The Hellraiser Films and Their Legacy

by Kane, Paul

  We cannot end this analysis without looking at the religious implications of Hellraiser III, and what some might call blasphemous scenes involving Pinhead. The first time he appears, Monroe uses Christ’s name to indicate his surprise and panic, which Pinhead seizes upon. No, he is not Jesus—but later in the film he mocks the Christian belief system by holding a black mass in a church. Joey seeks refuge in here during the chase sequence, and tells the priest that demons are after her. “Demons? Demons aren’t real. They’re parables, metaphors....” Right on cue, Pinhead steps through the doors and Joey points and says, “Then what the fuck is that?” He proceeds to shatter all the stained glass windows and melt a cross that the priest is holding. “Thou shalt not bow down before any graven image,” states Pinhead, ridiculing one of the Ten Commandments. Going even further, he takes two nails out of his head and pushes them through the palms of his hands. Spreading his arms out wide, he tells them, “I am the way.” (This was nicely prefigured by the sign on Joey’s bus at the start which reads: “Prepare for the second coming.”) The flames on the altar candles rise higher and the window behind him shatters. Pinhead then forces the priest to eat some of his flesh in a warped take on Holy Communion.

  At first sight this is controversial in the extreme. But what the casual viewer must understand is that in the context of Hellraiser’s mythos accepted religions hold very little sway. The Hell Pinhead belongs to is not the Christian one; as far as he is concerned that doesn’t exist. Logically then, he doesn’t believe in their God, either. Furthermore, this is Pinhead “unbound.” He is no longer even listening to his own dark god, Leviathan, so why should he respect the one Christians worship? In addition, Elliott has already told us that, for him, God fell at Flanders, too. The War made him question his faith in religion, and this drove him into the waiting arms of Hell. So in this respect, the scene in the church can be construed as Pinhead’s very own act of vengeance against God. This goes some way to explaining its relevance and importance to the movie.

  “You’ll burn in Hell for this,” screams the priest when he sees the spoliation of his church. “Burn?” is Pinhead’s reply. “Oh, such a limited imagination.” We have already seen that the Hell of Hellraiser bears very little resemblance to that of the Christian belief system. And yet fire marks the characters of Hell on Earth as damned. The first shot of J.P. Monroe pans upwards from his feet to show him lighting a cigarette. Later, Terri does the same in Joey’s apartment, the matches she has left behind indicating where she has come from. The barman at the club serves drinks as fire spurts up behind him: indeed, everyone under its roof is in danger because the very name of the place is The Boiler Room. In a newly restored scene, the barman also asks the DJ on their way out, “Wanna cigarette?” Only Joey is saved because she is trying to quit smoking. She momentarily gives in when Terri offers her one, but only keeps it lit for a few seconds. Joey doesn’t light up herself until she is watching the tape of Kirsty. In the original script Kirsty was the one smoking, but here we cut between the cigarette clamped between Joey’s fingers and Kirsty’s hand movements as she mimes opening the puzzle box—a signal of the peril to come for Joey.

  14

  WHAT STARTED IN HELL

  All things considered, reaction to Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth was much better than that of Hellbound, which might have had something to do with the commercial considerations of the film. As Phil and Sarah Stokes from the Barker site, Revelations, comment in the booklet accompanying a recent Hellraiser boxed set, “More accessible than the first two films, this was Pinhead Unbound, Hellraiser for the MTV generation, and beautiful American youths were finally slaughtered in great numbers. What the film lost in the glorious perversity of the original, it gained in scope, scale, pacing and sheer spectacle.”1 But there was none of the Life of Brian style furor the makers had expected due to the religious aspects of the movie—if there had been such a response it might have made even more money.

  The movie had its World Premiere in Milan at the famous Dylan Dog Horror Fest in May 1992—where they realized a full-on rock soundtrack didn’t work. Its British premiere was at the London Film Festival later in the year, screening alongside Barker’s Candyman and Sam Raimi’s manic horror comedy, Army of Darkness: The Medieval Dead. Genre magazine The Dark Side sent along Nigel Floyd, who wrote that it erased “all memory of Tony Randel’s disastrous Hellbound: Hellraiser II with its bravura camerawork, gruesome effects, nerve jangling sounds and adrenalised excitement.” Actually, the camerawork was what a lot of people picked up on, especially Hickox’s trademark deep-focus technique, where a character remains in the background while a close-up of another character fills half the screen (especially prevalent in the Pinhead/Elliott/Joey finale). While Hickox’s apparent footwear fetish seems to have been ignored by all (close-ups of Monroe’s boots at the start, Joey’s high-heels in the hospital corridor and her bedroom slippers...), Floyd went on to call the movie “a worthy successor to Clive Barker’s visceral, flesh-ripping original,”2 with Atkins’ skilful script receiving just as much praise.

  Reviewing the film for Monstroid, Richard Griffiths gave it four skulls, commenting that it was “much better than it deserves to be ... a cracking example of what sequels are all about.” Picking up on the fact that it was a showcase for Pinhead—“but who cares”—Griffiths also credited Atkins for taking “the useful bits of the original Hellraiser mythology and then adding a whole lot more as the main story twists around clever subplots, all the time building to the exciting climax.”3

  Variety also seemed impressed this time, crowning the movie a “well produced effort” that is “an effective combination of imaginative special effects with the strangeness of author Clive Barker’s original conception.” Its review singled out Farrell and Bradley’s performances: “Farrell is a strong heroine binding the film together, and British thesp Doug Bradley is a commanding presence as Pinhead, while also doubling sans make-up as the good guy captain.” Sheila Johnston of The Independent was more offhand in her praise, saying, “It is competent and accomplishes the small feat of being better than its predecessor.” But the tabloids were more forthcoming, the News of the World drawing attention to the “gut wrenchingly imaginative special effects ... truly shocking,” and Today stating that Hell on Earth was “great entertainment for those who love being frightened out of their skin.” The Daily Mirror went one step beyond and proclaimed it “better than the first two horror movies in the Hellraiser series.”

  Backing this up were the box office returns, ensuring that the third movie did just as well as the last two (total U.S. gross $12,525,537,4 and encouraging interest in yet another sequel. The tagline might have read: “What started in Hell will end on Earth,” but there looked to be no signs of the Hellraiser series finishing. Barker was apparently going to be much more involved in the fourth film, and Atkins was again to script. But what would this one be about? A prophetic comment by a cast member at the wrap party for Hell on Earth pointed the way. According to Bradley, who’d had a little bit to drink by that time, the cast member said, “You know what they ought to do with Pinhead in the next one? Send him into space!”5 One can imagine there might have been laughter at this “joke.” Who could have predicted that in Hellraiser: Bloodline we would indeed see Pinhead spacebound?

  15

  PRODUCTION HELL

  The seeds of Hellraiser IV’s storyline were planted by the addition to later versions of Hell on Earth’s script of a coda sequence: much like the one in Hellbound where the Pillar of Souls emerges from the mattress. In this one, however, we are shown a building based on the Lament Configuration, caused—presumably—when Joey buries the box in the concrete at the building site. Anthony Hickox had actually found the location of this site purely by accident; the huge golden statue outside with the world wrapped around a box drew his eye on a drive around Charleston (South Carolina) one Sunday morning. It is a monument that would anticipate the global magnitude of the fourth film’s tale.

/>   The idea for the structure of the movie would again, though, come from Clive Barker. He would be serving as executive producer from the start of the project—already in its planning stages by early 1994. “My only concern was to do something fresh and new—for God’s sake this is number four!” said Barker. “So it was important to find something that hadn’t been done before.”1 He came up with the notion of a three-part film tracing the fortunes of one particular family through different time periods, suggesting that it start in Victorian London. And although Pete Atkins had envisaged the third film being the end to a trilogy, this piqued his interest. He extrapolated the concept, adding the twist that this new family should be the Lemarchands: the clan that created the puzzle box. This decision would dictate that the story started in France, with the most obvious historical choice being during the Revolution, the period of atrocities and bloodshed providing a fitting backdrop. Barker had also established the occupation of Lemarchand himself in The Hellbound Heart, stating he was a “maker of singing birds”2 In other words, a toymaker.

  An outline wasn’t required because both Atkins and Barker were familiar with the executives at Miramax from Hellraiser III, and the studio was keen to make another film. So the initial meeting took the form of a pitch presentation where they both fired off ideas and Miramax gave the green light. In retrospect this freedom would prove both a blessing and a curse, and would lead indirectly to many problems later. But with their go-ahead Atkins went away and started writing the most ambitious of all the Hellraiser scripts: Bloodline. As usual, the screenplay would go through several drafts, but the sixth version gives us an idea of just how much changed between page and screen.

  Atkins’ script begins with a series of extreme close-ups of human hands delicately working on tiny cogs and machinery, a huge eye grotesquely “expanded through a magnifying glass.”3 It is Phillip Lemarchand described as 30, handsome and obsessed with his craft. These images call to mind the beginning of the original Nightmare on Elm Street where Freddy is making his famous razor-glove. We are then told via a caption that the year is 1784. Phillip’s wife, Genevieve, does not share her husband’s enthusiasm for the new piece he is making. “It doesn’t actually do anything, then.” she says. “I meant no offence, Phillip. I’m sure it’s terribly intricate. It’s just ... dull. I prefer your acrobats and lovers.”4 She alludes to the toys he usually makes, including monkey musicians and Harlequins, all of which fill his workshop. Undeterred, Phillip sets out to deliver the puzzle box to the Chateau Du Reve, where he is greeted by Jacques, “a 19-year-old servant-cum-apprentice to the chateau’s owner.”5 This is the powdered and periwigged Duc de L’Isle, whose face is covered with layers of white powder but whose red and rheumy eyes and spidery limbs place his age in the late 50s.

  Lemarchand is taken through a room filled with gamblers and introduced to the person behind the commission of the box: the Princess Angelique, “dark, mysterious, exquisite.”6 Atkins emphasizes that Lemarchand is beguiled by her beauty even at this early stage. Lemarchand is dismissed, but continues to watch through a window. Eager to test the box, Angelique gives it to the gamblers. Corbusier is a natural leader, good looking with a sardonic smile. At the other extreme, Delvaux is fat, ruddy and libidinous. L’Escargot is amoral, and De Conduite is a dandy. Finally, L’Hiver, Printemps, L’Automme and L’Été (named after the seasons) are young army officers present to learn the ways of the world. L’Isle issues them with a challenge: “Gentlemen, a new game...”7 Corbusier is the one who takes the box and begins to manipulate it, encouraged by a striptease that Angelique performs. Like a twisted version of pass the parcel, it is handed around and with each new turn of the box, the Princess removes another layer of clothing until, finally, it returns to Corbusier and the inevitable occurs. But as the box opens, so too does Angelique show her true demonic form, her flesh rippling and eyes turning completely black.

  Atkins writes: “The entire room TREMBLES as if caught in a quake. Unearthly WINDS explode up from the floor sending the candle flames shooting upwards in powerful RED FIRE, casting NIGHTMARE SHADOWS on the walls.”8 As Lemarchand flees from the chateau, he encounters a derelict at the gates selling spices and wonders from beyond the sea. He shakes himself free, shouting back, “No more wonders! An end to wonders!”9 The toymaker seeks help from his friend, Auguste, a young professor of science and philosophy at the Sorbonne. At first he doesn’t believe a word of Phillip’s story, then tells him to design a machine that can destroy the demons.

  Lemarchand is in the middle of doing just that when he is visited at home by Angelique, who asks him to produce more of the boxes. Again, the attraction is apparent and she offers him rewards beyond his wildest dreams. De L’Isle was merely an initial contact, but she can offer him so much more than money: “When I say ‘power,’ I mean real power. And when I say ‘reward,’ I mean real rewards.”10 Genevieve interrupts them just before they kiss, and Auguste only just manages to stop him from ripping up his new designs. Auguste’s reward is to be killed by Angelique’s troupe of clowns (Harlequin, Columbine, Pierrot, Pulcinella and the Surgeon) and acrobats, based on Lemarchand’s toys. A black bird watches as the professor is hurled into a giant maw of Hell, which Atkins describes as “a dark infinity, like an impossible tunnel opened between dimensions. Circular, ribbed, and pulsing, it resembles a GIANT ESOPHAGUS.”11

  Phillip leaves his bed that night to go to the chateau, but wakes his wife in the process. It is here that he finds out she is with child. In his eyes, this is even more reason to go—to give his offspring a better life. When he arrives, Phillip finds that there is a Masque of Red Death style celebration taking place, the ballroom filled with people in grotesque masks; Angelique is dressed as a black bird. This time Lemarchand cannot resist her and they kiss, but three guests intrude, one of them Corbusier. De L’Isle then reveals a pentagram beneath a circular rug. “That’s what your box is designed to replace. That and a few words of Old Latin,” the magician explains.12 It is how he summoned Angelique in the first place, and how he is able to exert some degree of control over her; a summoned demon is the summoner’s to command. But now they want more of the boxes so anyone who stands in Hell’s way is forfeit. There is a fight and Angelique throws De L’Isle across the room. This snaps Phillip out of his daze and he lets slip his plans to make an anti–Lament Configuration (or Elysium Configuration as it comes to be known). The gamblers pull off their masks to reveal the hideous scars of the dead, and attack him.

  Meanwhile Genevieve has followed her husband to the chateau. She finds him close to death, and he tells her to save herself and the child. Angelique overhears and cannot allow any of his bloodline to survive. But before she can kill Genevieve, De L’Isle intervenes, dragging the demon through the pentagram. With her gone, the gamblers dissolve into human towers of worms, then finally to dust. Genevieve flees the chateau, giving the puzzle box to the derelict outside. We then witness Jacques calling Angelique back so he can control her: “He who summons the magic, commands the magic.”13 The next scene shows Genevieve onboard the clipper Liberté; Genevieve is heavily pregnant and bound for New York with the designs Phillip set to paper.

  One of the Gamblers from an original version of the script (courtesy Gary J. Tunnicliffe).

  The script then jumps forward to present-day New York, where Phillip’s descendant, John Merchant, is having terrible nightmares involving his grandmother. He also dreams about a beautiful dark-haired woman and wakes up screaming, frightening his wife, Bobbi, and son Jack. Much of the following section runs exactly as it does in the finished film, with Angelique tracking him down via the building he has designed (from the end of Hellraiser III) and summoning Pinhead in the basement. The main differences concern the fact that there’s more rivalry between the two demons. Angelique represents Hell’s past and Pinhead represents Hell’s “more ordered” present. Atkins even comments during their first meeting, “It’s already clear that these two aren’t going to like each other.”14 This
lends more credence to Pinhead’s impatience when Angelique tries to seduce John, forcing him to take matters into his own hands. Hence, we are privy to some excellent exchanges between them:

  ANGELIQUE: Your Hell has forgotten not only chaos and laughter but the slow delight of temptation.

  PINHEAD: I’ve harvested more souls than you could dream of and their suffering is with me always. That is a slow delight.15

  We get a magnificent showdown at the end of this section where Pinhead asserts his authority over her when she double crosses him and uses the Elysium Configuration. Her motivation: she no longer wishes to be a slave, neither to Pinhead nor his new Hell. During the battle, Pinhead spits out a chain from his mouth which anchors itself in the ceiling and he flies it, “like a spider sucking itself back up a web strand.”16 Then he virtually cocoons Angelique in chains, which wrap themselves around her—the ultimate retort to fans who were aggrieved about the Channard-Pinhead fray.

  This is the second of two special effects set-pieces. The first involves a security guard called Valerie Dyson (who would be replaced by twins in the finished film). The 40-year-old single mom comes across Pinhead and Angelique “in conference.” For her trouble she is chased by the Chatter Beast, which Atkins describes as “like something the scientists at Cenobite central made as a joke from what was left of a man and what was left of a dog after a particularly nasty car crash.” It also has chattering teeth, “showing a distinct family resemblance to Pinhead’s old ally, the Chatterer.”17 She escapes this creature by hiding in a lift, which proceeds to descend at a rapid pace: in effect she finds herself on an express elevator to Hell.

  But these effects-laden scenes are as nothing when the script finally takes us into the future—the year 2204 AD—and into space. A speech Bobbi gives to Jack, after his father’s death, about keeping the box in the family ends in a camera track towards the boy’s eye until the blackness of his pupil fills the screen. We cut to a passenger shuttle in deep space. Government Ship Endeavor VII, then shift to the Minos, a crater-covered asteroid (named after the king from the Greek Minotaur myth), with towers and buildings laser-cut from the rock. (In a production note, Atkins stipulates that corridors shouldn’t be the stereotypical metal sci-fi fare, but rather partially rock.) A TV broadcast—originally an in-flight briefing onboard the Endeavor—presents us with the necessary exposition. The trillion-dollar facility has dropped out of radio communication and is also out of its geo-stationary orbit. We’re then introduced to Paul Merchant, another descendent of Phillip. His room is a shrine to his family’s history.