Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth is the third film of the Hellraiser franchise. It was released in theaters on September 11, 1992, by Dimension Films and Miramax.
Plot[]
A news reporter named Joey Summerskill, witnesses a mysterious death caused by the Lament Configuration puzzle box. She wants to find out more for her story. She befriends a girl named Terri, because she also witnessed the death and knows a little more about it.
A girl named Sandy who spent the night with the owner of a night club, J.P. Monroe, is stripped of her skin by a statue, the statue absorbs Sandy's body. Inside is the evil demon cenobite known as Pinhead, the Hell Priest, who wants to have another body, so that he'll be free. He tells J.P. that he'll reward him for bringing a body to absorb.
J.P. the night club owner invites Terri over so Pinhead can take her. Discovering the plan, she flees, however, Pinhead convinces her to stay and make her a cenobite. He takes J.P. instead, kills him and turns J.P. into a cenobite, Pinhead is then free from the pillar of souls.
Joey meets the ghost of Elliot Spencer, a World War I survivor who lost his faith in God and humanity. He became Pinhead when he opened the box. During the events of Hellbound: Hellraiser II a girl named Kirsty Cotton set his soul free. After his encounter with Dr. Channard, his cenobite appearance took a form of its own, and is no longer bound by Hell's rules, so the now unbounded Pinhead plans to create Hell on Earth. Elliott tells Joey that she must bring Pinhead to his domain, so he'll send the Hell Priest back to Hell.
At the boiler room night club, Pinhead emerges from an explosion. Once he appears, Pinhead slaughters hundreds of people in the night club one by one with hooked chains. Later that night, Joey leaves her apartment after seeing the night club on the news, though after she leaves, it's revealed her TV is unplugged.
Pinhead at the church.
Joey heads to the club and is greeted by hundreds of corpses. She encounters Pinhead, who wants the box. Pinhead and Joey go face to face, as he and his pseudo cenobites chase after her, many of them she knew, such as her friend Doc, who has become the Camerahead cenobite, and Terri, who has become the Dreamer cenobite. At one point, she hides in a church, only for Pinhead to arrive and make a mockery of the church by impersonating Jesus Christ crucified, saying that he is the way.
After fleeing the church, Joey is unfortunately surrounded by Pinhead and his cenobites. Luckily, she opens the box, sending all the cenobites back to Hell, except for Pinhead, who evaded capture, Pinhead then manages to take the box from Joey with an illusion. As he is about to kill her and harvest her soul like a pumpkin, Elliot appears and merges back with Pinhead. Finally, Joey sends Pinhead back to Hell by stabbing him with a blade from the box.
After their encounter, Joey places the box in cement, and leaves. Sometime later, a building is made on top of the spot where Joey buried the box, the inside of the building is decorated with the Lament Configuration's design. This building is explained in the sequel.
Cast[]
- Doug Bradley as Pinhead/Elliot Spencer
- Terry Farrel as Joey Summserkill
- Paula Marshall as Terri/Dreamer cenobite
- Kevin Bernhardt as J.P. Monroe/Pistonhead cenobite
- Ken Carpenter as Doc/Camerahead cenobite
- Brent Boulthouse as CD the DJ/CD cenobite
- Peter Atkins as Rick Bloodstone/Barbie cenobite
- Ashley Laurence as Kirsty Cotton (cameo)
Trivia[]
- This was Dimension Films' first movie.
- This is also the first Hellraiser movie to be made in the United States.
- The band Motorhead made a music video as a tie-in to this film.
- This is the first Hellraiser film where Pinhead is the main antagonist.