Watch Hellraiser IV: Bloodline

Hellraiser is an institution in the horror film genre. Based on Clive Barker's "The Hellbound Heart" novella, the Hellraiser series chronicles a puzzle box called the Lament Configuration as it passes from owner to owner. Sooner or later the handlers open the box, and unleash the Cenobites; creatures from another world where sensation is all that matters, with words like pain and pleasure nothing more than semantics. And in Hellraiser IV: Bloodline the audience gets some of the canon backstory as to what the Lament Configuration is, what it does, and why it poses such a threat.

This film takes place in the 22nd century, and it follows Paul Merchant. Paul is the descendant of 18th century toymaker Phillipe Lemarchand, the toymaker responsible for creating the dreaded puzzle box. According to the film the Lament Configuration represents a portal to hell, and if it's left open then demons will roam free and hell will come to Earth. Paul is the world's last hope against that happening, and only he has the knowledge and skill to trap the cenobites and their leader, the Prince of Pain, Pinhead.

While Hellraiser IV seems to set out hard and fast rules regarding what the puzzle box is, and where it came from, the series in general will take a lot of twists and turns that contradict itself from one movie to another. For instance, in the first film we are given the impression that the cenobites are eternal. The second film states that they are in fact from definite time periods, and were once human. The fourth film in the series takes place in the future, regarding the other movies, however there are also Hellraiser movies that were made after number four which stretch and twist canon in other directions. Some of the films involved the original creator, others didn't, and the result is a long running, often bizarre, interpretation of this artifact and the beings that it summons when opened. Hellraiser IV: Bloodline is just one more chapter in that unusual series.