What fresh hell is this? Today Fangoria & BloodyDisgusting bring us news of the latest entry in the Hellraiser canon: HELLRAISER: REVELATIONS. The Revelation? It's shit.

Let's not beat around the bush here, they have once more dug up Pinheads corpse and desecrated it. Indeed they've been doing it for approaching 20 years.

The first two entries are still wonderful horror films to my eyes. At the time they reignited my waning interest in horror movies.

The first HELLRAISER brought life to the growing-stale horror genre in the latter part of the 80's, introducing us to Pinhead, one of horror's most enduring icons. But while his predecessors Jason, Myers (and even Freddy) are unsophisticated characters who descended ever further into self-parody Pinhead brings, dare I say it, a certain Englishness.

The second, HELLBOUND, is mostly underappreciated. While obviously not having the freshness of its predecessor, it does dig much deeper into the Hellraiser mythology merely glimpsed in the first entry. And it is that mythology which gives it more mileage than the never-evolving Nightmare/Halloween/13th franchises. Indeed it manages to humanise the demonic Pinhead (and his fellow Cenobites) which is no mean feet.

Sadly after that, with the loss of Barker from Director/Story duties, the momentum was wasted, and the franchise was driven ever further into the ground with each new entry.

I balked at the idea of replacing Englund as Krueger but for me replacing Doug Bradley is many times worse. Instead of Bradley we get a painfully awful rendition of Pinhead from Stephan Smith Collins. And everything is wrong about it. His face, voice and delivery are absolutely jarring. This is in no way the Pinhead many of us love.

After hopes that Barker - who has recently returned to writing Hellraiser in comics - would return to the franchise for one last time, to lay Pinhead to rest, we get almost certainly the worst entry in the series. Worst of all is the idea that this could mark not an end but a new beginning to the whole mess.

Pinhead is (or was) more than a makeup job and cheesy one-liners and, as Bradley is too old to play him, it is time to end his suffering and finally lay the old fellow to rest.

Takashi Miike. One too many vowels, one too few marbles? Mad Genius or just plain mad? Either way Showtime have decided not to air Imprint, the episode of the MASTERS OF HORROR Anthology series, directed by Miike.

MASTERS OF HORROR, after starting out with a couple of decent episodes (Coscarellis On and Off Mountain Road, and Stuart Gordon's adaption of HPL's Dreams in the Witch House), seems to have gone downhill fast. The lowpoint, for me, being Mick Garris's horrible Chocolate which, beyond being crap, just plain wasn't horror. Speaking of Garris, who created the series, he describes Miike's episode as "the most disturbing film I've ever seen. I think it's amazing, but it's even hard for me to watch." Um, well, this is supposed to be a Horror series, right Mick?

I must confess to having barely seen any of Miike's movies, though not because of any dislike or deliberate avoidance on my part. The only thing I have seen, the beginning of THE HAPPINESS OF THE KATAKURIS. A movie that hit me as so weird I thought I'd better wait for another opportunity to see it, when I was more prepared. So why Garris, and the makers of MOH, invited Miike to make an episode, when his reputation for groundbreaking horror is only matched by his production of it, god only knows...

Even without worshipping at the altar of Miike I find Showtimes actions deplorable. Enough of TV is sanitized as it is without censoring Horror. The one genre that should be able to push the limits more than any other. The fact that Showtime is itself a pay cable channel, and one would think free of mainstream tyranny, just makes the whole matter worse.

For those desperate to see Miike's episode it should still hit DVD when the series is released by Anchor Bay, starting March this year.

Have an opinion on any of this, or the MASTERS OF HORROR series? Share it with us at Horror Express. Or want to share your opinion on Miike with us?

And thanks to CHUD for breaking the story.

I'd like to wish you all a Happy Halloween from Horror Express! I hope you've all had a fun day.

And to ourselves I'd like to wish a Happy Anniversary. Horror Express came in to being three years ago, very soon after I had the idea of creating it. Despite my best intentions I would never have believed we'd still be going after all these years, and with an intention to get ever better.

I'd like to thank everyone that's combined to make sure we're still here. Particularly those who have this year been a particularly important part of us, that's 42nd Street Freak, Devilman, Tom Foster and the returning, long absent, Jonathan Stryker. Foremost among Jonathans recent additions is a superb, and timely, review of THE HAUNTING complete with an interview with its Director Robert Wise, who passed away last month.

Extra special thanks of course go to HE's one-man-Dynamo, Scott W. Davis. Scott's been absent most of this month with computer troubles. But he's set to return soon and, no doubt like any good monster, will be bigger and badder than ever.

Thanks also go to all the great posters who've brought life to our forums. I couldn't possibly name you all individually for fear that my Swiss Cheese memory miss someone, and besides, you all know who
you are. Thanks guys! And girls!

We have a number of things in the work, that you should see soon.
UK residents in particular should be on the lookout, in a matter of hours, for a chance to win a great boxset from one of my alltime favourites, THE MUNSTERS (thanks to Universal Films). Unfortunately it applies to UK residents only guys.

For all those who visit, but never post, I'd like to extend this invitation to you. We're a friendly bunch and are always on the lookout for new people to chat too.

It's been a fun three years. Here's to three more, and then some.

The violence in I SAW THE DEVIL is what originally drew me to the film in the first place. Many reviewers claimed the film to be too violent; with one reviewer on IMDB claiming censors deemed it as ‘offensive to human dignity’. Instantly I had images in my head of people being beaten to death with their own arms, choked with their own intestines and raped with their own legs.

This is also down Jee-woon Kim’s use of direction, occasionally letting us watch some of the squeamish moments and other times, cutting away and letting our imagination take over. Be warned though, the violence and general theme of the film treads into some very dark territory. Think of scenes from THE VENGEANCE TRILOGY and then crank up the violence to 11 and you get a good idea of what to expect.

The two main characters both give a rock solid performance. Soo-hyeon is a stoic man, with his grief hidden under a mask of grim determination. We see this mask slip from time to time as his in-laws desperately beg him to end his pursuit of Kyung-chul.

“GREEN INFERNO is very much in line with films like CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST and THE MAN FROM DEEP RIVER, both of which are the victim of much scrutiny and outrage - some of it even deserved.”

We watch his determination evolve into obsession as his pursuit for revenge consumes him until we finally see the wreck he becomes after he witnesses the consequences of his actions. However, Byung-hun Lee’s performance is over shadowed by Min-sik Choi’s embodiment of ruthless serial killer Kyung-chul. A character that completely lacks remorse or guilt that steals the spotlight as he scarily drags his battered and broken body from place to place, inflicting his pain on others.

The violence in I SAW THE DEVIL is what originally drew me to the film in the first place. Many reviewers claimed the film to be too violent; with one reviewer on IMDB claiming censors deemed it as ‘offensive to human dignity’. Instantly I had images in my head of people being beaten to death with their own arms, choked with their own intestines and raped with their own legs.

“I was enjoying the film a lot until things took a very strange turn. Half way through the film the camera breaks and suddenly we switch to another group of characters that have found their way inside...”

This is also down Jee-woon Kim’s use of direction, occasionally letting us watch some of the squeamish moments and other times, cutting away and letting our imagination take over. Be warned though, the violence and general theme of the film treads into some very dark territory. Think of scenes from THE VENGEANCE TRILOGY and then crank up the violence to 11 and you get a good idea of what to expect.