The Tragedy of Perfection

HELLRAISER III: HELL ON EARTH (1992)

Writer/director Clive Barker’s 1987 film Hellraiser is considered to be a classic, ranking up there as one of the best horror movies ever made. Directed by Tony Randel from a screenplay by Peter Atkins (based on a story by Barker), the sequel Hellbound: Hellraiser II is often named as one of the best horror sequels ever made. But with the third entry, we reach something a bit more divisive. A sequel that is loved by some, while others disregard it as a wrongheaded attempt to make the Hellraiser franchise more mainstream – because even though Hellraiser and the second movie were embraced by the horror community, they were so dark, nasty, and off-putting, they weren’t something that could really be embraced by a wide audience.

The title Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth was chosen early on, but Atkins and Barker had to cycle through a few different story ideas before landing on the one that was brought to the screen. Barker wanted to tell a story about a Pharaoh in Ancient Egypt who becomes the first Cenobite, Cenobites being those supernatural sadomasochists that are unleashed by the Lament Configuration puzzle box. That Pharaoh Cenobite would, of course, then find a way to emerge in modern day. The original idea for this franchise was that it would center on the Julia Cotton character from the first two films, so Atkins wrote a story that would see Julia running a cult and planning to open the gates of Hell wider than ever before – and only Hellraiser 1 and 2 heroine Kirsty would be able to stop her. But Clare Higgins, the actress who played Julia, had no interest in doing a third Hellraiser movie – and the poster child Cenobite known as Pinhead (played by Doug Bradley) had proven to be more popular than Julia anyway. So Pinhead ideas were crafted. A story involving rival academics. A story about Pinhead taking on the Mafia. A story about Pinhead in a brothel. And the one that actually got made. Atkins and Randel came up with the filmed story of Hellraiser III together and Atkins wrote the screenplay. Randel was supposed to direct the film, but had a falling out with the producers and was replaced by Anthony Hickox. And that’s how we got the Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth that was released in 1992.

Hellbound: Hellraiser II had revealed that all Cenobites were once regular humans. They were turned into these pain-loving creatures by Leviathan, the god of Hell. We were shown that Pinhead used to be a military officer named Elliot Spencer, and he was reminded of his original identity by the end of the film… but the climax of the movie also showed Pinhead being defeated, seemingly killed, by another Cenobite, before the final moments showed us that he was imprisoned within a strange pillar that rose from Hell into our reality. In the opening scene of Hellraiser III, that pillar, which also has the puzzle box stuck in it, is purchased from a gallery by J.P. Monroe (Kevin Bernhardt), the douchey owner of a New York City nightclub called The Boiler Room. He takes the pillar back to his apartment above The Boiler Room – where the puzzle box is stolen from the pillar by a young partier.

TV news reporter Joey Summerskill (Terry Farrell), who is disappointed with the way her career is going, witnesses that young partier being wheeled into the hospital with supernatural chains hanging off his body. She watches as those chains tear him apart. Tipped off by fellow club-goer Terri (Paula Marshall) that this got started at The Boiler Room, Joey decides to investigate and hopefully get a career boost in the process. This investigation involves more conversations with Terri, who passes the puzzle box over to her, and while they try to figure out where the pillar came from (getting their hands on a video of Kirsty Cotton in the process, allowing Ashley Laurence to make a cameo), the highly unpleasant J.P. has come to realize that Pinhead is still alive within the pillar. This becomes especially apparent when Pinhead kills a girl J.P. has brought to his bedroom and pulls her skinned corpse into the pillar with him, then asks J.P. to help him regain his powers and escape from the pillar. To help, J.P. will have to sacrifice more people – and he doesn’t mind doing that at all.

While Pinhead is scheming, Joey, who regularly has nightmares of her father’s experience in the Vietnam War (he was killed in Vietnam before she was even born), starts receiving paranormal messages from a soldier who fought in another war: World War I veteran Elliot Spencer. The events of Hellbound: Hellraiser II separated Spencer from Pinhead; while Spencer is now stuck in limbo, Pinhead has been unleashed, a purely evil being with no connection to his former humanity. He no longer has to play by the rules of Leviathan or the puzzle box. He can do whatever he wants – and destroy as many innocent lives as he wishes. (Which he demonstrates by carrying out a massacre in The Boiler Room.) He just needs to destroy the puzzle box so there’s no way he can be sent back to Hell… which means Joey is going to have to have a face-off with him. And Elliot Spencer hopes she’ll be able to stop him.

Hellraiser III is very different from its predecessors. It’s bigger, flashier, and at times over-the-top. One of the standout sequences, other than the nightclub massacre, sees Pinhead wreaking havoc in the city streets, causing car accidents and explosions, knocking down power lines… and sending a gang of goofy, “handmade” Cenobites after Joey. Her cameraman is now a quip-dropping creature that has a camera implanted in his head, the club DJ has CDs embedded in his flesh (and he can throw CDs as weapons), the bartender mixes flammable drinks and breathes fire. When we see a fire-breathing Cenobite cause a cop car to explode, you may wonder, “How did we get here?” The sequence wraps up with Pinhead entering a church and tormenting a priest played by Clayton Hill, who’s best known for being a standout zombie in George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead.

It’s easy to see why some fans consider Hell on Earth to be sacrilege; it’s such a blatant attempt to reach a wider audience and turn Pinhead into a character who can stand alongside the likes of Freddy Krueger…. but at the same time, it’s kind of fun to see Hellraiser go wild like this. Some of the edge from the previous films is retained, but for the most part this comes off like a silly monster movie, and there’s some entertainment to be derived from that.

DEXTER: SEASON THREE (2008)

Dexter Morgan (played by Michael C. Hall) is a serial killer with a code: he only targets people who are murderers themselves and present a threat to society. His job working as a blood spatter analyst for the Miami Metro Police Department gives him access to the crime scenes and the records that allow him to figure out who his victims should be. In the first two seasons, there were characters who found out what Dexter was up to – and they seemed to accept him anyway, sort of like his foster father did. The late Detective Harry Morgan (played by James Remar in flashbacks) was the person who taught Dexter to direct his homicidal urges not toward innocent people, but toward the deserving… Still, when Harry actually saw Dexter in action, he couldn’t handle it. And things didn’t work out with the people who discovered Dexter’s secret in the other seasons, either. But that didn’t stop season 3 from going down that path again.

One character who discovered Dexter’s secret in season 2 was a Miami detective named Doakes, who definitely did not approve of what he was doing. So when season 3 presents the idea that assistant district attorney Miguel Prado (Jimmy Smits) will find out what Dexter does and not only approve of it, but want to join him and kill villains alongside him, my first thought was that it would be a replay of the Doakes situation, but with a “What if Doakes gave Dexter his seal of approval?” twist. But while it’s kind of strange that the show keeps having people figure Dexter out, the writers were able to make the Prado scenario interesting, and had it play out in a way that never brought Doakes to my mind once we were beyond the set-up.

The story begins with Dexter tracking down a homicidal drug dealer called Freebo. He breaks into Freebo’s place with the intention of killing him – but instead crosses paths with someone else who’s there to kill Freebo, Oscar Prado… and since Oscar attacks him, Dexter has to kill him in self-defense. The first time he has ever killed someone without knowing their criminal history. Oscar turns out to be the brother of ADA Miguel, and since Miguel believes it was Freebo who killed his brother, he gives a big thumbs up when, on another night, he discovers that Dexter has just located and killed Freebo (allegedly in self-defense, but this time things went as Dexter had planned). The next time Dexter kills a killer, Miguel figures it out. He knows what Dexter is doing. He’s a vigilante. And he wants to join in so they can clean the streets together. Dexter embraces Miguel’s friendship, he lets the man work with him in his murderous endeavors. But, of course, it turns out that taking on a sidekick was not a good idea, because Dexter and Miguel have differing viewpoints on who deserves to be killed.

I got wrapped up in the first two seasons of Dexter, but I found season 3 to be the most engrossing season yet. I was fascinated as I watched the Dexter / Miguel situation unravel and loved the scenes where we got to watch Hall and Smits bounce off of each other. Smits did an incredible job playing Miguel, making him an intense character who’s both captivating and troubling to watch. You can understand why Dexter befriends him… and when he’s screaming in Dexter’s face over their disagreements, you understand why that friendship falls apart. There’s a scene with Miguel confronting Dexter on a rooftop that is my favorite scene in this series so far.

There are interesting stories in this season beyond the Miguel partnership as well, like Dexter deciding whether or not to set his code aside to commit an act of mercy when an old acquaintance becomes terminally ill, and his deepening relationship with his girlfriend Rita (Julie Benz), who is revealed to be pregnant. There’s also a side story with Dexter’s foster sister Debra (Jennifer Carpenter), who works at Miami Metro with him, and there’s a serial killer referred to as The Skinner lurking throughout the season, although the Miguel story greatly overshadows The Skinner story in the long run.

It’s not often that I really get drawn into a TV series and invested in the characters, but Dexter is one of the rare occasions when I’m all in on a TV show, and season 3 was awesome.

PREHYSTERIA! 2 (1994)

The first film from Moonbeam, the sub-label of the sci-fi and horror company Full Moon that was aimed at younger audiences, was Prehysteria!, a movie that introduced viewers to the Taylors, a raisin farming family that ends up taking care of five tiny dinosaurs: Elvis the Tyrannosaurus, Paula the Brachiosaurus, Jagger the Stegosaurus, Hammer the Chasmosaurus, and Madonna the Geosternbergia. The concept went over well enough that a sequel was released just one year after Prehysteria! reached video store shelves – but the Taylors aren’t around for Prehysteria! 2. 

Directed by Albert Band from a screenplay by Michael Davis and Brent V. Friedman, the sequel finds that the Taylors have gone on vacation and have left their pet mini dinosaurs in the care of their elderly friend Mr. Cranston (Owen Bush). Unfortunately, Mr. Cranston isn’t the most reliable pet sitter, as he accidentally lets the dinosaurs get loose into the raisin stock, where they get shut in a crate of raisins and shipped away. That’s when we’re introduced to the new lead: a wealthy child named Brendan J. Wellington (Kevin Connors), who has all the money and every toy he could possibly want, but his work-focused dad (Dean Scofield) barely acknowledges that he exists and he’s usually stuck at home with the cruel and strict head of the household, Miss Winters (Bettye Ackerman).

Chased through a train yard by bullies, Brendan seeks shelter that happens to be packed full of crates of raisins – including the crate that the dinosaurs are in. He takes the dinosaurs home with him, and we know he’s a good kid because he makes sure to call the Taylors (their number is on the dinos’ name tags) and leaves a message on their answering machine to let them know their pets are at his place. Then he and his new friend Naomi (Jennifer Harte), who he met in the train yard, have a good time hanging out with the dinosaurs while fixing up Mr. Wellington’s old train set. Naomi teaches Brendan to lighten up a bit, but he has some things to learn about being a good friend. Another problem is, Miss Winters doesn’t like Brendan to have pets, and has even gone so far as to flush his hamsters down the toilet in the past, so he has to keep the dinosaurs hidden from her… And when she suspects there are some kind of critters in the house, she hires a pair of exterminators to eliminate them: Larry Hankin as Ketchum and Alan Palo as Killum.

I felt that Prehysteria! 2 wasn’t quite as interesting as the first movie, but it was still a decent enough sequel. There are some fun moments with the little dinosaurs, even though there was some obvious cost-cutting when they had Madonna injure her wing so she couldn’t fly, the friendship story with Brendan and Naomi was nice, and Brendan interacts with some quirky characters, like the gardener who believes trees can talk to him and the chef who makes up songs about the foods he’s working with. When I was a kid watching movies like this, I was never a big fan of the “switch lead characters” approach, so I would have preferred if this had been another story with the Taylors, but Brendan is okay as far as new sequel leads go. Although the movie is a step down from Prehysteria!, it’s fun when taken on its own terms.

THE SUICIDE SQUAD (2021)

The 2016 DC Comics adaptation Suicide Squad was quite lackluster – but then Warner Bros. found the perfect way to course correct with a follow-up… and they did so by benefiting from trouble behind the scenes over at Disney and the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Guardians of the Galaxy and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 writer/director James Gunn was all set to head into production on the third film in that franchise, which had a noticeable impact on the first Suicide Squad movie. Not only had the marketing for Suicide Squad been clearly inspired by Guardians of the Galaxy, but the movie had also been taken away from director David Ayer so Warner Bros. could attempt to edit the film in a fashion that would bring to mind Guardians of the Galaxy… never mind that Ayer’s Suicide Squad was nothing like Guardians. Then offensive jokes Gunn had made on Twitter years earlier were dug up and turned into headlines – and Disney reacted by firing him from Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. Seeing Gunn cut adrift from Marvel, Warner Bros. quickly hired him to make a DC movie… and he decided that he wanted to make another take on Suicide Squad.

Gunn’s The Suicide Squad brings Viola Davis back in the role of Amanda Waller, the director of the government organization called A.R.G.U.S. and the head of the Suicide Squad program, which is officially known as Task Force X. When an anti-American regime overthrows the government of a South American island nation called Corto Maltese, a Task Force X team is assembled to infiltrate Corto Maltese and destroy the Nazi-founded laboratory Jötunheim, which houses a secret and potentially cataclysmic experiment called Project Starfish. The team sent in includes returning Suicide Squad characters Captain Boomerang (Jai Courtney) and Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), as well as new additions Savant (Michael Rooker), Blackguard (Pete Davidson), Weasel (Sean Gunn), TDK (Nathan Fillion), Mongal (Mayling Ng), and Javelin (Flula Borg), with Colonel Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman) back and heading up the team as the commanding officer. You may notice that this isn’t exactly an inspiring group of characters, and that’s for a reason. You’re not meant to get attached to any of these people. Harley Quinn and Flag aside, the team has been massacred within minutes of reaching the shore of Corto Maltese.

Waller was thinking ahead, though. She had sent two separate Task Force X teams to the island nation at the same time; so while one is being massacred, the other is infiltrating the island with no problem. That second team consists of assassin Bloodsport (Idris Elba), who is known for putting Superman in the ICU with a Kryptonite bullet, as well as the intensely peace-minded Peacemaker (John Cena), the walking, talking shark King Shark (voiced by Sylvester Stallone), Polka-Dot Man (David Dastmalchian), who is infected with an interdimensional virus that he’s able to expel through acidic polka dots that he fires at his enemies, and Ratcatcher 2 (Daniela Melchior), who inherited the ability to control rats from her father, the late Ratcatcher. This team has to pick up Harley Quinn and Rick Flag on their way to Jötunheim, and in the process get some assistance from rebel Sol Soria (Alice Braga).

I enjoy Gunn’s approach to making comic book adaptations and the sense of humor he brings to his movies (not so much the sense of humor he used to bring to his Twitter account), but I have to admit that I had trouble connecting with The Suicide Squad at first. This is a problem that I often have with DC projects; I was never a fan of the DC Extended Universe franchise that this movie is a part of. So while the movie had some funny moments and cool action sequences, it took a while for it to really draw me in… But once the characters are all together and reach Jötunheim in the second half of the running time, that’s when The Suicide Squad really clicked for me and I had a blast for the remaining stretch. Which involves Task Force X having to save Corto Maltese from the unleashed Project Starfish: a huge alien called Starro the Conqueror, which looks like a giant starfish and sends out smaller versions of itself that attach to people’s heads and take control of their bodies. So our anti-heroes have to battle a starfish kaiju while starfish zombies fill the streets.

Even during its down moments, I was more entertained by The Suicide Squad that I ever was by its predecessor, and in the end I was surprised to find that I had come to care about several of the characters: the depressed guy with mommy issues who throws polka dots, the rat-controlling young woman, the dimwitted shark. Even Rick Flag, who meant nothing to me in the previous movie! In some cases, I had never even heard of their comic book counterparts, but I cared about the people Gunn brought to the screen.

It all worked out, because not only did Gunn step over to DC and make one of the better movies in the DCEU, but then, by the time The Suicide Squad was released, Disney had re-hired him to make Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.