I went through a number of horror films in October (including Pumpkinhead, weird but not bad), and really liked Hellraiser 1 and 2, but I hear mixed things about the later movies. Are they any good?

III is decent, but fairly cheesy. IV is cool because all of the Victorian-era stuff is great, but Pinhead also goes to space and that's weird. V started life as another script and it shows; decent Craig Sheffer performance. Haven't seen any beyond that.

Inferno is my favorite one out of the DTV sequels. It was also directed by Scott Derrickson of Doctor Strange fame.

I like III but to me it goes down after that.

Yeah I actually like Inferno quite a bit. That's worth watching but you could probably skip the others.

I just watched the first one in October for the first time in quite a while (I had seen it a long time ago) and was a bit curious about carrying on as well. I’ve heard the second is close to as good as the first. Seems like most agree after the series goes direct to video it went downhill fast.

I'm a big fan of IV. What really gets odd are a couple of the DTV sequels that weren't originally intended to be Hellraiser scripts.

Hellraiser: Bloodlines was pretty good for DTV. The space part was worthless though.

If you’re a fan of Pinhead, then they’re all worth it for just that. The sequels range from cheesy fun to just bad, but worth seeing to see how the franchise evolved and devolved. I like them all despite how bad some are.

III is my favorite of the series. don't @ me.

From what I’ve gathered it seems like Pinhead is actually in very little of any of the films though. I know in the first he’s barely in it.

Nothing wrong with that, dude. It's a fun slice of 90s cheese.

I always thought the third was one of the better regarded sequels. I haven’t watched beyond the first so I know little about the series.

The first is the best, II is decent and I actually have a fondness for III, though maybe it's simply nostalgia from being a teen when it came out. I saw IV maybe once or twice and it was okay, maybe I should give it a shot. Haven't seen the others but heard one of them really stands out. Are these all available somewhere for streaming?

Yes, and often (IIRC) for free on Vudu. The latter movies I've seen are different horror movie genres where pinhead or other cenobites pop in once or twice so the movies can tie-in to the franchise. That said, I feel if you're going to go into the series at all, best go all the way.

Hulu has a couple of them, I think.

The third one is pretty good, its just kind of kooky with the cenobites that are created (The CD One, the guy with a camera in his head), but i still like them and get that they reflect the human aspects behind the demon.

I actually really liked IV: Bloodline and thought it was an interesting concept and the whole idea of Space worked for the story (trapping the demons in a place not on Earth).

For me, the second movie is still the best. It had a grander scale than the original and i liked that we learn't about and visited Hell and i think the depecition is creepy and fantastic. The idea of the giant Leviathan at the center of hell was such a great image.

As for the other sequels, i saw a couple of them, but they were not memorable at all beyond part IV.

I give Hellraiser sequels a pretty low bar for enjoyment, so I've found them all to be worthwhile at least once. 5-8 I don't really remember at all, aside from one having something to do with a video game party. The last one, Judgement, was one of the better sequels past 3.

Didn't one of them star that guy who now plays a cat in insurance commercials? That one wasn't so bad.

Dean Winters. Yes.

Nothing after III is worth watching IMHO.

Terry Farrell and Paula Marshall were pretty hot in 3. That's what made it worth watching for me.

3 & 4 are okay.

Everything after that can safely be ignored. At that point, Dimension was just taking generic horror scripts, for movies you might have seen on Chiller at two in the morning, and sticking Pinhead in them for a couple of scenes

Yup... I quit watching after the 3rd one.

I had the first half-dozen Hellraiser movies, ended up selling all but 1 & 2, they were fun but not fun enough to keep them. I think 1 & 2 are the best of the series.