I didn’t watch this because I wanted to see another entry in the “Hellraiser” series; I watched this because it’s a film by Alan Smithee and he’s of course a mere pseudonym used by directors wishing to disown their work. It’s become something of a legend in film geek land so I guess I have to see at least one of the films to have the name attached to it.

If the first “Hellraiser” film was bizarre, “Bloodline” is absolutely insane with a set-up that just amplifies its strangeness as we delve into multiple time periods and never gets a feel for any of them. The demon Pinhead (Doug Bradley) pops up every now and then but exactly what he intends to do is something I can’t even guess at.

Pinhead is voiced well and looks good but the films never explain what his purpose is. The human characters are just simply here to die or become horribly mutated by Pinhead and his fellow demons. Sometimes it looks interesting but ultimately you’re just watching blood being sprayed across the screen. If there was more focus with the characters, the film would have been a lot better than this because at the moment it seems almost abstract with its structure.

“Hellraiser: Bloodline” is not the worst film I’ve seen as I can think of plenty of others more deserving of being disowned and given the Alan Smithee name. It’s another dull horror outing and it’s a shame to because the original “Hellraiser” at least did something intriguing. Maybe fans of the series will want to see this one but it certainly didn’t go down well with the mainstream audience as this was the last film of the franchise to be shown in theatres. When even Freddy Krueger can stay on the big screen and you can’t, you know there’s something seriously wrong with your film.