Though the script for ''Hellbound'' is related to the Barker story, the film drops its plot whenever a fake-looking monster walks on the screen. Ogling strange creatures is the film's true reason for being.

This follow-up is faster and campier than its mostly somber predecessor, but the basic grim tenets of British horror author Clive Barker's supernatural worldview are still intact.

It's probably a stretch to surmise that, just as the first film's subtext dealt with health fears, the sequel mines its dread from the horror of malpractice.

In the end Hellbound simply cannot quite match the visceral effect of its predecessor, but Tony Randel understands that such a match was simply never going to be possible.