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.

Hellraiser: Bloodline - This Is the Way the Theatrical Run Ends, Not With a Bang, But a Cutting Room Slaughter

Welcome back to the Third Row, as we continue our Halloween journey into the weird, winding, and from here on out, incredibly messy Hellraiser series.

To recap - we’ve been introduced to the world of Hellraiser, we’ve gone to its version of Hell, and we’ve even brought that Hell back to the world of man. Despite the complications behind the scenes, the films still do well at the box office, with Hell on Earth becoming one of their most successful to this day.

With that momentum, Clive Barker wanted to do something new for the next entry. Collaborating with Peter Atkins (who had written the scripts for II and III), he began to envision a generation-spanning story about the origins of the puzzle box that started it all. After the fairly safe way Hell on Earth was made (safe for this series, anyway) it had to be a surprise that the studio green lit the ambitious idea without even an outline.

They set to work, developing the story of Hellraiser: Bloodline around the Le Marchand (later Merchant) family that first designed the infamous Lament Configuration, starting at its conception and following the family over the ages as it seeks to contain the dark forces it has unleashed.

A note before I continue - recently, Peter Atkins got to publish his original screenplay for th movie. It’s easy enough to find and can be gotten for a very reasonable price, so if you’re curious, it’s out there and it’s an interesting read.

Why did I bring that up here? Because as you likely guessed, what they envisioned is NOT what we got.

For as troubled as the road to Hell on Earth was, the movie’s actual production went fairly smoothly, if not perfectly. By comparison, Bloodline is the movie Doug Bradley described as ‘the shoot from Hell.’ In a sick sort of course correction from their earlier sight unseen approval, the studio suddenly had a LOT of notes once filming was underway, to the detriment of the production.

What was originally envisioned and filmed as an almost two hour movie was recut, retooled, and whittled down to under 90 minutes, with a skeleton of the original script, numerous characters completely cut and/or folded together, and set pieces either pared down to save money or just completely absent.

To add insult to injury, many of these weren’t dropped at the script level. There are behind the scenes stills you can find to this day involving characters and effects that were made for the movie and then ultimately discarded.

Probably the most famous example of this -
A group of Angelique's victims effectively serving as proto-Cenobites

The one thing the studios seemed reluctant to cut, of course, was Pinhead. While Bradley himself liked the fact this movie was focused on other characters, the studio wanted more of their big money maker. So much so that they did away with the original script’s linear, anthology style and turned its final section into a wraparound as a way to bring the character in sooner. That the movie begins with a quick flash of the iconic Cenobite even before the box summons him almost feels like a defiant jab by the editors at the studio's bidding.

While there’s a lot of changes and cuts I could point out in general, the one I really want to call out, as it relates to the threads I've been following, is with regards to how the studio wanted the role of Pinhead elevated, and how that impacted the character of Angelique.

Because this movie was focused on the history of the box, an object already established as having existed before the franchise's most famous figure, the original script keeps him absent for quite a while before bringing him back in a way that picks up the end of Hell on Earth. This meant the first arc of the movie instead is focused on the demon Angelique. In Atkins’s original vision, she is presented as a similar sort of corrupter as Julia - ostensibly bound to the Satanist who summons her, but playing on his desires to get him to do what she wishes. This gives the added element to the box’s creation that it was made to Hell's instructions, even if it needed human hands to come to pass. The finished film downplays that manipulation and leaves her a begrudging servant for the humans, implying her human master is more in control in commissioning the box - a rare time where I feel like emphasizing the human evil over demons was a misstep. By the time Pinhead arrives in the second act, the script (and the movie to a lesser extent) frames him as at odds with Angelique in terms of ideals and methods - an old guard vs new approach to Hell. It even gets to a point in the script where Atkins has a scene of Angelique actively trying to betray and destroy Pinhead, to her defeat and subjugation.

Unrelated, but one thing I will never not point out about this movie -
You have decent odds of winning a few bar bets on this film thanks
to the appearance by a young Adam Scott in the France storyline.

It’s an idea that feels like it wants to call back to what Barker and Atkins started in Hellbound, exploring the larger world of Hell (and Hellraiser) beyond a single character. Unfortunately, the studio wanted more of said character and were firm on that point. So once again, a movie that was envisioned as continuing the initial theme of focusing on the humans who dabble in Hell's power and what befalls them becomes a personal vendetta, with the family’s desire to undo what their ancestor unwittingly did focused instead on Pinhead specifically targeting them.

The more I’ve read up on this movie, the more I want to give it credit for what it was trying, even if it didn’t come to pass. The most charitable thing I think I can say to describe it is that it’s an interesting failure. Taken on its own, the film is straining to keep its cut and stapled story and budget together, but the flashes of what it once was still shine through at points. These aren't enough for me to try and argue the film is good - watchable, maybe, but that's not the same as good. Even then, it's at its best taken with its troubled production history as part of the package.

Which is my way of saying, if you really want to go this route, I will double down on my earlier recommendation - don’t just watch the film, track down that original script. Per Atkins’s own foreword, the production was so plagued with cuts and reshoots that there’s never going to be a director’s cut. Further, original director Kevin Yagher was so dissatisfied with the movie that he was able to get an Alan Smithee credit. It won’t make the movie itself better, but the perspective does at least lend a method to the madness.

One other thing I have to give the script -
The Siamese Twin cenobites pictured above are
more effectively creepy as Atkins first envisions them
without a backstory and with a description of their method of
killing that the movie's budget never had a chance to do well.

Okay, everyone. Collect your discarded popcorn bags and empty sodas, cause we’re leaving the movie theater behind from here, and heading the infernal pits of straight to video.

I’ll say this much now - for as many missteps as Bloodline takes, I feel a lot more forgiving of it knowing what lies ahead.

Till then.

Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth (And In the Studio)

Hello and welcome back to the Third Row. Where the journey into Hellraiser continues on as we ask the awkward question - when your second movie takes you to the bowels of Hell, where do you go next?

After the better part of three years and extensive money troubles, the answer, apparently, was a nightclub.

Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth marks a major turning point in the series based on the aspects I’ve been focusing on. Most notably, the two men at the center of it - original creator Clive Barker and the Cenobite affectionately known as Pinhead.

As Hellbound was under production, the question of where the series would go was already being explored. Contrary to what many would expect, Barker didn’t see the future riding on Doug Bradley’s butcher’s apron clad shoulders. Rather, his plan was to keep the focus on Julia as the main antagonist. This makes sense given how she’s framed in the first half of Hellbound - after being Frank’s mildly reluctant accomplice in the first film, the second sees her elevated to an agent of Leviathan and potentially outranking the Cenobites.

There were just two problems with that - the first was that Claire Higgins had declined to stay on, resulting in her character being written out at the end of the second movie. The second being that most ominous and powerful force in cinema known as marketing. Despite his supporting role in the first two films, Pinhead was (and is) synonymous with the Hellraiser name. With Higgins not coming back, that meant the most logical decision was to bring Bradley to center stage.

Once they got past the part where Pinhead and his associates were killed at the end of the second movie, that is.

"Ah, I'll be fine. It's Hell, I've been through worse!"

Of course, a dead antagonist wasn’t the only problem the series had at this point. Despite ambitions to keep the movies going, distributor New World Pictures was in dire financial straits all around. Eventually, the studio went into bankruptcy and one of their executives started a new studio that picked up the Hellraiser rights, though part of the tradeoff now was that the new rule for the next movie was ‘cheap and nasty’.

This approach caused friction between the rights holders and Barker, who objected to the lower budget the studio wanted the next movie made on. It didn’t help that Barker was coming into this fresh from being jerked around by Fox on his movie Nightbreed, so he was less likely to want to compromise and be left holding the bag a second time. He would eventually be persuaded to come back as an executive producer, but by that time, the movie was in post-production, so the story was made without any contribution from him.

Instead, the new course was plotted by Tony Randel and new director Anthony Hickox (a choice Barker was less than thrilled with due to feeling his sensibilities weren’t right for the series.) The pitch they went with, per the studio’s interests, was smaller scale (despite its title) than the previous entry’s journey into Hell itself and made Doug Bradley’s demonic priest central to the story.

In trying to solve the question of their main villain’s death, they took a cue from the previous movie’s final scene - beginning with a demonic pillar bearing Pinhead’s likeness on it (among others.) While this movie is ultimately divorced from much of the earlier story of the ill-fated Cotton family, this still takes some inspiration from those earlier movies. Pinhead spends the first act of the movie in a position similar to Frank, if less taxing from an effects standpoint - his death rendering him without a body and a need to feed on others to restore himself. Not a bad idea on its face, but one hindered by the fact that, instead of Frank’s half-formed appearance, Pinhead is just a talking face in a pillar. Unable to do much beyond talk and use hooks on anyone who gets too close, the result feels like a mesh of Freddie Krueger and Hannibal Lecter - a talkative monster that seems like he’s trying to verbally dissect his prey to get them to do what he wants.

I have to give them some credit. It's hard to make a talking pillar menacing.

It's an idea that’s not devoid of potential, but it also requires more time and patience than this movie is willing to offer. The idea of leaning hard on temptation, and by extension corruption, could make an interesting thematic continuation of the series, but here it feels more like a means to an end than a major idea to explore. Once Pinhead is out of the pillar, the earlier idea of letting people doom themselves is forgotten and it’s time to make with the slaughter.

And oh, what slaughter do we get. This marks another area where you can tell marketing had a say - with his old team dead, Pinhead was going to need new Cenobites. In an unexplained shift from the previous movie, there is no need to send people to Hell or have them use the box themselves. In fact, this time out, Pinhead just creates new Cenobites seemingly at a whim. The result feels less horrifying than the earlier Barker designs and, at times, flat-out silly (though I suppose that IS part of why the CD Cenobite is so well remembered.)

Oh, I can't stay mad at you.

For what it’s worth, I’m not going to say this movie is a complete write-off. It’s a weird shift in themes and ideas from the earlier movies, but for what they have to work with, Randel and Hickox are making a game attempt at trying to keep some of the old flavor going. It doesn’t really land well, and it really calls attention to the absence of Barker for most of the story process, but their hearts were in the right place, even if the end result feels far more like a traditional horror sequel that marketing had a finger on the pulse for.

Besides that, the movie isn’t without its charms. It’s definitely a far cry from the dark fantasy of the first two movies, but it’s still a fairly brisk movie that has a certain silly appeal for how hard it goes for that ‘Hell on Earth’ title (on a budget, of course.)

I will also concede, by this point, I have made my way through the entire viewing block, so that may be helping my positive take on this one. In any case, what it lacks in the mystery or thematic weight of the first movies, it makes up for just in its enthusiasm to be the Hellraiser movie that the advertisers had been trying to sell since 1987.

It certainly did well enough to get them one more bite at the cinematic apple, in any event.

But that’s a tale for next time.

See you again soon as we make one last trip to the theater for the highly ambitious (and even more plagued) Hellraiser: Bloodline.

Till then.

Hellbound: Hellraiser II - The Franchise Goes to Hell (and That's a Good Thing)

Hello and welcome back to the Third Row as we continue this October’s franchise dive into the weird, winding world of Clive Barker’s Hellraiser.

At this point, I have to give a proviso - in the past, I’ve tried to do the write ups with each viewing to take them on their own terms. For the amount of material for this, I’m now into the back half of the films viewing-wise. Expect the writing to step up from here.

That wasn’t why I brought this up. The reason I brought that up here is because this month is the first time it ever really hit me just how quickly this property got up and running as a franchise.

To put this on a timeline: The Hellbound Heart was published in November of 1986. The adaptation went into production by the end of the year, being released in September of 1987. The film went on to box office success and a sequel was soon underway, seeing its way to wide release in December of 1988.

Pretty surprising how quickly a story this heavily leaning into S&M and the occult took off.

As it's another aspect I will be tracking this month, I have to note Clive Barker did not return to the director's chair for this movie, passing the reins to first time director Tony Randel. Barker is still actively involved, however, helping develop the story with Peter Atkins (who becomes another recurring influence on this series.)

That Barker still has as much of a hand in this entry as he does is reflected in how it fits the larger arc of these movies. As with the first film, the Cenobites are prominently marketed, but they aren't meant to be the movie's primary antagonists.

Once again, the driving force at the heart of this movie is more human monsters. In this case, Claire Higgins returns as Julia, though this time she is now the corrupter instead of the corrupted. Her counterpart, in turn, is the movie’s new antagonist, Dr. Channard (Kenneth Cranham.)

The dynamic between Julia and Channard is an interesting counterpart to the first movie, offering parallels without feeling like rote repetition. Julia isn’t an escapee from Hell - she is acting as an agent of Leviathan, leading Channard into Hell rather than away from it. Channard, meanwhile, seeks out Hell not for pleasure as Frank did, but out of a desire for knowledge. Where Frank was a jaded hedonist, Channard is more of a Faustian antagonist, spurred into the Labyrinth by his desire to learn more of life beyond death.

Look, it's not ALL skin-ripping and endless suffering.

That's a lot of it, but it's not all of it!

By comparison, the Cenobites are not the main threat of the movie. In the larger story of the film, they actually matter very little this time. They largely exist to serve as part of Kirsty’s connection to the story. For his part, Pinhead gets a backstory, and it’s nice to see Doug Bradley instill humanity into his iconic character, but it’s secondary to the larger story.

 

Where the Cenobites and humans collide is where I found myself torn on this watch. On one side, I find the ideas it presents - Leviathan upsetting the order of Hell through Channard and coming against the old guard of the Cenobites - is an interesting idea. I like that, once again, it frames the Cenobites not as heroes or villains, but more the enforcers of a darker cosmic order. At the same time, I find the idea the movie posits about the origin of Cenobites - humans who, for reasons that are never explained, are chosen to serve as Hell’s priests rather than simply be vivisected for all eternity, adds a concept that over-complicates the larger story. Especially since it’s something that is never explained in this or other entries in terms of why someone is made a Cenobite while someone else is simply tortured.

Even with that muddying of the waters, however, I still enjoy Hellbound as a sequel. It takes some interesting swings - going from the fairly low key, low stakes setting of the first and expanding it to the level of a literal descent into Hell itself - and even if it raises some questions that are never answered, it's still a satisfying ride from start to finish.

Speaking of which, the movie’s depiction of Hell is practically a character unto itself - between the expansive tableau of the Labyrinth (and some good use of matte paintings), the very stylized visions of each person’s individual damnation, and the cosmic horror aspects of Leviathan, a being represented in vague concepts - Barker and Randel make a fascinating break from the traditional fire and brimstone vision of Hell that adds a level of engagement to the movie.

 

It's only tangential, but I do want to give a shout-out to
Christopher Young for his score on the first two movies.
His music really adds to the dark, fantastical element of these
films that subsequent films never quite manage to capture again.
 Part of me would have loved to see this as the path the series would go down - continuing to explore the strange mythology of this Hell that the Cenobites represented just a small part of (and, for his part, Barker had his own vision we’ll touch on next time.)

Unfortunately, these visions didn’t come to pass. Where this movie went big, the next movie dials things back.

That said, this still doesn’t rob from the fact that this makes for a fascinating, if sometimes muddled, expansion on the original movie. As the next step on the road to a larger franchise, Hellbound is an ambitious movie that broadens the scope of the first and leaves a taste for that larger cosmology that, I’ll just say now, will go unfulfilled in later movies.

But, that is a discussion for later.

Keep an eye out as we return to the series soon, and to much lower stakes, with Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth.

Till then.

Hellraiser and The Hellbound Heart – A Boy, a Girl, and a Box

Hello and welcome back to another October here at the Third Row.

As I said last time, this month I’m diving into the surprisingly deep back catalog of the Hellraiser franchise.

This first step was, for me, a mix of old and new. The 1987 film is one I will admit up front to having a fondness for. At the same time, I confess to being a newcomer to Clive Barker's written works, finally reading The Books of Blood back in 2019. As a result, this marked my first time reading The Hellbound Heart, the original novel that Barker adapted the movie from.

Taking in both versions close to one another, to my pleasant surprise, served to enhance rather than detract. As the man behind both versions, Barker presents a largely faithful adaptation of his book. What changes he makes reflect the difference in mediums and benefits both.

I'm not putting these together just to play compare and contrast, however. In fact, the aspect I really wanted to focus on is one that plays the same in both versions. It’s also a topic that will be a major part of this month.

With that said, let's get into Pinhead, shall we?

More than anything, to invoke the title Hellraiser calls to mind Douglas Bradley’s grid-faced priest of Hell. He is a horror icon on the level of Jason Voorhees, Michael Meyers, and Freddie Krueger.

Which makes it interesting that, in the beginning, this wasn't his story. In fact, the earliest form of the character is barely there.

If you were to have someone with no knowledge of the series read The Hellbound Heart in a vacuum and ask them where they would see a larger series coming from, they might correctly guess the Cenobites as a group, but still be hard-pressed to recognize the one member who would come to represent the series.

In fact, within the confines of the original novel, the character isn't even named as such (Pinhead was a behind the scenes nickname on the movie that fans adopted, becoming official in the sequels.) The Cenobite that matches the appearance is a supporting character who has maybe ten lines in the whole book, as a generous estimate.

Not a bad promotion, all things considered.

"Clean-up duty now. Straight to video sequels later!"

Of course, that’s for later entries, though they do factor into my thoughts here.

Hellraiser is one of those movies I remember liking as a teen for the shock value. The movie’s blood-soaked finale, in particular, where fugitive damned soul Frank Cotton is reclaimed by Hell in a display involving hooks and chains that is still an impressive, if graphic sight nowadays.

As an adult nearing 40, I still appreciate that. For one thing, it’s a great, grisly visual and kicks off the movie’s delightfully chaotic finale. Plus they have spent so much time setting up Frank as an utter bastard that it’s hard not to enjoy seeing him reap his karmic reward. With age, however, I’ve also come to appreciate just how the reduced rule of the Cenobites plays in the larger film, especially with regards to Frank’s aforementioned awfulness.

Contrary to the marketing, Pinhead and his cadre of torture priests aren’t the main villains of the movie. They aren’t summoned to do wrong or inflict torment on the innocent, they’re summoned in response to a misdeed. Instead, the core horror of the movie is focused on the dark, savage, and all too human love affair between Frank and Julia.

That human factor is part of what makes the story so interesting to me. Yes, for large parts of the film, Frank certainly doesn’t look the part (physically, he is a ghoul, made to feed on the blood of others in order to slowly restore himself) but his arc is still familiar, if amplified for horror. Frank is presented from the jump as a man in pursuit of pleasure - it’s his prime reason for seeking the puzzle box in the first place. He gets far more than he had bargained for, however, and instead spends most of the movie trying to find a way to cheat the consequences of what he agreed to. Julia is in similar straits - bored by her marriage to Frank’s brother, Larry, she has been harboring desires for the man she had an affair with years earlier. When Frank returns, however half-formed and appeals to her, she doesn’t have to be asked twice.

One particular change in adaptation I have to give Barker points for -
The decision to change Kirsty from just a friend to Larry's daughter.
It's an extra detail that adds to Frank's creepiness by giving his 

advances an overtly incestuous overtone 

(no doubt intentional given how Sean Chapman
leans into the delivery on "Come to Daddy.")

Over the course of the film, these are the two we see as monsters - Julia picking up random men she can then kill and feed to Frank (though many are seen as alive when Frank starts to feed, adding to the brutality as they plead for mercy.) All are seen as expendable in their pursuit of pleasures, culminating in their decision to murder Larry - ending in a final ‘insult to injury’ as Frank wears his skin as a disguise to fool Larry’s daughter, Kirsty.

By comparison, the Cenobites are, despite their ethos of pain mixed with pleasure, strictly business - they come when the box summons them. They bring whoever summons them to Hell to be subjected to torments for all eternity. They are beings that could be described as horrifically principled. The only time we see them even slightly waver on their rules is a result of Kirsty accidentally summoning them, then bartering to avoid damnation. Even that flex is, ultimately, still within their jurisdiction - the box summons them and they can’t return empty handed. In order to give them someone in her place, Kirsty offers them a more tempting target - one who has broken their rules and that they would, otherwise, be unable to deal with unless he summoned them himself.

It goes back to an aspect of horror that I’ve resonated with more and more over the years - so many of the monsters mankind has dreamed are presented as beings with set rules. There are ways to deal with them, ways to avoid them, ways to summon them, and in some cases ways to defeat them. It’s not universal, of course, but often there is a sense of guidelines that are seen as irrefutable, or if refuted, the storyteller is called to task on.

As a result, they are often presented as more principled, reasonable, and, for lack of a better term, honor bound than human beings. Just as often as horror presents creatures with set rules of engagement, it presents stories about how the most disturbing aspects of human beings is how they will frequently skirt the bounds of what is acceptable or the social contract in pursuit of their own personal drives.

Love is...
Helping your skinless partner by bringing home people
he can drain the life force from.

In this case, that means the beings who live and thrive in an alternate world where pain and pleasure are horrifically intertwined, despite a lifestyle built around sensation, are still framed to us as the creatures of (for lack of a better term) law and order, compared to the movie’s fugitive couple. Despite their menacing appearances and brutal means of dealing with those who are damned, they are ultimately seen as fair against the self-serving, ruthless counter of Frank and Julia, whose love is even secondary to self preservation.

While I don’t imagine marketing did it this way on purpose, the misdirect makes the movie into a great inversion of expectations that allows it to stand the test of time arguably far better than many of the movies that came after where our leather-bound sadomasochists take the center stage.

That, however, is a topic for later this month. For now, the time comes to put the box back on the shelf.

It won’t have long to gather dust, however. Keep an eye out, for soon we’ll be back here to discuss the fascinating, fantastical sequel that literally takes us to Hell in Hellbound: Hellraiser II.

Till then.

This October – The Third Row Goes to Hell

Summer has ended. The days are getting cooler. The nights are coming sooner.

Fall is here.

More to the point, October is here.

I had debated whether or not to do the franchise run again this year. Life's been all over the place, and part of me was still irked that last year didn't quite go to plan. For what it's worth, the Godzilla run DID lead to a video presentation for those who are interested in seeing it.

In truth, I only really started really feeling the itch to make another run this year in early September.

So, after weighing options, and putting it to a poll, here I stand poised for a fairly busy October. Because like I said up top – we're going to Hell this month. Repeatedly.

That's right – starting now till the 31^st, we're diving in the labyrinth of skin ripping and BDSM puzzle enthusiasts that make up Clive Barker's* Hellraiser series.

*Okay, PARTIALLY Clive Barker's. We'll get into that later in the month.

And oh, what a month it shall be. Ten films, the novel that started it all, the upcoming Hulu reboot, and Barker's (at the time) final word on the property.

I've had the better part of a year to rest up for this one and I intend to make up for the lost time in a big way.

So put down some newspaper and limber up your fingers. The first spin at the puzzle box will be coming real soon.

Till then.