anthony hickox – Horror Ghouls

Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth (1992)

Posted on October 3, 2026 by HorrorGhouls

Your suffering will be legendary ― even on Earth! Yeah, sure, if Earth is such a green-grassed utopia to begin with, especially the Rotten Apple that is New York. And speaking of: the young, douchey pussyhound and goth-nightclub owner, J. P. Monroe (let’s just call him Jay Pee), has bought the grotesque pillar we saw at the end of the previous film, before it would be locked away in Warrens’ Occult Museum. After he fucks some chick, hooked chains flies out of the pillar and rips her skin off, and Pinhead, with only his face popping out of it, eats her. Similar to the previous films, he needs to eat human flesh in order to become whole. Only here though, he’s a demon that would be set free in the real world, in a goth nightclub, even. How fitting. Jay Pee becomes Pinhead’s bitch who gets ordered to serve him more bodysuits to eat. Not the most difficult task since New York has plenty.

Then we meet our protagonist, where the formula began using the reporter/detective trope to slog us through rest of the sequels. Here, however, we have the young news reporter Joey who has recurring nightmares of her dad being killed in Vietnam, and we can say that the plot thickens as much as it gets muddy where we eventually have two Pinheads, one good and one evil. Joey gets in possession of the Puzzle box, thanks to the clubgoer Terri, and finds a videotape of Kirsty (from the first two films) who explains how to use it in order to send Pinhead back to hell. When Pinhead (the evil one) finally gets out, he turns into pure slasher villain-mode and collects more bodycounts than the whole franchise combined. Pinhead goes on a blasphemy spree, enters a church where he mocks the crucifixion of Christ behind the altar before the place explodes. The conservatives in North Carolina, where the film was shot, had a problem with that. So yeah, Pinhead is the man of the hour here where he has the most screentime in the whole franchise and gets his time to really shine, spiced-up with some colorful one-liners.

And then we have our new group of Cenobites, which look more like something from a canceled Hellraiser Saturday morning cartoon show. Say hello to Doc the Cameraface, who has a camera merged in half of his face. And since this is the early 1990s, what could be more cool than DJ the CD face, slicing people with CD’s? So rad! And watch out for Rick the Bartender who fries your face as he spits flames from his cocktail shake beverage. And we can’t have a ’90s film without some big explosions. The comedic and playful tone lingers all over the film, as you’d expect when we have the director of the Waxworks films in the director chair. Not for everybody’s taste, but it at least still manage to feel like a Hellraiser film where there still was some respect for the source material, and is far from boring. The film ends perfectly with the song Hellraiser (of course) performed by Motörhead , and the franchise should also end with that note. The success at the box-office suggested otherwise where the brutal humiliation ritual of the franchise was about to begin.

Hellraiser: Bloodline (1996), or Hellraiser in Space if you like, became the final theatrical release of the franchise. That film was directed by ~~Kevin Yagher~~ the legendary Alan Smithee and also the final Hellraiser where Clive Barker was involved before the smell of bullshite got too strong and jumped ship… so that maybe speaks for itself.

What we have next is six more sequels, and…wooooof. This is the worst kind of early, ultra-cheap, soulless 2000s direct-to-video toilet slop imaginable: Hellraiser: Inferno (2000), Hellraiser: Hellseeker (2002), Hellraiser: Deader (2005), Hellraiser: Hellworld (2005) At this point I’m actually surprised that they just didn’t go for Hellraiser: Hellraiser. Fun fact: Inferno is the directorial debut of Scott Derrickson, but even he couldn’t get Pinhead back on track. Hellworld was the last film where Doug Bradley said fuck this bollox, I’m outta here. But it didn’t stop there, as we got the worst of them all served on a paper plate: Hellraiser: Revelations (2011) ― a baffling amateur show in all aspects and way too boring to be so-bad-it’s-good. Then we have and finally the last one, Hellraiser: Judgement (2018). Have yet to see the Hulu remake from 2021.

So what really went wrong with Hellraiser? Simple and boring answer: the first four since Inferno were originally written as standalone crime/thrillers, not as Hellraiser films. The elements with Pinhead was shoved in at the last five minutes and slammed on the posters, with the Hellraiser title, in order to cash-in and fool us gullible audiences. How they managed to poop out four of these turds with Doug Bradley onboard, is a mystery box of its own. But showbiz is showbiz and there’s always rent to pay. Your suffering will be legendary by watching them all in one sitting without any pauses, unless you’re masochistic enough.

Director: Anthony Hickox
Writer: Peter Atkins, Tony Randel
Country & year: UK/USA, 1992
Actors: Terry Farrell, Paula Marshall, Kevin Bernhardt, Doug Bradley, Ken Carpenter, Brent Bolthouse, Sharon Percival, Philip Hyland, David Young, Peter Atkins, Ashley Laurence
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095294/

Waxwork II: Lost in Time (1992)

Posted on October 5, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

Waxwork II starts immediately where the first film left us (spoiler alert if you haven’t already seen the first movie!) where Mark and Sarah are escaping the waxwork that’s burning down to the ground. While they board a taxi and get the hell out of there, we see that they’re not the only ones who were able to escape: the severed hand from the zombie exhibit is crawling out of the space, Thing-style, and follows Sarah to her home. There, we get introduced to her abusive a-hole stepfather, who gets killed by the zombie hand with a hammer. Who gets the blame? Sarah, of course, and then everything is turned into some murder-trial-defense scenario. Mark, desperate to save his girlfriend, tries to find a way to convince the jury that a zombie hand really killed her stepfather, but in order to do so he needs to prove that such a Thing exists in the first place, and thus Mark must travel through several worlds in order to gather evidence that can save Sarah. Aaand here we go into total sci-fi/fantasy/cosmic/something-something hodgepodge that only makes the slightest sense if you’ve been dosing on some magic mushrooms.

Waxwork II: Lost in Time is a dark fantasy comedy horror film from 1992, written and directed by Anthony Hickox who also wrote and directed the first film, Waxwork (1988). It premiered in the Philippines on March 26, 1992, and got a direct-to-video release in the US later that year despite originally having been intended as a theatrical release like its predecessor.

Like the first movie, there’s some familiar faces to see. Zach Gilligan reprises his role as Mark, the protagonist. David Carradine (well known as Bill in the Kill Bill movies) also has a role here as a beggar, and we have Bruce Campbell in possibly the best segment in the movie, shot in black & white which is a homage to The Haunting from 1963 (the segment even has the same title).

Overall, the movie is complete nonsense from start to finish. It’s a lot more goofy than the first, and paying tons more homages to horror classics of all kinds with more than a few nods to multiple fantasy films as well. Unlike the first film, there’s no Wax Museum here, just…portals to other dimensions or something like that, which are all homages to other films. And there’s sooo much here: nods to Nosferatu, Godzilla, Dawn of the Dead, Alien, etc. etc. Just like the first, it isn’t afraid to spill a bit of blood for us gorehounds, sometimes doused with a good amount of cheese, like the scene with Bruce Campbell getting his ribcage exposed, and Frankenstein doing a good old head-smashing with popping eyeballs and a brain flying straight out of the top of the skull. Great times! There’s also a rather lengthy medieval segment which does outstay its welcome a bit, but it’s also where most of the (nonsensical) story is progressing, and where the villain, Lord Scarabus, resides.

It’s hard to really get much into this movie plot-wise as it’s so all over the place and so silly and nonsensical that just trying to think too much about it makes me feel like my brain is going to take a flight just like in the Frankenstein scene. If you thought the first movie was too asinine for your taste, then gee whiz, are you going to have some trouble with this one…

Overall, Waxwork II: Lost in Time is a fun watch if you’ve already seen the first and can enjoy movies that are utter silliness. It’s got its fair share of charm and entertainment value despite being somewhat of a mess. One of the major highlights in the movie are the tons of horror references that’s bound to be a fun watch for most horror fans.

Writer and director: Anthony Hickox
Country & year: USA, 1992
Actors: Zach Galligan, Monika Schnarre, Martin Kemp, Bruce Campbell, Michael Des Barres, Jim Metzler, Sophie Ward, Marina Sirtis, David Carradine, Alexander Godunov, George ‘Buck’ Flower
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105792/

Waxwork (1988)

Posted on October 4, 2025October 4, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

Two college students, Sarah and China, have a strange encounter with an odd gentleman who owns a mysterious wax museum and invites them to have a look at the exhibit. Later, they bring along with them some of their friends: Mark, Gemma, James, and Tony. The museum has a lot of morbid displays, but nothing suspicious about that, it’s just the perfect ghoulish fun any horror wax museum should have. But of course, there’s something sinister at play…and the college students soon find out that if they get too close to an exhibit, they will end up in a pocket dimension where the scene unfolds in real life. Tony ends up in a werewolf exhibit where he encounters a hunter and his son, who is there to kill the creature. There’s no surprise that this doesn’t end well for Tony. China is sent to a castle where none other than Count Dracula himself turns her into a vampire. Mark and Sarah, however, never gets too close to any of the exhibits, and leave the museum while wondering where the hell their friends are at. Soon, they both realize something is very wrong with the museum, and they even try to make the police intervene. You can probably guess how that goes. Still, the museum has a lot more in store for its visitors…a lot more!

Waxwork is a comedy horror film from 1988, written and directed by Anthony Hickox in his directorial debut. It is partially inspired by Waxworks, a German silent film from 1924.

Waxwork is a very good mix of horror and comedy, where the tone is overall very whimsical but also offers a nice amount of decent gore scenes. It’s quite campy at times, but that only works in the movie’s favor. The practical effects here are pretty good, which shouldn’t come as much of a surprise when Bob Keen was brought on board to work on the visuals effects. His special effects can also be seen in other horror movies like Hellraiser (1987), Lifeforce (1985), among several more. Like a typical teen-slasher, though, the movie is set up with a lot of teen characters you couldn’t really give a fiddle about. So don’t expect any great in-depth personalities or anything…most of them are just there to get killed off by the exhibits. There is also a pretty bonkers finale, filled with chaos and absurd fun!

Some familiar faces can be seen here, including Zach Galligan as Mark, who is most known for his role in Gremlins (1984), David Warner as the Waxwork man, known for his roles in many films and series, including Omen (1976), In the Mouth of Madness (1994), Ice Cream Man (1995) and many more. And there’s also Mihaly ‘Michu’ Meszaros who is most known for a full-body costume role where you’d never recognize him: ALF aka “Gordon Shumway“! Aside from some well-known actors, the movie includes a ton of references to many horror icons among the exhibits “coming to life“: there’s a werewolf, vampires, a Golem, a mummy, Frankenstein’s Monster, Jack the Ripper, and so much more! Even Marquis de Sade, a real-life french nobleman who was, and still is, notorious for his writings and from where the term Sadism stems from. Whether or not he was just a depraved monster or a misunderstood genius in a whole other debate, though, but in this movie he’s one of the major villains.

Waxwork is one of those 80’s horror movies where you just sit back, and more or less nods to yourself and thinking “yup, this is one of those movies that could only have been made back in the day“. Easily a typical comfort-horror. A nice 80’s horror film filled with nonsense of the fun and ghoulish kind!

Writer and director: Anthony Hickox
Country & year: USA, 1988
Actors: Zach Galligan, Jennifer Bassey, Joe Baker, Deborah Foreman, Michelle Johnson, David Warner, Eric Brown, Buckley Norris, Dana Ashbrook, Micah Grant, Mihaly ‘Michu’ Meszaros, John Rhys-Davies
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096426/