MF
Massimo Filograna
•The film starts exactly where the first one ended, with the only difference that the cubic mechanism, instead of being stolen by the demon himself, remains in the hands of the traumatized protagonist, who is then admitted to a psychiatric hospital. The head doctor pretends not to believe her but is actually aware of the existence of the Cenobites, having been a collector of all material evidence that could lead to them for years. His own clinic is a cover for a camp-laboratory where he vivisects patients without family ties in the hope of discovering the secret of the cubic key. Thanks to the information from the protagonist, he first resurrects Chris's cruel stepmother and then, exploiting the skill of a small patient expert in puzzles, lets himself be led by her into the dimension of the Cenobites. Upon reaching the center of the infernal dimension, the psychiatrist discovers that the entire dimension is a psychic projection of Satan, which aims to capture damned souls using the Cenobites as material executors. The same doctor discovers at his own expense that he possesses the most diabolical soul ever entered hell, and is transformed into a super Cenobite linked by a monstrous intracranial umbilical cord to the spiritual center of hell itself. At this point, the barriers between the infernal dimension and the material one collapse, thus transforming the entire psychiatric hospital into a hell where all patients are horribly mutilated by the new monster... The film, by introducing new elements and giving Pinhead a personality, clarifies some aspects left unresolved in the first one. The slow-motion special effects are quite convincing (let's not forget that we are in the 80s) and some ideas are really brilliant, like the fingers of the professor turned into a Cenobite, first they transform into a flower courting the beautiful Chris and then each petal into a different and grotesque razor. Another positive point is the distorted and surreal atmosphere with which hell is represented, whose parallel in the physical world turns into the horrible underground prison destined for the psychiatric horrors enclosed within it. The film also has some weak points: in some scenes it seems roughly edited, but in reality the immense amount of events and the frenzy with which they occur should have been developed in a film of at least three hours. In that case, it would have been a masterpiece. A film absolutely to be re-evaluated.
