Even the most enamored Henry Cavill fan will have a hard time defending his rightfully forgotten role in his worst movie according to Rotten Tomatoes. The film in question is Hellraiser: Hellworld, one of the many straight to DVD sequels to Clive Barker’s 1987 masterpiece of gore and terror, Hellraiser. If you have not seen the movie, or for some reason want to see it again, then you have a limited chance to do so before it leaves its current streaming home of Paramount+.
Released in 2005, Hellworld is the eighth installment of the Hellraiser franchise, and many people would agree that once you get beyond Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth, the barrel has already been scraped and there is very little left to be drawn from the world of the Cenobites and their pin-headed leader. For that reason, Hellworld, and by proxy Cavill, earned a notoriously low 0% Tomatometer score on Rotten Tomatoes, making it, according to the site, the worst movie in the actor’s often divisive career.
Hellworld follows a group of friends who are invited to a mansion party based on an online game called Hellworld. Cavill plays Mike, one of those unlucky enough to be shown the pleasure and pain of the Cenobites’ world. This role was one of several small projects that appear on the actor’s resume from the years before he became Superman or Geralt in The Witcher. It is also a performance that only those desperate to soak up every bit of Cavill goodness should really seek out, as just like the Lament Configuration Box in the movie, it leads to more pain than pleasure.
Henry Cavill Has Grown a Loyal and Dedicated Fan Base
Since his early days, Cavill has forged an impressive career in Hollywood, even if it has not been without some recent stumbling blocks. When he took on the role of Superman in Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel, his legion of fans grew substantially, and to this day they will die on the hill that bears the plaque “Henry Cavill is the best Superman.” While Snyder’s DC movies proved to be hugely divisive, the general reaction to Cavill’s Kryptonian put him up there with Christopher Reeve as one group of fans’ perfect Superman, and that is why there was so much discourse when his time in the cape was brought to an end in 2023.
However, Cavill has not just been about Superman. He gained great acclaim for his role as Geralt in Netflix’s The Witcher – to the point his departure at the end of Season 3 was seen as the death of the show for many fans – and has appeared in several other huge franchises, including Mission: Impossible, and even made a surprise cameo as a Wolverine variant in Marvel’s Deadpool & Wolverine. This year he also appeared in Argylle, a spy thriller directed by Matthew Vaughn, and The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, a World War II spy thriller directed by Guy Ritchie, both of which struggled at the box office but found success on streaming.
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Cavill has several more big projects coming up, including another team-up with Guy Ritchie, a remake of the classic ‘80s movie Highlander, and a Warhammer 40k series. However, as all of that is in the relatively distant future, go on and treat (term used lightly) yourself to one of Cavill’s earliest movie roles in Hellraiser: Hellworld before it leaves Paramount+ – and hopefully doesn’t find a home elsewhere.
- Release Date
- September 6, 2005
- Director
- Rick Bota
- Runtime
- 91
- Tagline
- Burning With Evil.