Hellraiser: Hellworld

The eighth Hellraiser film, where an online game becomes a deadly party.

Hellraiser: Hellworld is a 2005 supernatural horror film directed by Rick Bota and the eighth entry in the Hellraiser series, also sold as Hellraiser VIII: Hellworld. It went straight to DVD in the United States on 6 September 2005 after a few festival and private screenings.

The script grew out of a Joel Soisson short story, "Dark Can't Breathe", that was never meant to be a Hellraiser film and was reworked to fit the series. Lance Henriksen plays the Host, and Henry Cavill appears in one of his first film roles.

Quick Facts

Director

Rick Bota

Producer

Ron Schmidt

Writer

Carl Dupré

Story

Joel Soisson

Based on

Characters, Clive Barker

Starring

Lance Henriksen
Katheryn Winnick
Christopher Jacot
Doug Bradley

Music

Lars Anderson

Cinematography

Gabriel Kosuth

Facts from the source article.

Background

The story follows a group of young players hooked on Hellworld, an online game built around the Hellraiser legend. Two years after their friend Adam kills himself over the game, five of them accept invitations to a Hellworld party in an old mansion run by a middle-aged host. One by one they are cut off and appear to be killed by the Host, Pinhead and the Cenobites.

The Host turns out to be Adam's father, who blames the friends for his son's death; he has drugged them and buried them alive, and the killings were hallucinations driven by suggestion and guilt. Only Chelsea and Jake survive. When the Host later opens the real Lament Configuration among Adam's belongings, the actual Cenobites appear and tear him apart.

Henriksen had once been offered the part of Frank Cotton in the original Hellraiser and turned it down to star in Near Dark.