Main Cast: Terry Farrell, Doug Bradley, Doug Bradley, Paula Marshall, Kevin Bernhardt, Peter Boynton, Ashley Laurence
Release Year: 1992
Country: US
Run Time: 93 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
A sleazy nightclub owner purchases a strange, disturbing sculpture, which he soon discovers contains a mysterious, ornate puzzle box. This box is a legendary object that promises the secrets of ultimate pain and pleasure, but is in fact a gateway to hell. Soon the box's new owner has unleashed the evil Pinhead, a member of a race of supernatural beings known as Cenobites. Pinhead proceeds to murder numerous clubgoers in an attempt to gain power and fully free himself into the earthly realm. He faces unexpected opposition, however, from a television reporter investigating the mysterious club murders. When she discovers the truth behind the enigmatic puzzle box, she realizes that only she can stop the carnage. However, she must not only defeat Pinhead, but his fellow Cenobites, including the barbed-wire-wrapped Barbie and the horrific CD-Head. (Yes, CD-Head does indeed kill people by shooting CDs from his head.) Though this third entry in the Hellraiser series pays lip service to the intricate mythology of the first two films, especially through a series of flashbacks to Pinhead's human past, the film soon reverts to a fairly standard slasher formula. ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide
Ken Carpenter - Doc/Camerahead; Aimee Leigh - Sandy; Lawrence Mortorff - Bum; Brent Bolthouse - CD the DJ; George Lee - Bob; Peter Atkins - Rick the Barman; Anthony Hickox - Soldier 2; Bob Bragg - Male Cop; John Bush - "Armored Saint"; Rob Treveiler - Paramedic 1; David Young - Bill the Bouncer
Credit
Timothy J. Eckel - Art Director, Christopher Figg - Co-producer, Leonard Pollack - Costume Designer, Anthony Hickox - Director, Christopher Cibelli - Editor, Randy Miller - Composer (Music Score), Steve Hardie - Production Designer, Gerry Lively - Cinematographer, Phil Smoot - Production Manager, Clive Barker - Producer, Lawrence Mortorff - Producer, David Koneff - Set Designer, Peter Atkins - Screenwriter, Clive Barker - Book Author
After the confrontation in Hellraiser II, the Cenobite named Pinhead is trapped, along with the puzzle box, amongst the writhing figures and distorted faces etched into the surface of an intricately carved pillar - the Pillar of Souls. The pillar is bought by the rich and spoiled J.P. Monroe (Kevin Bernhardt), owner of a popular nightclub called The Boiler Room. An ambitious young television reporter, Joey Summerskill (Terry Farrell), slowly begins to learn about Pinhead and the mysterious puzzle box. She is introduced to the pain the box can bring when she views a teenage club-goer being ripped apart by the box's chains in a hospital emergency room. She tracks the box and a young woman named Terri (Paula Marshall) to The Boiler Room, from which Terri had stolen the puzzle box.
Through video tape interviews with Kirsty Cotton recovered from the Channard Institute, Joey and Terri learn about the demonic Cenobites and the power of the Lament Configuration, the only means of sending Pinhead back to Hell. Pinhead remains dormant until one night several hooked chains shoot out of the pillar and rip into one of the club goers, Brittany Virtue (Sharon Percival), Monroe had recently slept with. After killing her she is absorbed and her face appears on the pillar. Pinhead convinces Monroe to bring him club members so he can feed on their blood and be freed from the pillar. Now more dangerous than ever before, since he has been separated from his human self - a World War IBritish Army officer named Elliot Spencer who takes Joey on a walk round a trench filled with the corpses of what are presumably his men, explaining the nature of himself and Pinhead - and is simply the manifestation of Elliot's dark side and no longer under the control of Hell and purely out to cause chaos and destruction (in the previous movies the Cenobites were creatures of order, not chaos). Pinhead slaughters everybody in The Boiler Room, creating several new Cenobites in the process. Pinhead sets out to destroy the puzzle box so he need never return to Hell again. As time runs short, Joey must think of a plan to bring Pinhead and his newly-created Cenobites back to the realm of Pinhead's human self or else doom both herself and the mortal world to an eternity of pain and suffering.
