Hellraiser: Bloodline (1996)

Hellraiser IV: Bloodline is a 1996 horror film and the fourth installment in the Hellraiser series, which serves as both a Prequel and a Sequel. Directed by Alan Smithee (Kevin Yagher) and Joe Chappelle (uncredited), the film stars Bruce Ramsay, Valentina Vargas and Doug Bradley as Pinhead.

This was the last Hellraiser film to be released in theaters. It is also the last Hellraiser film chronologically, as all the films that followed (Inferno, Hellseeker, Deader, and Hellworld) take place sometime before the final events of Bloodline (and Hellworld may not even be set in the same universe). Pinhead is finally destroyed in this film.

Plot
The film begins in 2127, on Space Station Minos, a space station that resembles an opened Lament Configuration box. The man who built the station, Dr. Paul Merchant, controls a robot to solve the Lament Configuration to summon Pinhead and the Cenobites. The robot is destroyed when it solves the box. He is then caught by guards and interrogated by one of them, a woman named Rimmer. He built the space station as a trap to catch Pinhead. Since his ancestor built the Lament Configuration, he must finish what his bloodline started.

We go to 400 years ago. Paul’s ancestor Phillip L’Merchant builds the Lament Configuration for a wealthy aristocrat and evil wizard named Duc de L’Isle. De L’Isle and his servant Jacques kill a woman and, when they receive the box, use it to turn her body into a demon princess named Angelique. Phillip witnesses the summoning. Soon Angelique and Jacques betray and kill De L’Isle. Jacques tells Phillip his bloodline is cursed because he created the box that summons demons, and Angelique kills him by stabbing him.

200 years after Phillip’s death, Paul’s ancestor John Merchant meets Angelique. First he is tormented by nightmares about her. When Angelique and Jacques discover John’s existence, Angelique kills Jacques by ripping his heart out (he who summons the demon commands the demon, unless he stands in Hell’s way, and he did stand in Hell’s way by not eliminating the Merchant bloodline). She then takes a man into the basement of the building witnessed at the conclusion of Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth, which was built by John. Angelique reaches into a cement pillar and takes out the Lament Configuration, then gets the man to solve it. When he does, a gate opens up and hooked chains reach out of it and pull the man through it where he is killed by Pinhead. Pinhead emerges from the gate and Angelique tells him about John.

Angelique meets up with John, and he tells her he’s been working on the Elysium Configuration, a box with a design similar to the Lament Configuration, except it can open the gateway to Hell forever, or else destroy all the Cenobites. It works using lasers and mirrors. Meanwhile, two security guards at John’s building, Mark and Michael Norrington, encounter Pinhead, who turns them into a two-headed Cenobite called Siamese Twins. Pinhead and Angelique hold John’s son Jack hostage to make him finish his design. John activates the box, but it seems to have no effect due to the computer experiencing an overload. Pinhead kills John by stabbing him in the throat with a chain and decapitating him with scissor-like chains. John’s wife Bobbi uses the Lament Configuration to send Pinhead, Angelique, and the other Cenobites to Hell. Jack lives on to continue the bloodline.

We go to the present, 2127, where Paul is locked up in a cell. Pinhead is aboard the station now with Angelique, whom he has turned into a Cenobite, Siamese Twins, and a doglike chattering Cenobite called the Chatter Beast. Parker, one of the guards, searches the room Paul was caught in, and Pinhead kills him with his chained hooks. Another guard, Chamberlain, is killed by Chatter Beast, and Rimmer sets Paul free so he can complete his mission. Paul tells Rimmer to leave in a shuttle, and says he’ll come with her. Edwards, another guard, takes the Lament Configuration and encounters Angelique and Siamese Twins. He tries to solve the box to send Angelique to Hell, but he doesn’t do it right, and Siamese Twins separate and then rejoin when Edwards is between them, crushing and absorbing him.

On her way to the shuttle, Rimmer is chased by Chatter Beast, but she gets through the door and adjusts the pressure in the hall so the Chatter Beast explodes. Paul distracts Pinhead with a hologram, leading Pinhead to believe Paul is in the room with him, when he is really aboard the shuttle. Paul activates the Elysium Configuration, reflecting lasers off of mirrors and onto the station, which closes up into a box, trapping Pinhead and the Cenobites inside. Finally, the station explodes, killing Pinhead once and for all. Paul and Rimmer head to Earth in the shuttle.

Cast

 * Bruce Ramsay as Phillip "Toymaker" L'Merchant / John Merchant / Dr. Paul Merchant
 * Christine Harnos as Rimmer
 * Paul Perri as Edwards / Skinless Parker
 * Doug Bradley as Pinhead
 * Tom Dugan as Chamberlain
 * Pat Skipper as Carducci
 * Wren T. Brown as Parker
 * Jody St. Michael as Chatterbeast (The Beast)
 * Valentina Vargas as Peasant Girl / Princess Angelique / Angelique Cenobite
 * Adam Scott as Jacques
 * Mickey Cottrell as Duc de L'Isle
 * Louis Turenne as Aguste de L'Moure
 * Kim Myers as Bobbi Merchant
 * Courtland Mead as Jack Merchant
 * Louis Mustillo as Sharpe
 * Sally Willis as MINOS Space Station Computer Voice
 * Robert Wisdom as Corbusier / Zombie #1 (Cardplayer 1 cenobite) (SCENES DELETED)
 * Andrew 'Andy' Magnus as de L'Voux / Zombie #2 (Cardplayer 2 cenobite) (SCENES DELETED)
 * as de 'Condut / Zombie #3 (Cardplayer 3 cenobite) (SCENES DELETED)
 * as / Zombie #4 (Cardplayer 4 cenobite) (SCENES DELETED)
 * Jeff Shrewsberry as Demonic acrobatic Clown (SCENES DELETED)
 * Kenneth Tobey as Hologram-Priest (SCENES DELETED)

Trivia

 * Hellraiser: Bloodline was originally meant to a lot longer, close to 3 hour run time with longer sequences for the 1776 time period, but was cut short, due to complains of the test audience, who felt that Pinhead was introduced too late in the film.