Having watched all nine Hellraiser movies (yes, nine) in an epic feat of procrastination, JWZ provides a helpful summary of which ones have held up, and which ones were never very good in the first place (top pick: Hellseeker, which I'd never heard of)
1. Hellraiser
Wow, is this movie dated! It's so 80s, with its giant shoulder pads and nuclear family and unfamiliarity with guys in gimp suits with lots of piercings. I remember this being a lot gorier and more shocking than it seems now. Some of the practical effects hold up reasonably well, but it's really not that great a movie.
The cube goes through the four basic moves, plus there's an impossible shape during the scuffle at the end. It looks like they broke two of the models and just glued them together randomly.
2. Hellbound
At the time, I remember thinking this wasn't as good as the first one, but now I think it's a lot better. The Channard and Tiffany characters are pretty interesting, and the whole Leviathan situation is pretty cool. There's really a lot more running and screaming than there needed to be.
Two new cube behaviors: the opening door, and the transformation into Leviathan. The Leviathan transformation annoys me because some of the pieces of the cube just fade away in a jump cut, and it doesn't even remotely conserve mass. But they are in a hell dimension at the time, so… ok. Also, they changed the orientation of the faces. I assume that was an accident.
Hellraiser [JWZ]
