The House by the Cemetery - What About Bob?

I thought about making the subtitle for this a third riff on landing in hot water with a local board of tourism. I opted not to because, for one - if you’ve seen this before this, you’ll get why I chose this name. The other reason - pattern breaking is a big part of this entry.

First let me lead this off by falling on my proverbial sword for you all not once, but twice over errors I made in my previous entries. First up - in discussing Fulci’s collaborators over the course of this trilogy, I named one person in error. Composer Fabio Frizzi provided the scores for City of the Living Dead and The Beyond, but the score to The House by the Cemetery was provided by Walter Rizzati and Alessando Blonksteiner. Second, though much less of a faux-pas by comparison - at the start of this, I had stated the entire trilogy of these movies could be streamed on Tubi. Once again, that only applies to CotLD and TB, but don’t be discouraged - The House by the Cemetery can be streamed for free from RedBox of all places as of this writing (with ads, but you’d get the same deal with Tubi, so there’s that.)

Okay, so now we’ve got that out of the way, let’s go into The House by the Cemetery, and my reasons for using this particular subtitle.

Overall, I like this movie. I want to get that out of the way up front. It’s a fun riff on a haunted house film, it has some properly grisly Fulci-style kills, and it offers a different take on the zombie type from the previous entries.

The last point is where I get stuck on it - looking at these movies as a trilogy, one can see the connective tissue between City of the Living Dead and The Beyond. By comparison, The House by the Cemetery feels like a hard shift from the earlier films. It’s not that there aren’t connections - as previously established, Fulci is again working with Sacchetti and MacColl in their respective roles of director, writer, and actress. Also, Fulci and Sacchetti are making a story inspired by the work of H.P. Lovecraft, though this marks where things start to break off.

In the prior movies, the Lovecraft influence skewed toward broader (or as it tends to be generally coined cosmic) horror - the version of Hell presented is seen as a supernatural corruption that is opened and poured forth into our world, growing in scope and power. Here, the angle is a story that could exist within the universe of Lovecraft’s work, but not of the same type as the others. In this case, that takes the form of a doctor whose quest for immortality leads him to ends that can be described as, in the least spoilery terms, the ghoulish. It’s an interesting concept, and as the zombie aspect goes, it makes a fun spin. But again, it feels somewhat out of step with what came before, both in terms of the nature of the horror and the much smaller scale this movie plays at.

It's a minor quibble, but I'll say it - it seems weird
to call a child 'Bob.' Bobby, sure. Robert, yeah.
Bob just feels like of those names you have to age into.

Speaking of smaller, we go to the subject of our title and the other big difference of this movie - its protagonist. MacColl completes her run in this movie, but unlike the last two, she feels more like a supporting role. Instead, the lion’s share of the focus goes to Giovanni Frezza (with a voice dubbed by Lyle Stetler that feels eerily out of place on the young actor) as MacColl’s son, Bob. I feel a little bit like a jerk coming down on this character since he IS a kid, and at least appearance-wise, Frezza is making a game attempt with the role. Having said that, for being the focus of much of the movie, Bob is sort of ineffectual in the larger movie. He’s set up at first as being akin to Danny Torrance in The Shining, being treated to visions that foreshadow the coming horror, but ultimately all he can really do is try to warn people who still wind up dead anyway. I place the fault on this more on the script than the child himself, but when he’s that big a part of the movie, it is a hard problem to look past.

Ultimately, I’m of two minds on this movie. On its own, it’s still a fun time. It hits the notes I come to Fulci for - good atmosphere, solid score (it’s no Frizzi, but it works) and that sweet, sweet carnage. Its biggest faults lie in its role as the final part of the ostensible Gates of Hell trilogy, where it lacks the gates, the Hell, and honestly, just the highs of its predecessors.

Also, after a series called The Gates of Hell literally ends
its second movie with its leads going to Hell,
this ending just feels underwhelming.

Again though, it’s a brisk 90 minutes and well worth seeking out.

I needed this right about now. It’s been a weird year and I’ve been wanting to get back into this. November is probably off the table as that will be a busy month, but we’ll see how things shake out in December.

In the meantime, a Happy Halloween till you all, and if nothing else, I’ll see you all next October!.

The Beyond - New City, Same Great Hell Zombies!

Welcome back once again to the Third Row’s October Franchise Dive (someday I’ll have a proper name for this thing.)

Well, the survivors of Dunwich put it to a vote. I won’t go into the details, but let me just say that if I’m spotted within city limits, there WILL be consequences. So, you win this round, board of tourism.

But, the journey through Fulci’s Gates of Hell trilogy isn’t over, so we’re pulling up stakes and heading south. There’s a quaint little hotel in Louisiana I’ve been hearing about. Nice location, good price. Just a little matter of a portal into Hell in the basement, but hey - it adds character!

Okay, joking aside, I’m gonna start with an up front disclosure. As of what I have seen to this point, The Beyond (AKA …E tu vivrai nel terrore! L'aldilà, AKA 7 Doors of Death) is, hands down, my favorite Italian horror movie. This isn’t to say ‘best’, mind you. If you put the proverbial screws to me, I’d say the best likely goes to something like Black Sunday or Suspiria. But that’s the thing - favorite isn’t always going to be best, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Just want to get that out there now in the interests of transparency.

Watching the movie this time, I went in with an eye for how this plays as a continuation of the trilogy, in particular compared to the previous City of the Living Dead. To that end, I want to again reaffirm my sentiment from last time - I like City of the Living Dead quite a bit, but in many ways, it feels like a test run for a lot of what Fulci would do in The Beyond.

Once again, we’re given a similar premise, albeit this time with some changes in presentation. Gone is the ill-fated town of Dunwich as we’re instead transplanted to a hotel in Louisiana. Care of a prologue, we learn the building is located over one of the fabled seven portals to Hell foretold in the Book of Eibon. In this case, however, there’s no act that invokes its opening. In fact, we start this film with an artist who claims to be able to stop it - shortly before he’s attacked and murdered by an angry mob.

Hey, we all make mistakes.

Flash forward - this time, the race against the clock has been swapped out for Catriona MacColl playing the ‘lucky’ new owner of said Hell-adjacent hotel. Right from the jump, we’re getting similar but different - Fulci keeps the growing corruption angle, but in this case, our heroes are initially unaware of what they’re dealing with instead of racing to stop it.

Which comes to one of the areas where I feel like this improves on City - the escalation feels more consistent (as much as the film's dreamlike narrative allows for) starting slowly and getting gradually larger and more graphic. Our first incident is framed as a benign accident. In fact, it’s probably one of the tamest injuries you’ll see in a Fulci movie. From there, we get isolated cases of people running afoul of the living dead, strange unseen forces, and two triumphs of prosthetic heads, the first involving a bottle of acid, and then second an army of half actual tarantulas, half props. Each time, the set pieces cast a little further out before, once again, we have hordes of the shambling dead to send us to our big finish.

Alongside that better sense of an upped ante, I have been noticing a through line in this movie that I find curious. Again, compared to its predecessor, there seems to be more of a shared thematic through line in this movie’s carnage.

Which is probably the best opportunity I have to say, before I continue, if you’re squeamish about eye trauma, this MIGHT not be the movie for you. I’ve joked in the past about Fulci’s predilection for grisly scenes with eyeballs, but even by that metric, this movie goes for them with all the frequency and passion of all Three Stooges.

As much as I joke about this just being a standard Fulci tendency, I have to admit it does feel like it also has a narrative basis in this case. Most notably with regards to the presence of Cinzea Monreale’s character Emily.

Shout out to numerous cast members.
Apparently they could see nothing behind those contacts.

Second warning for this entry - for this point, I will need to drop some spoilers. So I will give you till the count of…

Okay. You were warned. Let’s go.

Emily is initially presented to us as a mystery. She has knowledge of the hotel’s past, and other than that, her most distinct characteristic is the fact she is visibly blind. When I say ‘visibly’, I call your attention to the above screencap - and props to Monreale for sticking out her scenes with those. This in and of itself could just be a stylistic effect of the movie, but for two things. First - she has a scene later in the film where her dialogue establishes that she was a former damned soul that was released from Hell to warn of the doorway’s opening. Second - the movie’s final scenes, in which our two leads have now wandered through the door and are trapped in the barren abyss of Hell. As they wander, they gain the same blinded appearance Emily has.

And with that, I bring this back to my initial point - there is a distinct thematic through line in this movie of Fulci tying the eyes to the concept of being damned/blinded by evil. It’s an idea that plays through many of the kills inflicted by Hell’s growing influence, as characters’ eyes are crushed, gouged, or in one case eaten by the growing demonic forces. Yes, it also doubles for some great visceral set pieces, but Fulci for making it all tie together with the general idea of the movie merits some additional respect.

Okay, I lied.
None of these spiders will give you super powers.
Mostly, they'll just eat your face.
Sorry about that.

Besides having a (relatively) tighter narrative and thematic consistency, the one other thing I want to give a shout-out for this movie - the music. Fabio Frizzi definitely one-ups his work from the prior installment, most notably with the recurring ‘Voci Dal Nulla’ - a choral track that bookends the movie, effectively serving first as ominous intro and then an ending that, for our protagonists, feels downright apocalyptic.

Honestly, if you only watch one of the movies in this series (and why only one? Come on, these are brisk 90 minute jaunts!) I would say make The Beyond your go to. They’re all solid, but this is definitely Fulci at his most on point of the three.

Which makes me feel like kind of a jerk because we still have one more of these to go. This isn’t to prematurely toss our next entry under the bus, because it does have its charms. But man, after the highs of The Beyond, The House by the Cemetery does feel like a bit of a step down.

Still, best to make the most of it. Because after this entry, Louisiana won’t want me back either.

So, see you again in a couple more days as we scale our sights down from town-wide carnage to a quaint little house that becomes a proving ground for a creature of purest evil.

Oh and Hell. Yes, Hell will be there too.

Till then.

City of the Living Dead - Not Approved by the Dunwich Board of Tourism

Welcome back for another October here at the Third Row.

Mind the newspapers. This series is gonna get messy.

Probably should have thought of that last year, but hindsight's 20-20.

Speaking of which, be sure your protective eyewear is properly secured, we're in Fulci territory now.

Okay, with all that cheek aside, let's dive into City of the Living Dead.
AKA The Gates of Hell.
AKA Paura nella città dei morti viventi.

One of the fun parts of Italian horror - more often than not, these will have multiple titles. I'll include the alternates where I can within reason, though for the rest of this, let's stick to CotLD.

To set the scene, this movie came about thanks to the success of Fulci's earlier Zombie (aka Zombi 2 and Zombie Flesh Eaters.) There was interest in him making another horror movie, and he began working with previous scriptwriter Dardano Saccheti (who is one of a few collaborators who worked on all three movies in this trilogy, others including composer Fabio Frizzi and lead actress Catriona Mac Coll.)

The idea they came up with is one heavily inspired by the works of H.P. Lovecraft. Set in the town of Dunwich (a big tip of the hat), the suicide of a local priest sets in motion a chain of events that signal the opening of a portal to Hell. As the clock ticks down to its opening, a psychic and a journalist race to stop the opening before it's too late.

I'll admit it - I don't have a quip for this.
I just really like how Fulci frames this transition.
...and no, the Dunwich tourist board didn't
okay this one either.

That’s the elevator pitch, in any case. The story in the film plays a bit looser, including things like a police investigation in New York and a vagrant who, even by the standards of Fulci’s characters, has spectacularly bad luck. These both play in the orbit of the growing doom descending on Dunwich, however, even if the connections don’t always feel concrete.

Yeah, it’s not intricately plotted, but honestly, with the influence Fulci is working with, I feel like that helps. There’s any number of works that play to Lovecraft’s specific mythos of ancient eldritch gods and arcane texts (while carefully cutting around his uncomfortable racial issues), but Fulci opts to go for the broader strokes of the creeping unknown rather than a specific evil. It’s a big part of why I find this series fascinating - rather than a singular monster or straightforward threat, the films share an idea of a sort of growing corruption, starting from a single incident and growing outward with greater scope and stranger horrors.

It’s something I haven’t seen done as often in other horror movies (Carpenter’s Prince of Darkness comes to mind as the most immediate comparison), so it’s part of what makes these movies standout. The horrors, in this case running anywhere from Fulci’s signature zombies, to a rain of maggots, to one particularly memorable set piece in which a woman vomits up her own organs (an effect accomplished with veal intestines, a prosthetic head, and one INCREDIBLY game actress that I hope was paid well for her part.)

Seriously. This scene goes a good way before they
swap to the prosthetic head - partly because no human
being can regurgitate that much safely.
This woman is a damn trooper!

While a part of me feels odd putting the gory set pieces first and foremost in the strengths, the fact is, they really do make up the backbone of this movie. Not simply as gore for gore’s sake, but as reflecting  the growing escalation that goes with that otherworldly corruption. We start the movie with a priest hanging himself and a man finding a decayed body. From there, we see first graphic standalone deaths, then carnage unfolding on greater and greater scales. To his credit, Fulci maintains the momentum almost perfectly, save for the last twist of the movie that feels like a fumble, and possibly a reshoot for how little set-up it has compared with a lot of what came before.

The movie opened to its share of mixed reception - besides the series of violence cuts for different countries, as was the style at the time, the movie earned its Gates of Hell moniker in response to a legal response from United Artists who felt that the distributors were trying to ride George Romero’s coattails. Critically, there were some who praised Fulci’s style, but many who were turned off by the violence and some of the looser writing of the movie. In the years since, it has developed a respectable following in horror circles.

Granted, it’s still somewhat in the shadow of its successor, but we’ll be going into that more next time. For now, I’ll say this much - on its own, City of the Living Dead is still a very fun, watchable, work of Italian horror. Its set pieces may sometimes be disjointed, but they move at a brisk pace that keeps you invested (so long as you have the stomach for some low budget carnage, anyway.) As its own movie, it’s a good time, as part of the trilogy, it walked so The Beyond can run, but it still stands well on its own.

In the interests of playing somewhat fair with the
good townsfolk, I have been asked to say this:
Come see scenic Dunwich, where you will more than
likely NOT have your brains squeezed out of your
skull by the undead!

If this has gotten you interested in checking this out (and if it hasn’t, you might want to turn back now - Fulci’s penchant for blood, guts, and strange, dreamlike narratives persists in this series), you can watch this, and its sequels, for free on Tubi as of this writing.

In the meantime, unless you’re sticking around for a watch or rewatch, it’s time for us to bid farewell to the ill-fated town of Dunwich as we make our way south to a little hotel in Louisiana. There, we’ll be opening one of the seven doors of Hell with 1981’s The Beyond.

Until then.

I'm Back and I'm Bringing Zombies!

 You feeling that?

The days are getting shorter, the temperature's getting cooler, the leaves are changing color.

Fall is here.

And that means I'm back on my BS again.

This past year has been a lot. Some good, some bad, and just a lot going on. I was honestly debating if I wanted to do another horror dive this year.

This was also a result of last year's run. Don't get me wrong, there were parts of diving into Hellraiser that I really enjoyed - finally reading The Hellbound Heart and digging into the production history were good times, including gaining a level of respect for Bloodline, in all of its flawed glory.

Then we had the six movies Dimension pumped out purely to keep the rights in their camp. That was where the project went from enjoyable to a chore. I was being entirely sincere when I said a big part of why I summed those up in a single article was simply because I could only repeat the same flaws so many times.

So, in approaching this year, I had two requirements in mind - I wanted something that was going to be less of a backlog, and I wanted something I would enjoy without feeling like I was forcing myself through it. In the future, I may take on another tall order again, but this year, I wanted to treat myself.

I went over a few options before the answer smacked me in the face, care of a program I did with my partner on Italian horror.

With all that said, buckle your seatbelts and break out your safety goggles - we're going back to Hell. And this time, Lucio Fulci's taking us there.

"It's just the same cenobite designs in every sequel now!"

Okay, I know calling a thematic trilogy a franchise could be read as a cheat by some. BUT, seeing as no one gave me grief for it when I did John Carpenter's Apocalypse Trilogy in 2019, I'm gonna take that as approval for Fulci's Gates of Hell trilogy this year.

So, keep an eye on this space in the weeks to come. We kick things off in suitably gut-churning fashion with 1980's City of the Living Dead, followed by the 1981 classic The Beyond before bringing the month a close with 1981's The House by the Cemetery.

Part of me would like to say I could throw in some supplemental material, but I can't make guarantees - I know The Beyond has a comic tie-in, but those tend to be a bit on the pricier side. If anything else comes up, I'll be sure to try to surprise you!

It's gonna be a fun ride. The dead will rise, eyes will be gouged.

Till next time.

Hellraiser 2022 - Time to Play Again

Well, we made it.

It’s Halloween here at The Third Row and I’ve now made my way through the complete, at times troubled arc of Clive Barker’s Hellraiser.

Time to sit back and…wait, what?

Well, this changes things.

So, in my earlier telling of the behind the scenes history of this series, there is one detail I must confess I omitted. I want to say that was my way of cleverly teeing up this article, but I’d be lying. This intro is just a happy accident.

While Miramax was engaged in its long game of Kick the Intellectual Property Can with tenuous sequel after tenuous sequel, there was an effort, starting back in 2007 to try and reboot Hellraiser. Whether this was because they recognized the sequels were getting stale and farmed out, or they simply felt a fresh start was the key for new audiences, I’m not sure. Whatever the reason, they recognized the need for a reset.

For a long time, these attempts fared even less favorably than the sequels they kept churning out to hold the brand. Writers and directors were swapped in and out, with little to show for their efforts.

Two things happened that ultimately got the ball moving again -

First, David Gordon Green’s 2018 Halloween reboot/sequel played to critical and financial success that showed there was still potential in revisiting a classic with the right approach.

Second, and more importantly, after years of the series being out of his hands or involvement, Clive Barker was able to legally regain the American rights for Hellraiser.

So not only was the reboot moving forward, the circumstances were right for the original creator to rejoin as an executive producer.

Finally, in October of this year, the movie officially premiered - the first Hellraiser to debut to streaming.

And with that preamble and very long road getting here, I have to say - it was a pleasant surprise.

How pleasant? Well, let’s dig into that.

First off, let me emphasize the use of the term ‘reboot.’ This is completely separated from the prior ten movies. That lack of continuity baggage frees director David Bruckner and the writers (David S Goyer, Luke Piotrowski, and Ben Collins) to tell a story that feels both thematically familiar and also different.

The familiar, to start, feels like a very welcome return to the early movies. While the Cenobites are prominently featured in the marketing (as seen above), and they are certainly a menacing force in the film, they aren’t the focus the way the series made them over time. Instead, this goes back to the two major aspects of the early years - the puzzle box and the people who are, one way or another, drawn to it.

In particular, we have two people who bring two very different perspectives on the accursed object. At the start, we have Voight (Goran Višnjić), who fits the more traditional mold as a wealthy, powerful man who comes to the box to sate his worldly desires, no matter the cost. Subsequently, it winds up in the hands of Riley (Odessa A’zion), a recovering addict who first comes across the box as a trinket to pawn and is then drawn into its mysteries by chance, unaware of what she is toying with until it is too late.

Mystery around the series lore is a big part of what sets this movie apart from much of the run before it. Besides the fact that Riley doesn’t fully understand just what she’s become a part of at first, the movie also offers a different perspective on what the iconic infernal device offers. This time, it doesn’t just present itself as an object for thrill-seekers, but instead offers a broader series of desires to fulfill, provided one completes the puzzle’s necessary steps.

And among those steps, is a steep price to be paid, of course.

This is one of the aspects that I appreciated the most after how convoluted the roles of the box and the Cenobites have been for the better part of twenty years. The vision this movie offers feels more in line with the diabolical nature that Barker first floated, and the contrast between those who would seek it by choice vs those who would be bound to it by chance. Even our hero’s desires, while born of good intent, are framed in this dark world as coming with a bloody toll, and the final payoff may not be as good as it sounds.

For their part, the Cenobites are also a welcome return to form. Rather than the later movies where they are seen as the main monsters (okay, mostly just the one) with the box as part of the package, the group once again serves to fulfill the will of the box, and by extension, Leviathan. Outside of this aspect, I’m a bit more divided. As the good goes, these are some of the best looking Cenobites the films have had in ages, especially as the post-Bloodline movies seemed to default to very generic designs for anyone that wasn’t Pinhead. The designs this time are visually striking and unique, and in a few cases feel informed by The Hellbound Heart, most notably in the case of the Weeper.

This wound up reminding me a LOT of the Cenobite
originally framed as the leader in The Hellbound Heart.

Of course, once again, the primary focus is on the one with all the pins. True to Barker’s wishes, the character is credited as the Priest, and is now played by actress Jamie Clayton. When the casting was first announced, I was intrigued, knowing her skills as an actress, but still uncertain without knowing how the role would be played. Having seen the finished product, she is easily the MVP of the movie. Rather than make another Doug Bradley, as the later sequels tried and failed, she brings her own spin to the role, exuding a presence that is menacing as well as otherworldly.

There is one scene I want to shout out in particular, but I also don’t wish to give too much away. It’s about halfway into the movie, during a scene involving one of the people the box has marked to be sacrificed. Watching it, I was genuinely pleased, both with Clayton’s performance, and for the fact it was one of the scenes that feels the most like the role the Cenobites served in The Hellbound Heart - creatures to whom it’s not about a quick death, but about exploring new levels of pain and pleasure with mortals as their unwilling canvas.

I have to borrow a comment from a friend of mine for this one:
"Oh no, she's hot."

Conceptually, there is a lot I love about this movie. Unfortunately, that doesn’t always carry over visually. One reveal involving a character’s granted wish (I won’t say further as this is still fairly recent) is a big example. The idea we’re presented is very Barker, and it is honestly one of the creepiest concepts in the movie. Presentation-wise, however, the on-screen product looks lackluster and doesn't sell the nightmarish aspects as strongly. Likewise, as striking and inspired as the new Cenobites look (and the practical effects for them are solid), their arsenal is marred by the awkward CG of the movie’s straight to streaming budget.

The other issue I have, albeit a smaller one, is that at two hours, this is the longest Hellraiser movie to date. While it doesn’t feel like it drags to the point of distraction, it is still a movie that feels like a bit of tightening could have taken it from being pretty good to great.

As it is now, there’s a lot to like in it. There is also a lot to improve on, and hearing this has lit a fire under Barker to want to do more with the setting again is encouraging. After over ten years of watching this series run on fumes, this is the first time I’ve felt like the series had some energy in it, and, even with its faults, that rubbed off on me in the process.

I’m interested in seeing where they go from here, anyway. Especially if Barker continues to serve as producer and Clayton is there to continue to collect victims to pay for Leviathan's offerings.

I’m glad this is the note we’re going out on. As much as I loved the start of this series, the middle was a really draining experience. To the point where…well…you saw my read on The Scarlet Gospels, and I still stand by that as a meta-middle finger.

Despite that, it’s refreshing to close with a feeling of something new. Yes, a new Hellraiser in general isn’t exactly the pinnacle of innovation, but to have a Hellraiser that genuinely feels mysterious and engaging again makes me feel like this journey was ultimately worth it.

With that note, it’s time to pack up the franchise spelunking gear for another year and wish you all a Happy Halloween.

…oh, what the Hell! For once, I’ll actually rank this whole experience.

1. Hellraiser (1987)
2. Hellbound: Hellraiser II
3. The Hellbound Heart
4. Hellraiser (2022)
5. Hellraiser: Bloodline (Original script)
6. Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth
7. The Scarlet Gospels
8. Hellraiser: Bloodline (movie)
9. Hellraiser: Inferno
10. Clive Barker’s Tweet disavowing any connection to Hellraiser: Revelations
11. Hellraiser: Hellseeker
12. Hellraiser: Hellworld (again, not good, but at least incredibly fun to riff on)
13. Hellraiser: Deader
14. Hellraiser: Judgment
15. Hellraiser: Revelations

Okay. NOW. Good night and Happy Halloween. With any luck, I’ll be back up to some new chicanery before next October, but we’ll see.

The Scarlet Gospels - What Started in Hell Will End on the Bookshelf

Two more days to Halloween
Halloween
Halloween
Two more days to Halloween
Silve–wait. What’s that?

The sponsor’s check bounced?

Okay. Nevermind.

Welcome back to the Third Row, where we’re coming into the home stretch on the winding road through the labyrinth that is Hellraiser.

The series has already had quite a journey to this point. Four theatrical features and another six straight to video. During this period, the movies and their original creator veered off and went their separate ways.

Mostly, anyway.

In the aftermath of the chaotic shoot for Bloodline, Barker started turning over the idea to his own end for the character of Pinhead. Over the course of a decade and change, he worked on a novel that would serve as his final word on the character, even as Miramax kept finding increasingly more tenuous forms of torment for the Cenobite to engage in.

The finished product of his efforts is the 2015 novel The Scarlet Gospels - his final word on the Cenobites and the first prose he had written for them since The Hellbound Heart. Stories by other authors have appeared over the years, including the novella The Toll that is considered a prequel to this. I considered adding it, but figured the plate was full enough as it is. 

In an interesting turn, this also marked Barker’s send-off to another of his characters, serving as the final story for his occult detective Harry D’Amour (who most may recognize from the movie Lord of Illusions, an adaptation of the first D'Amour story, The Last Illusion.)

Barker went through a lot of changes developing this novel. How much of what he originally planned vs what made it to print, I’ve not been able to verify, so I will admit, some of my read here is purely speculative. After seeing the arc the movies took during the period that this was being written, it’s hard not to feel like Barker was venting frustrations with seeing what his creation had become in the hands of others.

From the first chapter, one can see this is specifically his response to the cinematic incarnation of his character. When first introduced in The Hellbound Heart, the Cenobite was described differently - the nails in their head were golden with jeweled heads and they spoke in a voice Barker describes as breathy and like an excited teenage girl. When the character first appears in The Scarlet Gospels (where Barker’s narrative calls him The Hell Priest), the nails are now iron and the voice described is more in line with Doug Bradley’s. In text, this is chalked up to hearsay and apocrypha that incorporates the backstory of movies II and III, implying that Cenobites are effectively occupying human hosts until they wear those bodies out. It’s never confirmed, but that is the line used to justify the shift in appearance. Further, the fan nickname of ‘Pinhead’ is treated as derisive in the setting (Barker has gone on record as saying he wasn’t fond of it), to the point where a character calling him that to his face early on proves to be a most painful mistake.

Before I go on, I should say a warning as a courtesy. Prior to this entry, I’ve kept plot details somewhat vague to avoid spoilers. For what I’m touching on in this book, I’m gonna need to go a bit more deteailed, so consider this your warning. If you don’t want this book spoiled, turn around and wait outside. There’s one more entry waiting for you at the end of the month, but you’re going to want to sit this one out.

We good?

Okay! Moving on!

If the change in physical description wasn’t enough to say Barker is commenting on the films, the story makes it more distinct - we learn early on that the Hell Priest has been breaking from the purposes of his order and researching various sorts of magic. His reasons? He has been plotting in secret to wage war on Hell itself - to tear down the entire organization and rebuild it in his image.

His plans near completion, and he lacks only one thing to complete what he sees as his triumph - someone worthy to witness (and, he hopes, chronicle) his deeds. Enter D’Amour, who reluctantly chases the Priest into Hell, not because he wants the job, but to save a friend who has been taken hostage.

While D’Amour and his team are an active part of the story - and as a pleasant surprise, this has me wanting to read the rest of the works Barker has written for this character - this is ultimately about the Hell Priest. Harry and co travel in his wake, clocking the devastation the Priest’s rebellion has wrought. Where past Barker tales of the Cenobites focused on the human darkness with Hell acting in response to this, here he reads more like what the films became as his influence eased off - acting not in service of a larger order, but for the Priest’s personal desires.

Then there’s where those ambitions lead. Prior to this point, I was half-entertaining the meta read of this. Then I got to the Priest’s end game, and it really strengthened the sense that this was Barker's response to a series that, as he was writing this, just slid further and further away from the world he crafted.

That end game? Lucifer himself.

From early on, Barker establishes Lucifer as a mystery. He is still recognized as the authority in Hell, but no one has seen him in ages. His whereabouts are unknown, but he is still highly regarded by the current order of demons that populate the realm. A feeling that doubtless smacks a bit of the feeling I’m sure many creators experience when they see a studio speak of their name in lofty tones while churning out creations that seem further and further from their original vision.

As the old order of Hell is torn down around him, the Priest keeps his last goal close to his carefully mutilated chest - he seeks what is regarded to be Lucifer’s last stronghold. What he finds on confronting that great creator of all he has laid waste to? A corpse.

Sort of.

Again, if one takes The Scarlet Gospels as meta commentary, Barker is framing himself as Lucifer - a tired being, worn out from being cast down who just wants to not be a part of the operation anymore. In text, this comes as, more than anything, the fallen angel wants to die, but is cursed not to. When the Priest finds him, he has constructed an apparatus that allows him to get as close as he conceivably can to non-existence, impaled and inert upon his throne.

Seeking to supplant his creator, the Priest rips the suicide apparatus to pieces and sets out to take Lucifer’s armor for his own, hacking and carving away at his own form to fit the new role (again, very hard not to read the commentary.) Having taken Lucifer’s armor, and armed with magic, the Priest is on the verge of becoming the new ruler of Hell. The cities are in ruins, the generals dead, and he is toppling the last resistance as the scattered armies pursue him into the stronghold.

Except for the part where Lucifer isn’t actually dead.

Not only that, he is PISSED.

The reason Lucifer is so angry? He just wanted to rest. He just wanted to not exist. He didn’t want to have to deal with the pain of his exile and this was the closest out he could manage.

And his creations couldn’t even allow him that.

The climax of the book follows a duel to the death between Lucifer and his rebellious creation, with each brutally tearing into the other in a battle that plays hard to Barker’s twin tastes of fantasy and horror. It’s also a sequence so fantastical I can almost imagine him working it thinking ‘Try and make this on the cheap’ to the rights holders.

We don’t get the specifics of how it ends (Harry and the others take the opportunity to escape), but Lucifer is the winner. Broken, beaten, and badly wounded, all the Priest has left to him is one last act of spite for D’Amour  for turning away from witnessing the final battle. That it ended in the Priest’s defeat is irrelevant, Harry was supposed to watch. In retaliation, he blinds the detective before wandering off into a Hell that an enraged Lucifer is now tearing asunder.

The last we see of the Priest, he is limping through the crumbling ruins before one last unseen force (presumably some equivalent to God) unmakes the now abandoned Hell, the Priest included.

Having escaped his kingdom, Lucifer goes to Earth. Not to conquer or do any great evil, but simply to exist for a while and see where that takes him.

I know I'm harping, but it is really, really, really hard to read this and not come away with the sense of an author frustrated by a creation that got away from him. So frustrated that his only cathartic solution is to see that character cast down and torn asunder before being finally unmade.

Knowing how much Barker reworked this, I feel a certain curiosity to know what this started as vs what it became. At one point, Barker was promising a story over a thousand pages in length (by comparison, the finished tale is a fairly modest 360.) Given how clearly the descriptions skew towards the movie version of the character, the role the Priest expects of Harry D’Amour to simply watch his conquest, and how much of the novel Barker focuses on the Priest’s act of rebellion and the consequences of his actions brought about by a tired, angry creator, I have to imagine the sequels had a hand in helping shape the tone and direction of these works.

Especially in light of this.

 

That gives him still the better part of four years to rework the novel into the cathartic last word on the character it comes across as.

With this, it seemed Barker was done with the Hell Priest, and that version of Hell itself. He had said his piece and laid him to rest, and was ready to move on.

Then something happened.

And for the first time, in a long time, Barker picked up the box again.

See you again soon, as we close the door on this chapter of Hell and a new one opens.

Till then.

Hellraiser - The Straight To Video Round-Up

Well, the projector is no longer rolling, but the films keep coming.

Welcome back to the Third Row, where the October descent into Hell(raiser) continues, even if the theater remains empty.

Following the troubled, chaotic shoot on Bloodline (as well as its rather decisive finale) one would be reasonable in suspecting that Miramax and Dimension were ready to hang it up and call that their finale.

One would be wrong in doing so, but not unreasonable. Especially as Clive Barker and Peter Atkins were both less than thrilled with the idea of continuing the series after how things shook out making Bloodline. Atkins in particular felt like there was nowhere else left to go creatively, especially as they had made a movie that basically closed the narrative circuit.

Not that that has ever stopped a studio when money or IP rights were on the line.

Following Bloodline’s release, they shopped around several ideas for where to go next, ultimately choosing to release sequels not in theaters, but straight to video.

At the start of this month, I contemplated the idea of giving each of these entries their own write up. I promptly discarded that idea. 

Partly because six extra writeups were more than I was willing to take on. Much more prominently because, as I started watching them, I found my issues with them tended to be the same ones over and over. So this became the best way for me to address them without just repeating myself over six separate articles.

So buckle your seatbelts. We’re going to the realms of cinematic Hell that Clive Barker refused to touch.

Hellraiser: Inferno (2000)

The biggest mark of distinction this movie has is that it’s the directorial debut of Scott Derrickson (now more fondly remembered for movies like Sinister and The Black Phone.) Besides that, it also marks what will become a popular refrain in reviews for these films - it’s an alright movie, just not a good Hellraiser movie.
 

I agree with that assessment here. On its own, this is about 80% a serviceable thriller in the vein of unreliable narration horror like Angel Heart and Session 9. The remaining 20% is where it stumbles - the presence of the puzzle box and Pinhead feel like they were cut in to justify the brand, rather than because they help the story. The fit is so jarring that it’s led to a back and forth debate over whether this movie marks the first of what will become a running pattern of Miramax farming standalone spec scripts and rewriting them into Hellraiser movies. At this point, Doug Bradley has maintained this was a spec tag-in, Derrickson maintains otherwise. 

Overall watchable, but would have been better served as its own thing.

Hellraiser: Hellseeker (2002)

Everyone, wave to Clive. This is the closest he’s going to get to any of these sequels by choice (we’ll come back to that.) He wasn't too involved, but they at least came to him for notes on this after they had filmed a rough cut.

Besides that gesture, this movie feels like it made a more conscious effort to connect to Hellraiser than its predecessor, trying to bring back original protagonist Kirsty Cotton. It’s nice to see Ashley Laurence and Doug Bradley squaring off again, and I will give the movie that. Just one problem though - it’s functionally Inferno all over again with more concrete Hellraiser ties.

No. Really. It is otherwise the same arc of an amnesiac protagonist reconstructing their memory while being haunted by random Cenobite visions as people keep turning up dead around them. It’s surprising that no one working on this stopped and asked ‘Didn’t we just make this movie?’

Tenuous connections aside - I think Inferno is the more watchable version. What it lacks in cohesive ties, it makes up for in Derrickson’s direction and an all around stronger cast, including Craig Sheffer and James Remar.

(Plus, I’m sorry, Hellseeker - after seeing his later work in 30 Rock and as the All State Mayhem character, I see Dean Winters in your movie and I’m already anticipating finding out he’s playing a secret bastard, so time kind of ruined that twist.)

Hellraiser: Deader (2005)

Good news - after two movies giving us almost the same story, we’re getting a different plot this time.

Less good news - this officially marks the point where Miramax is just openly farming spec scripts to keep the Hellraiser rights.

In terms of how it survives that jump into being a sequel, this lands in the middle. It makes a bit more of an effort to tie itself in than Inferno does, but with clunkier results than Hellseeker. The most overt choice being to tie its antagonist into the Le Marchand family from Bloodline. It’s an idea that could have been something with more focus, but in the finished movie, it just feels like an attempt to justify why this movie’s sinister cult has a puzzle box.

Otherwise, it’s playing a lot of the same notes Inferno and Hellseeker played - especially the idea of the protagonist being plagued by hallucinations of the Cenobites and scenes of Hell.

I’d be curious to see what the original script for this was like before being rewritten. Inferno, if it was a spec script, is one where the transplant (or extraction) is easy to figure out. By comparison, Deader has a lot of threads that could still play in a standalone, but a few that raise questions of what they were like before the Cenobites were added.

It’s not that far from the familiar refrain - as a standalone cult horror movie, it’s okay, nothing special. As a Hellraiser movie, I have no idea what this is doing besides letting Bob Weinstein re-up Miramax’s rights.

Hellraiser: Hellworld (2005)

Speaking of doing things to appease contracts…

Of the straight to video movies, this might be one of the more watchable ones. I should say, that comment falls in the vein of damning with faint praise.

As a sequel, this is a WEIRD direction - after years of the puzzle box being a secret item traded in whispers, it’s suddenly a popular online game (and holy Hell, the internet in this movie looks painfully dated for 2005.) Why is this suddenly an online game? Is Hell involved in any way? Don’t go holding your breath for answers. They’re not coming now or ever again. In fact, were it not for the movie’s ending, you'd be forgiven for thinking this was a movie that takes place in ‘reality’ and the decision to make Hellraiser into a game instead of a movie was purely for legal. For most of the movie, Pinhead and the box are just window dressing.

The movie they’re window dressing for? That’s more watchable, if not necessarily good. There’s a nugget of an interesting idea, but it’s lost in a pile of contrived twists and turns and some absurdly over the top acting.

To that end, I want to give a shout-out to this cast (for good and ill.) This marks the last time Doug Bradley suited up to play Hell’s resident torturer in chief. It also has arguably some of the most prominent star power of any of these later movies. Part of this is thanks to scoring the likes of Henry Cavill (who is gnawing scenery most of the time he's on screen) and Katheryn Winnick before they were famous.

The other part? Remember how I started with that line about contracts?

A large part of why Hellworld exists is because of a condition in the contract they made to film Deader in Romania. In order to fulfill that condition, they had to rush Hellworld into production. As a result, several of the cast members were scouted because they were in the country and they were available - most notably, that allowed this movie to land the great Lance Henriksen, who brings a nice bit of gravitas to the proceedings.

Of the later sequels, I feel like this might be one I’d be inclined to recommend, preferably with a group. Inferno is the better movie, but this has some GREAT riffing potential.

Hey, I’ll take what silver linings I can get.

Hellraiser: Revelations (2011)

Revelations is notable for two big reasons.

The first, is that this is the first movie to not have Doug Bradley in the role of Pinhead. On reading up on why, I have to give a shout-out to the man as a performer. Over the course of seven movies, he brought a genuine presence and menace to a role that, frequently, seemed to be at the mercy of studio indecisiveness. Despite the numerous behind the scenes problems, he kept trucking and bringing it every time.
Then Revelations happened and he had to draw a line.
As he tells it, following the rushed production two-hander of Deader and Hellworld, Bradley wasn’t so much formally made an offer for Revelations as he was privately approached by people involved. After mulling over the pitch they made, his conclusions, to quote him directly: ‘The ink is barely dry on the script, and it is scheduled to be in front of the cameras in two weeks time and in the can by the middle of next month’ led him to turn down the offer.
The man was a consummate professional for over thirty years, and I can’t fault him for finally looking at a rush like that and deciding ‘Thanks, but no thanks.’

The other notable reason?

Everyone, wave to Clive again, but try not to be too offended by the middle finger.

(source if you don’t believe me: 

https://twitter.com/RealCliveBarker/status/105189711416524800 )

I’ve gotta side with both Barker and Bradley on this. If I had to say something nice for it, it's that, this one doesn't feel like a spec script - thanks in part to how much it lifts pretty openly (and far less effectively) from the first movie. That, however, is undermined by how rushed and cheap the finished movie is - largely because this was done to help Miramax maintain its hold on the Hellraiser rights.

Part of me feels like I’m kicking a guy while he’s down on this, but there’s really no polite way to put it - this movie feels less like an official sequel and more like a fan movie that Miramax decided to buy to keep their hold on the brand.

Hellraiser: Judgment (2018)

So, here’s an interesting one for you.
We’ve had Hellraiser movies. We’ve had spec scripts reworked into Hellraiser movies. We’ve had what we were told was a Hellraiser movie that could have easily passed for a spec graft.

Then we have Judgment. Judgment started as a Hellraiser film. Then it got repurposed as a standalone movie. Then it got turned back into a Hellraiser movie because the IP rights had to be refreshed again.

True to custom, this lands on the side of ‘pretty good horror movie, less good Hellraiser movie’ (hey, I told you this risked repetition.)

In a move that feels like this franchise decided to give me the Monkey’s Paw treatment, this sequel tries to expand the larger vision of Hell beyond Pinhead. In this case, that comes in the form of a new branch of Hell known as the Stygian Inquisition. It’s the kind of idea I’d been wanting from this series since part II, so I feel like I should be happier. The problem is, it’s coming after nine movies of being the Cenobite show. So rather than just feeling like a natural expansion of the strange mythology Barker set in motion from the beginning, it feels more like a backdoor pilot for a new concept of eternal damnation as a way to work around their tentpole actor cutting ties (his fate being one that causes this to break sharply from what Bloodline had set as an end game).

In short - could be better, but as the post Barker years go, this is still one of the more watchable movies.

—

And so, we come to the end.

Well, one ending, anyway.

The original run of movies is over, but we still have two more entries to come after this, because Hell isn’t in this business of staying quiet.

We’ll be closing this month on a new beginning, but before that, everyone get ready to wave to Clive one more time. Amid this stream of increasingly tenuous sequels, he finally took it on himself to close the door on his creation on his own terms.

Till next time, when I dig into Barker’s less than fond farewell with The Scarlet Gospels.

Till then.