at him left and right, and Pinhead shows up 2 or 3 times in between all of this. This plot device of person or people in bad accident, now have to peace together events pre-accident while in a comatose or mentally inept state, to unlock a secret or missing part of their life, has been done to death also. However, it turned out way better than "Soul Survivors" did. Lastly, Pinhead and Kirstie should've gotten more screentime.
Overall:A decent sequel. Worth a watch. While it lacks in the action department, it does give us an intriguing mystery to follow. Although sometimes the mystery gets repetitive and boring, still the payoff at the end makes it worth sitting through. A notch above the last 2 "Hellraiser" series installments.