Here’s What Happens When You Raise Hell In Less Than 2 Weeks

Filmed in just 11 days, Hellraiser: Revelations is a difficult movie to discuss. This is a bottom of the barrel first draft sequel made purely to hold onto a once successful series’ rights. Even the cynic in me finds it mean to be too hard on the lazy story, messy performances, and ultimate lack of just about anything.

But the movie was made, thus making it fair game…right?

Quick Plot: Oh great, we start with found footage! There’s a way to cut the budget before it’s even estimated.

Two rich bratty suburban teens travel to Mexico to drink tequila and bang prostitutes in bar bathrooms. Yup, I am TOTALLY on these guys’ side already.

Cut to a Very Bad Things-ish accident that leaves uber male Nico in a bit of a bind. After manslaughter, the natural thing to do is to hit up a strip club (right?) where the pair befriend a mysterious American bum who gives them, out of the kindness of his sadistic heart, Pinhead’s vessel box.

All this action is mixed in with an awkward dinner party thrown by Nico and Steve’s grieving parents, who are completely rich and utterly boring. Steve’s teenage sister Emma is also in attendance to mourn the disappearance of her brother and (ick) boyfriend Nico, of whom her parents seem to care less for than the bottle of wine served with steak.

Oh Hellraiser: Revelations. The odds were stacked against you the minute you started filming against the clock. We know that, and can even forgive a shoddy Scottish accent-hiding actor’s shoddy skills at hiding a Scottish accent and a backlot serving as the country of Mexico. But how difficult could it possibly have been to NOT make your characters filthy rich entitled white brats? Are we supposed to WANT to see them skinned and pinned as Cenobite playthings? Or should we actually feel bad for their terrible tortured fate?

The problem with a film as rushed into production as Revelations is that it doesn’t know. A lot of the (pretty awful) Hellraiser sequels have leaned on having unlikable characters as a way to spread out the audience’s alliance. A date with Pinhead shouldn’t be wished on anyone, but it certainly makes viewers feel better if the victim deserves some form of punishment.

Heck, maybe I’m not giving Revelations enough credit. Perhaps the complete intention of filmmaker Victor Garcia was to get us rooting for Pinhead & Co. to win a few fresh bodies. Then again, if that was the plan all along, shouldn’t we…you know…be rooting for Pinhead? That’s a tricky request when for the first time, the lord of pain’s leather bodysuit is NOT being filled by Doug Bradley.

One can’t really fault unlucky actor Stephan Smith Collins for being a lackluster villain. Pinhead isn’t your run-of-the-mill Jason Voorhees or Michael Meyers. He’s far more akin to Freddy Krueger or Chucky, an iconic horror role made as memorable by the actor underneath the makeup as he is by his own mythology. Plopping another man inside his costume doesn’t feel sacrilegious: it just feels silly.

To make up for it, the script crams in every fad in recent horror cinema. Found footage! Home invasion! Crash test dummy Pinhead 2! Okay, the last one’s new, but not necessarily good. Little is in Hellraiser: Revelations.

But hey, that’s what you get for 11 days of shooting. The film runs a quick 75 minutes, little of which makes complete sense. Unlike the majority of the Hellraiser sequels, however, Revelations DOES actually FEEL like a Hellraiser installment. The story is essentially Frank & Julia retold as two awful teenagers who feel isolated in a dreadful youth-gone-wild straight to IFC original. From a screenwriting-in-11-days standpoint, it makes sense: there’s no time for anything complicated, so why not just copy the most successful plot and rewrite it with younger, prettier (by some definition unfamiliar to me) people? It makes sense. But a sensical plan and ELEVEN DAYS OF SHOOTING still do not a good movie make.

High Notes

For all its rushed messiness, the actual gore of Revelations is decently done, especially considering it mostly sticks to practical effects over the easier (as any Asylum vet knows) and uglier CGI

Well-

*mostly*

Low Notes

It’s hard to point fingers at the cast for inhabiting such miserable people, so I guess I’ll blame the studio for greenlighting an incomplete script filled with awful, ill-defined characters that offer nothing to sympathize with

Lessons Learned

Being on someone’s private property means that legally, they can blow your brains out and ask questions later

Before killing a prostitute, make sure you can afford her price

‘Cenobite’ now has a definition in your standard household dictionary

The Asian prostitute population in Mexico is surprisingly large

Getting shot in the stomach by a shotgun blast will kill indeed kill you, but it will take a really long time. Possibly enough time to rewrite your will, run a marathon, or rewatch the entire Hellraiser series

Rent/Bury/Buy

There’s a part of me that really wished Hellraiser: Revelations was worse, or at least, awful in a fun way. Alas, the film isn’t incompetent. Given an actual finished screenplay, I imagine director Victor Garcia can probably make a more than decent film. Instead, we’re stuck with a movie that feels embarrassed that it even had to be made. 

Wicker It, Just a Little Bit

Writing about the psuedo sequel to my third favorite film of all time is no easy feat, and hence, the weakling inside me is taking the easy way out: I’m excusing The Wicker Tree as a warm-up for whatever Robin Hardy does next.

See, give the 82 year old filmmaker a break. It’s been quite some time since his he last got behind a camera and everybody needs a good warmup.

The Wicker Tree is just a 90 minute yoga stretch.

Quick Plot: Beth Boothsby (fresh-faced Brittania Nicol) is a successful country singing star who just can’t stop warbling about Jesus. She pauses long enough for a goodbye party at her Baptist church, wherein the good cowboys of Texas send her and her fiancée Steve out to Scotland for a two-year missionary journey to bring Christ to pagans.

I don’t know about you, but I had no idea modern missionaries took European tours. Consider me schooled.

Shockingly enough, those funny voiced redheads don’t really want to hear about dying on the cross. Disheartened by the sound of doors slamming in their pretty faces, Beth and Steve reluctantly accept an invitation to the more rural town of Tresseck, where wealthy power couple Lord Lachlan and Lady Delia Morrison oversee a gaggle of plain folk who worship goddesses and nature.

Tresseck isn’t an easy home for two crazy Texans whose biggest source of pride shines from their promise rings. Beth is able to charm some of the townspeople with her voice, but her preaching never seems to land on open ears. This is especially hard on our country star since she is (gag) a born again virgin, having remade herself into a crucifix wearing angel after hitting it big with her original single, Trailer Trash Love (yes, there’s a music video set in a redneck bar and yes, it’s amazing).

On the other hand, Steve is far more willing to suspend his Christian beliefs for fleshier pleasures. After failing to seduce Beth, he takes a quick liking to local Lolly…mostly because she’s a pretty blond with a cute accent who likes to bathe in the nude and essentially say “Hey, I’d really like it if you came in here and had sex with me.”

And so he does.

See, Cowboy Steve ain’t no Sergeant Howie. Then again, Hardy has also argued that The Wicker Tree is NOT a sequel to his 1974 masterpiece. It’s more a companion piece, a film set in the same TYPE of world that also explores the contrasts and similarities of paganism and Christianity. Or something.

Sigh. It’s never easy to approach a follow-up to one of your all-time favorite films. Sometimes the results are pleasantly odd enough to make it work (Return to Oz) while others just feel like wasteful one-offs unworthy of their names (Starship Troopers 2—though in fairness, Part 3 is surprisingly sly).  Robin Hardy can SAY that The Wicker Tree isn’t a sequel, but why name it “The Wicker Tree” if that’s the case? Perhaps my immediate low point is that the title is positively distracting. Like other Hardy fans who have been following the film’s 4+ year journey through budget cuts and actor injuries, I would have rather sat down to watch a film called Cowboys For Christ and gone from there.

That being said, The Wicker Tree DOES still share some of its predecessor’s charms. The original music isn’t as insanely humful as Paul Giovanni’s catchy Landlord’s Daughter, but some of the songs are quite pretty in a haunting way. Aside from Beth’s Jesus jingles, there’s a striking number sang by a middle aged tavern wench about, as far as I could tell, doing the nasty in the forest.

But the REST of the film…well, it’s there with some great ideas, some truly creepy ones, and ultimately, no solid payoff for its religious buildup. Let’s get spoilery:

Whereas the townspeople of The Wicker Man were making human sacrifices to restore their harvest, the villagers of The Wicker Tree are suffering from a different, equally stirring plague: infertility. As Tresseck is too close to a nuclear power plant, the female population has been unable to conceive for some time. Naturally for a bunch of nature worshipping Europeans, the logical way to fight this is to sacrifice two innocent(ishes) in some extremely brutal fashions, i.e., skin the female and call her The May Queen and tear the cowboy apart to eat with your bare hands. I imagine Hardy is trying to show an extreme case of religious fanaticism to compare to Steve and Beth’s overly fanatical (yet more conventionally accepted) Christianity. But the problem is, what is he actually accomplishing by having the pagans prove to be so brutal?

It’s a tough question and perhaps a second viewing might make more themes clear. The IDEAS are certainly there, but considering how much time is spent on Beth’s conversion from a slutty Britney Spears knockoff to a fully clothed church girl, it’s odd that her character ultimately gets no real choice in or lesson from her awful fate. Perhaps some of you smarter readers who have watched The Wicker Tree can help.

SPOILERS HATH END'TH

High Notes

Not spoiling, but just sayin’: like in The Wicker Man, people die in some fairly horrific manners, all of which are suggested without being deliberately shown. I found it chilling

Yes, Graham McTavish's role was supposed to be played by the god that is Christopher Lee, but I still found his self-proclaimed Monty Burnsish millionaire to be an effective villain. Similarly, Nicol captures the perfect essence of an overly devout without much brains Christian princess

Low Notes

Hey, I’m not going to argue with the hypocrisy of Bible interpretation, but it just feels like the script could have pointed this out in a more organic show-don’t-tell way. Instead, we have out pagan characters describing Christian beliefs about the rapture. The execution felt lazy

Lessons Learned

Contrary to common Englishman belief, The Clitoris is NOT an island off Greece famous for its ouzo

Never ask a Christian cowboy to play poker. He’ll probably just spend hours going through each card and explaining what it has to do with Jesus and really, you’ve got money to win already. Eff that dude

Cowboys keep their hats on

The Winning Line

“Where is my bowl of eyes?”

Because, come on: it’s one thing to HAVE a bowl of eyes. It’s a far greater thing to misplace it

Rent/Bury/Buy

It’s hard to know how to recommend The Wicker Tree. If you’re a diehard fan of The Wicker Man (like me), then you kind of HAVE to see where Hardy went next, even if the results are just nowhere nearly as satisfying as you might hope. That being said, there is some beautiful landscaping, weirdly paced horrors, and haunting original songs that make even an ultimately lackluster film still something more special than your average straight-to-DVD genre picture. So put it on your queue for an eventual watch. It won’t change your belief in cinema or fertility goddesses, but it will be something unique.

A Basic Double Feature Instinct

Although I was an unabashed 10-year-old movie buff in 1992, I somehow avoided ever seeing the most controversial wide release of the year. This wouldn’t be so shocking if said film in question wasn’t directed by all-time favorite Danish import.

Despite the blind spot on my cinema brain that was Basic Instinct, my desire to finally watch Sharon Stone uncross her legs had little to do with any real curiosity. No, of course it didn’t. Me being me, I mostly wanted to watch this movie so that I could freely venture into far darker territory: its decade late universally maligned sequel.

One thing at a time:

Basic Instinct: In sexy San Francisco, a blond furiously ice picks her lover to death while riding on to her own orgasm. The detective on the case is none other than Nick, a recovering alcoholic smoker cokehead who’s obviously going to fall back on the bad habits of the elite because he’s played by Michael Douglas, a fine actor who can kind of ONLY play the type of white collar miscreant. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

The chief suspect is the victim’s steady lover Catherine Tramell, a Berkley educated psychology major who now writes erotic crime fiction. Unless you were raised amongst the Amish the early 1990s, you probably know that Tramell is played by a post-Total Recall/Scissors but pre-Everything Else Sharon Stone as a sex-loving bisexual maybe sociopath who loves Hermes scarves but hates all brands of underwear.

It doesn’t take long for Catherine to take to Nick like my cat takes to moths, toying with his life and eating one wing at a time before becoming confused by the fact that it doesn’t actually taste good. Okay, maybe that’s Joplin and not Catherine, but the point is, Catherine starts worming her way into Nick’s life, people in Nick’s life start dying, fingers are pointed, genitalia is fingered, and we get to see what perennial brunette Jeanne Tripplehorn might look like as a blond.

Basic Instinct was quite the hit in 1992, a surprise blockbuster that sparked as many dinner party conversations as it did parodies. Viewed 20 years after its debut, the film doesn’t live up to its “Can you believe that!” hype, yet hasn’t necessarily aged terribly. The controversy regarding its portrayal of homosexual and bisexual characters as murderous villains seems petty today. Yes, all of its non-straight characters might indeed be killers, but that's because EVERYONE in Basic Instinct has blood on their hands. There's nothing homophobic about; it's just that in 1992, so few films featured gay themes that any high profile hit was grounds for praise or protest.

But I digress. Basic Instinct is what it is: a tacky noir that tries a little too hard to be sexy, but still emerges as a trashy mildly good time nonetheless. That’s mostly due to the fact that director Paul Verhoeven knows how to have fun behind the camera, and while her later career has its roadblocks, Sharon Stone absolutely nails the role of a sex-crazed sociopath who never met a man (or woman) she couldn’t manipulate.

Basicker Instinct: Flash forward an inappropriate amount of years to 2008, when Sharon Stone apparently REALLY REALLY REALLY wanted to revive the role that made her famous. Of course, a character isn’t all it takes to make a sequel. There’s the tricky matter of a script, director, and leading man…none of which seems to be overly valued in Basic Instinct 2.

The film opens in cold, clinical London as Catherine, still blond and horny, crashes a luxury car into the river while her drugged out soccer star boyfriend du jour pleasures her to his death. Detective Angry David Thewlis suspects her immediately, but court ordered psychiatrist Michael considers her only a risk to herself.

And of course, his sanity and free life.

Just like Michael Douglas’ unlucky Nick, Michael gets ensnared in his new patient’s web of games.  It doesn’t take more than a few steamy sessions for his ex-wife’s sleazy lover who was—whaddya know!—writing an expose on Michael’s past to turn up strangled, for Michael’s past oversights as an irresponsible shrink to come to light, and for Catherine to insinuate herself in everything from a professional dinner party to his ex-wife’s bed.

In Basic Instinct, it was hard to keep your eyes off of Sharon Stone’s Catherine. The actress took hold of the character with just the right balance of open of sexiness and confidence that you could understand why men and women fell into her trap like lemmings.

In Basic Instinct 2, it’s STILL hard to keep your eyes off of Stone, but that’s more to do with wondering just how many virgins spilled their blood to keep her skin as firm as it was when Bill Clinton was on his first presidential campaign trail. Stone LOOKS amazing and can still wear a barely-there little black dress like a superstar, but her 21^st century Catherine is no longer sexy: she’s just annoying.

“So. Is this where we’re gonna DO IT?” she purrs to Michael in his psychiatrist’s office with all the aggression of a kitten in anger management. Perhaps it was because she missed her old pal Paul Verhoeven, but Stone seems to channel Elizabeth Berkley’s Showgirls performance as inspiration for her over-the-top Catherine. What came off as sexy and daring in 1992 just feels forced and sad two decades later.

It doesn’t help that Catherine’s target is a pasty loaf of stale British scone bread. Actor David Morrissey doesn’t get a whole lot to work with but he also never finds anything extra to give. A scene that echoes Michael Douglas’ rough-sex rape-not-rape-cause-she-kinda-likes-it moment with Tripplehorn offers none of the shocking sexiness of the prior film. In this case, Michael brings home a colleague to have old fashioned missionary sex with her…until he spots Catherine’s picture on her latest book jacket sitting on his nightstand and then…and then…TURNS HER OVER TO TAKE HER FROM BEHIND.

I know, we should all be blushing. It’s positively INSANE.

And that’s the limit of Basic Instinct 2: Risk Addiction’s risk addiction. Yes, there’s an orgy, but somehow, it’s boring. I never thought I’d have to use ‘orgy’ and ‘boring’ in the same sentence twice in one year, but thanks to this and the otherwise good Night of the Scarecrow, it seems I checked one thing off my bucket list.

Directed by Rob Roy maker Michael Caton-Jones, Basic Instinct 2 could have been something truly memorable in a starstruck trashtacular Wild Things vein. Instead, it has this false confidence that it’s the sexiest thing of all time because its lead gets naked and constantly talks about it. But as Showgirls proved in such a more entertaining fashion, sex isn’t sexy when it’s shoved in your face.

Had Basic Instinct 2 understood that, it could have either a) finessed its dialogue or, more wishfully b) understood that it had the potential to be a camp classic. As it stands, I don’t see anyone hosting a midnight screening or dressing up like Catherine Tramell 2 for costume parties anytime soon. It’s just not fun enough.

High Notes

The first film features a pretty nifty car chase through a fairly crowded country road, the kind of car action that could actually HAPPEN behind the wheel of normal (if risk-loving) human beings

In 2, there’s one shiny spot and that’s Charlotte Rampling’s wise therapist. Without ever hiking up her designer skirt, Rampling is somehow more alluring and fascinating than a full frontal Sharon Stone

Low Notes

Aside from everything else about 2008 Catherine Tramall, the fact that the woman can’t read a No Smoking sign is just obnoxious. Step into MY office and light that cigarette bitch. I dare you.

Lessons Learned

Playing games goes with a degree in psychology

London streets are completely empty after dark

As you approach a very tense man who’s waving a gun with crazy in his eyes, try to avoid reaching into your pocket, even if you just want to return his keys or check for your parking ticket. Some gun-waving lunatics might get ideas that you don’t have time to disprove

Coke and Pepsi aren’t the same things

When your boyfriend is found murdered, the smartest thing you can possibly do is to call your ex-husband with a grudge before the police. Seriously, why would you even think about doing things the other way around?

The Winning Line

“Even Oedipus didn’t see his mother coming.”

I’m sure this is supposed to sound erotic. Really it just leaves me feeling bad for Jocasta’s sex life

Rent/Bury/Buy

Basic Instinct is a recommend, simply because of its place in pop culture. The DVD is loaded with extras, including making-of featurettes and an enjoyable commentary from the always fun Verhoeven and his Director of Photography, future Twister and Speed director Jan De Bont. Its sequel is ALSO heavy on the special features, but suffering through the main feature is a taller order than you might think. I ADORE bad movies, but Basic Instinct 2 commits the ultimate sin of awful cinema: it’s boring.

The Harrington Kind

Don’t you love discovering entire filmographies of good directors you never knew anything about? A few weeks ago, I enjoyed a double feature of Whoever Slew Auntie Roo? and What’s the Matter With Helen?, two “Grand Dame Guignol” flicks by Curtis Harrington. Both were fairly fabulous, and not JUST because both featured Shelley Winters. Hence, it made perfect sense to continue the Harrington path.

Quick Plot: Gang rape!

What? Don’t look at me like that. It’s how the movie starts!

Terry (John Savage) is a somewhat unwilling participant who ends up in jail anyway. Two years later, the young musician returns home to his overbearing mother Thelma (Lady In a Cage’s Anne Sothern) and her boarding house filled with old women and a trouble-in-the-making wannabe model named Lori (a young Cindy Williams). Next door lives Louise (The Manipulator’s Luana Anders), a lush of a librarian harboring a crush on the able-bodied Terry.

What does a young man do after a few years in the joint? In 1973, the answer was ‘clean pools and dodge the advances of middle aged women.’ 

See, Terry is an attractive but confused kid with the kind of childhood Freud would throw an ice cream social to discuss. His unusual upbringing by the single and daffy Thelma (whom he never refers to as Mom) has left him with more than a few issues regarding the opposite sex, particularly those with a few decades over him. 

When Mom--er, Thelma--tosses out a comment about how Terry’s rape(ish) victim should be run off the road, he takes it upon himself to do just that. After all, a boy’s best friend is his mother so far as movies have thus far taught me.

The Killing Kind is a strange film, one more designed as a sort of character study than plot-heavy horror. Though the mood is much darker than the other Harrington films I’ve seen, it’s clearly right in step with his oeuvre. Once again, we have the frays of a mother/son relationship leading to violence (a la Helen), oddly toned humor (a la Roo), and a bevy of middle aged women with plenty of juice left. There’s almost something vaguely Pedro Almovodar-esque in Harrington’s fascination with certain themes of sexuality, repression, and mismanaged parenting. Nowhere is this more evident than in The Killing Kind’s ending (no spoilers, chill out) where we finally see just how devastating an unchecked inappropriate mother/son relationship can be.

High Points

Sothern’s complicated blousiness and Savage’s understated awkwardness go a long way to crafting the complicated, sad, and more than unhealthy bond between mother and son

Holy ‘70s home design! Busy wallpaper! Shag carpeting! Shag couches! Shag haircuts! The Killing Kind is kind of a visual feast!

Low Points

Look, we get that Terry’s sexual nature is all messed up due to Thelma’s overmothering, but a dream sequence where he’s dressed like a baby while lying next to a naked Lori as a batch of older women point their fingers and cry “Shame!” is a bit obvious, no?

Lessons Learned

If someone tells you that you have an interesting face, it really just means that you’re not pretty

When peeping, leave the pets at home

Everybody spends time behind bars these days

Too Close To Home Alert

It’s a tad discomforting to watch a film about a crazy cat lady while one of your own felines sleeps on your knees and the other has wrapped herself around the back of your neck in the adorable boa style she so enjoys

Rent/Bury/Buy

The Killing Kind is something different, a ‘70s study in sexual dysfunction with some gutsy performances and black humor. It has its flaws, but much like the similarly underseen and underdiscussed Visiting Hours, it also makes for a fairly fascinating character study of a psychologically damaged killer. The DVD includes an informative interview with Curtis Harrington who has some old school stories of Paramount backlots and how his friendship with the likes of Kenneth Anger helped to get him recognized as someone worth bankrolling. I don’t know that The Killing Kind is worth a blind buy, but it’s certainly something different and fit for a thoughtful rental. 

Just not when you’re feeling overly sensitive about being a cat lady.