Did you know that “Cenobite” means the member of a religious order? I did, because when I was looking up cast and crew on the IMDB, every Hellraiser film has this trivia fact.
Anyways, much like Inferno, Hellseeker was an unrelated script that got turned into a Hellraiser film. They retrofitted one of the characters to be Kirsty Cotton from the first two films and were able to get Ashley Laurence to return to the role. Allstate’s Mayhem is married to Kirsty, and he is a bit of a sleaze. The film focuses on Trevor (the aforementioned Mayhem, Dean Winters) after a car accident has claimed the life of his wife. As he works to piece it all together, the police seem to think the accident may not be an accident.
And there is a lot of evidence to suggest Trevor is less a victim and more of an…asshole. Selfish assholes are kind of the bread and butter of the Hellraiser franchise. Through flashbacks, it is revealed Trevor gave Kristy the Lament Configuration as a gift with sinister motives.
Truthfully, the film’s twist moment is not terrible…however… (big Spoiler ahead)
It pretty much turns Kirsty into a villain. Her reveal of having made a deal with Pinhead to provide him other souls in place of hers puts her squarely in her corrupt husband’s camp.
Pinhead only shows up sparingly, and maybe a bit better dialog could have saved this film. Seeing Pinhead and Kirsty facing each other over a decade later should feel bigger than the film allows it to be.
But when you get right down to it, the film gets kind of slow and never really feels like it finds it’s footing within the franchise.
Tripping Through Gateways 
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