Review: Hellraiser V: I Inferno (2000)
By William Pattison
This time I’m reviewing the fifth film in the Hellraiser franchise…
A shady police detective becomes embroiled in a strange world of murder, sadism and madness after being assigned a murder investigation against a madman known only as "The Engineer".
This is the fifth and first of the unfortunate direct to video Hellraiser films Dimension produced. Most of these were
Hellraiser versions of already done films like Jacob’s Latter (Hellraiser 6) and I produced reused scripts (Hellraiser 7). This film is actually a retelling of the film Angel Heart.
Craig Sheffer is not bad as the corrupt detective Joseph, the ususpecting target of Hell and Pinhead.
Also, this film features some very interesting Cenobbytres, including The Wire Twins (that I amusingly call The Soska Cenobytes) and The Torso (a variation on The Chatterer Cenobyte).
All in All this is one of the most watchable of these later Hellraisers, but is is far inferior to Hellraiser Bloodline, which came before it. Also, though Penhead appears in this film it is barely more than a cameo at the end.
In the end though this film is ok it will be nearly ten years before fans would get a Hellraiser worthy of the name. The only time I would recommend this film would be if you were bored and couldn’t find a copy of Angel Heart.
