unlike the straightforward erotic horror of its predecessor, the heart of hellraiser 2 is a dark fantasy film with erotic horror trappings, which the film itself lampshades at the cost of more true-to-character dialogue.

it's at its worse when it invents arbitrary reasons or motivations to set up a plot point, & when it rehashes footage from the first film, at its best when it lets certain horrifying situations go without worrying about moving the narrative forward

notably, higgins' performance evoked that uncomfortable zone between revulsion & sexual tension, & its very personally satisfying to me that the core of erotic hell is represented by a gigantic elongated platonic solid spinning in the center of a nightmare labyrinth