By Aileene-Bjork Novascotia, Staff Writer

After finishing Clive Barker’s Hellraiser: Revival, I can proudly say: I cannot unsee any of that. Nevertheless, what 10 hours I spent with this chain-wrapped, pin-covered experience were mostly a blast, as it graced me with a flavor of graphic survival horror I hadn’t tasted before. It’s definitely bigger on style than substance and has some rough edges, but like one of the Cenobites’ victims in the Hellraiser universe, the game had me hooked ever since I laid my eyes on it.

Hellraiser: Revival begins with a masochism-filled sex scene where the protagonist, Aidan Lynch, uses a new toy on his girlfriend, Sunny, which unbeknownst to him is the franchise’s iconic puzzle box. This ends up summoning Cenobites to come and brutally rip her apart. However, all is not lost. When Aidan learns he can bring Sunny back, he decides to fight tooth and nail to make sure he does.

If you couldn’t tell, this game is absolutely not for kids.

When Pinhead said, “We have such sights to show you,” he wasn’t kidding. Besides how gorgeous the game looks, Hellraiser: Revival slams you with its mature themes of body horror, sex and BDSM. This meshes well with its atmosphere, because after all, Aidan’s journey to reviving Sunny is a hardcore one, whether it’s on Earth or through the Cenobites’ Labyrinth.

This works, though, because when it’s combined with the excellently done cutscenes and interesting story, Hellraiser: Revival feels like an interactive Hellraiser film.

For Hellraiser fans, you will be pleased to know that the original Cenobites of the films are present in Revival. That’s right: Pinhead, Chatterer, Butterball and Deep Throat are all here, and iconic lines like “You opened it, we came” and “Demons to some, angels to others” are spoken yet again.

Even better is how Pinhead’s actor, Doug Bradley, reprises his role as the pale connoisseur of suffering, and does a tremendous job. Chatterer and Deep Throat get similarly important parts to play, but Butterball didn’t really do much.

However, the Cenobites are only part of the equation. Making this journey hard are run-ins with the Scarlet Church–a group of sadists who are willing to please the Cenobites by viciously torturing victims. While in the more rugged corners of the Earth, Aidan runs into the Unworthy, which are zombie-like creatures that were once people who were chewed up and spat out by the Labyrinth.

Unfortunately, the survival horror is where Hellraiser: Revival slips and falls on its own spikes. The game has the fixings of your typical survival horror experience like scarce ammo and a limited inventory. Combat, however, was fairly average and rarely spiced things up, especially because of the sparse enemy variety and their predictable behavior.

Melee combat was fun in the sense that each weapon is fragile, and that armored foes are better to be whacked with a blunt weapon to damage their armor before a sharp weapon is used on vulnerable bits.

The guns, on the other hand, were a pretty standard array of weapons, but only the shotgun and revolver really had a punch to them. These were more useful during firefights and boss fights.

The puzzle box, or “Genesis Configuration,” is also a weapon. You can launch objects, ignite people, and even tear people apart by summoning chains, and is gnarly in both the awesome and gruesome sense. While the box only has three attacking modes, it can definitely save your life if you run out of ammo or melee weapons.

Stealth is also possible in “Hellraiser: Revival,” but it’s not very elaborate other than throwing bottles or rocks to distract people, and it was much more fun to rush foes instead.

Through all of the game’s conflicts, I was definitely disturbed, but I was never really scared in any situation. Some areas really felt uninspired though, borrowing from other horror titles like Resident Evil 4 and P.T. while lacking in the fear department.

Outside survival horror, Hellraiser Revival keeps its blood flowing with doses of psychological horror that offer insight to Aidan and Sunny’s relationship. Similarly, puzzles doused in the game’s adult tone were fun to solve, like finding a tongue key to unlock a mouth-shaped lock.

If anything, every trip into the Labyrinth was great downtime in between the game’s Earth-grounded sections. Navigating the Labyrinth feels like an otherworldly claustrophobic torture maze, and its unsightly creatures, ripples in the walls, and spikes and chains will give you chills. Sometimes it changes without you noticing, and sometimes you’ll be running from Chatterer. Whatever happens within its walls, it’s certainly not boring.

With all that’s been said though, my experience with Hellraiser: Revival definitely wasn’t perfect… Even more so with all of the performance-related issues. I encountered a lot of frame-rate stutters and textures popping in. None of these prevented me from progressing besides the time I fell through the map, but they did remove me from my immersion.

What Clive Barker’s Hellraiser: Revival winds up being is a beautifully designed cake that tastes fine, but not extraordinary. What engaged me to see it through, however, was its story and the will to find out what sights this game had to show me next. We need more of this kind of horror–the kind that is unapologetic and abrasive.

While I loved how much it danced around its M for Mature rating to create discomfort, if a sequel were ever to be made (and hopefully it does), it’s going to need more meat on its bones to do the source material justice.

I rate Clive Barker’s Hellraiser: Revival a 7/10.