David Klecker Imagine a trilogy: the first taking place in 18th century France where a toy maker L'Merchant builds the puzzle box for an eccentric rich aristocrat who uses it to summon a demon Angelique. The second movie taking place directly after Hellraiser III where the building we see in the end is the setting of a sort of Ghostbusters copy where the building is architected to summon demons and the the ancestor of L'Merchant lives there with his family. During this time he also building toys and trying to complete L'Merchant's work in building the device that will destroy hell. The third movie is the futuristic space ending where a space station serves as the device that L'Merchant designed to destroy hell and where another ancestor of L'Merchant builds and hijacks it in order to fulfill his family's destiny and destroy Pinhead and the Cenobites once and for all. It's a bold movie and a bold idea and it was all headed by Clive Barker who conceived of the idea and sold it to Miramax. But that's not what this movie is. This movie is the condensed, short short version of all three ideas into one unintelligible, incoherent, cropped, cutted, mish-mosh of a mess that is called Hellraiser Bloodlines. This could have been great. This could have been one of the best of the series, but it was not to be. Instead we have to piece together what could have been and hang our heads in the atrocity we have been given. Even Hellraiser V is better than this. Even Hellraiser III was better than this (well more interesting that is). It's no wonder the original directory removed his name from the credits.If you liked this movie, great. But you have to admit, there was no screenplay here. There is no story here (there was supposed to be) and there was no way to understand what is really happening if you only have 1 hour and 20 minutes to explain a movie that takes place in three different time periods containing three different stories, all with different characters. This should have just been the middle part of the movie. It would have been mediocre, but it would have been a mediocre sequel much like II and III were. IV isn't god awful, it's just a mangled mess and you can tell.

Zbigniew_Krycsiwiki With the cinematographer, the A.D., and the entire art department fired one week into production, the producers unhappy with director Kevin Yagher's 110- minutes-long cut, the producers hired a new director ( Joe Chappelle, who later had the same decisions forced upon him, during filming of the sixth Halloween film ) the producers edited, rewrote, partially refilmed, and completely restructured this, frustratingly turning it into a hacked to ribbons shell of its former self. The ambitious expansion of the LeMarchand history from the 18th century, following their bloodline for centuries, through the 22nd century, where a distant descendant attempts to break the " curse " on the lineage, the construction of the Lament Configuration, almost like an anthology film, in the 110- minutes-long bootleg/ workprint/ reconstruction, and while it was confusing at first, once I figured out the plot, it was quite good. It genuinely seemed an attempt at expanding the plotlines, rather than just simply rehashing what happened before. But the 80-odd minutes-long theatrical cut omits all but the gore, and the bare essentials of the original plot, and tacking on a silly happy ending, ruining the original downbeat, profound ending. The two different cuts of this film are dramatically different, and a must for fans of this series. The 82 minutes-long cut is okay, not as bad as some have labelled it, but not particularly good, either. The 110 minutes-long cut is flawed, slower paced, but expands dramatically on plot threads which are barely given a passing glance in the theatrical cut.

tomgillespie2002 The fourth instalment of the already-tired Hellraiser franchise signalled the last time that original creator Clive Barker would be involved, and also the final film of the series to be shown on the big screen, with the subsequent sequels heading straight to VHS or DVD. Doug Bradley, who at this point was the only surviving cast member from Barker's terrific 1987 original, described Hellraiser IV: Bloodline as the "shoot from Hell", and its troubled production saw director Kevin Yagher demand his name be removed from the credits, instead opting for the go-to pseudonym Alan Smithee. While things never looked good for the film, Part IV of Miramax's cult franchise isn't actually quite as bad as you would expect.In 2127, engineer Dr. Paul Merchant (Bruce Ramsay) uses a robot to solve the Lament Configuration puzzle box on board space station The Minos. The opening of the box destroys the robot, and Merchant is taken in for questioning by a group of armed guards suspicious of his intentions. Whilst being interrogated by the groups leader, Rimmer (Christine Harnos), Merchant reveals that he is part of a cursed bloodline that stretches back to 18th-century France, where his ancestor, toy-maker Phillip L'Merchant (also Ramsay), builds the box for a rich aristocrat who desires to summon a slave-girl from Hell. While L'Merchant fails to prevent the demon Angelique (Valentina Vargas) arriving in our world, generations later New York architect John Merchant (Ramsay again) is haunted by visions of the box, building a skyscraper resembling the Lament Configuration.After two sequels with little to recommend other than Kenneth Cranham's wonderfully over-the-top thesping, Bloodline at least attempts to inject a fresh take on the Hellraiser universe. The decision to portray the arrival of Hell on Earth over three vastly different time periods is an interesting one, even if it is somewhat clumsily handled and often poorly acted. Yet for the bulk of the film we are stuck in the less-interesting modern day, or 1996, and it is here that Bloodline suffers from formulaic storytelling. The introduction of the demon Angelique offers the chance for some twisted sexual tension between her and Pinhead (Bradley), yet this isn't explored enough, and ultimately fizzles out in favour of more time with the over-exposed, iconic Cenobite, whose role was significantly beefed up by the studio following Yagher's departure. It's certainly one of the best of the series' sequels, yet given how bad the movies that followed are, that's hardly saying much.

blackboxla I'm certainly in the extreme minority of people who can appreciate the ambition behind Bloodline. Though the film got hacked up and reduced the plot to a mess (as only Dimension and Joe Chappelle could do it!), the multiple story lines stretched over three time periods makes for an interesting take on the Hellraiser mythos. It also features some slick gore and makeup gags, which comes as no surprise considering Kevin Yagher was at the helm (before he was unceremoniously dumped in post-production); A three part anthology spanning five centuries, it explores the origin of the puzzle boxes and the family that created them.The movie worked as an excellent slipcase for the entire series. It gave us a definitive start to the story, wrapped up threads from the earlier movies and gave us a definitive ending.