So, you pay your admission, buy your popcorn, enter the theater and as the credits for "Hellraiser: Bloodline" roll, you see, "Directed by Alan Smithee."
Run — do not walk — to the nearest exit.
"Alan Smithee" is a phony name created by the Director's Guild of America, slapped on movie credits when a film's director refuses to allow his name to be used.
On the other hand, if you arrive late — thereby missing Smithee's name — you may think you've walked into the wrong picture.
Though the "Hellraiser" movies have traditionally taken place in dark, dank abodes with "haunted house" written all over them (along with those long, spooky hallways that inevitably shoot chains and hooks into the flesh of innocents who pass through), this one begins like an episode of TV's "Space: Above and Beyond," as a 22nd-century space station is boarded by armed troops.
Prior to their arrival, the lone resident of the station, Paul Merchant (Bruce Ramsay), has been playing with the old "Hellraiser" puzzle box, and he has indeed raised up the only series regular, demon Pinhead (Doug Bradley).
So, before Pinhead (or his mangy dog) kills the troops, Paul tells his story to one of them, which gives us flashbacks to the origins of the puzzle box.
It seems that in 18th-century France a toymaker named Phillipe Lemarchand (also played by Ramsay) was commissioned by an evil magician to build the puzzle box. And though he performed the service unwittingly — not realizing the box would be used to open a doorway between Earth and Hell — his "bloodline" was cursed by a demon princess named Angelique (Valentina Vargas).
The bulk of the film, however, takes place 200 years later as Angelique stumbles upon a descendent of Phillipe, John Marchant (Ramsay again) in modern-day Manhattan. Pinhead enters the game as Angelique discovers that John, a famous architect, has built a huge, oversized version of the puzzle box, which Pinhead wants to use to open a wider portal to Hell.
OK, it's a bit complicated, but all of this plot is actually just something to give the audience a bit of space between gore scenes, as we see people decapitated, faces ripped off and various, ugly means of torture.
Gore galore is what the "Hellraiser" movies are all about, and if that's what you want, this one delivers.
But sitting through this film certainly brings home the rating system's double standard. A movie that flaunts nudity, like "Showgirls," or one that flaunts sex, like "Angels & Insects," receives (or is threatened with) an NC-17 rating, but the fourth "Hellraiser" film, loaded with disgusting gore and a disturbing, cavalier blend of sex and violence, gets off with an R.
As for the "Alan Smithee" credit. Is this movie really that bad? Well, yes, but so were the first three — and those directors all took credit.
"Hellraiser: Bloodline" is rated R for considerable violence and gore, nudity and sex and some profanity.