by Kane, Paul
In the screenplay, Paul has been helped by Minos’s administrator, Corrine Cotton, a woman in her mid–20s and, one can only assume, a descendant of Kirsty. In a previous draft there was also a character called Gary Gerani—possibly a mirror character of Auguste? Paul leaves the task of aligning the station to Corrine while he operates the robot that opens the Lament Configuration box. We also see that the computer is using a holographic image of Paul, which prefigures his subterfuge at the end. The shuttle arrives, bringing with it four military figures and two civilians, themselves almost reflections of the gamblers from the first part. Edwards is a government official sent to take over from Corrine, and Chamberlain is a young scientist, while the soldiers include two males, Commander Carducci (presumably Mama Carducci’s descendent) and Parker, and two females, Roscoe and Rimmer (originally a male prior to draft number six).
Paul is arrested by Roscoe and placed in jail, then spends much of the remainder of the script trying to persuade Edwards and Carducci that there are now demons on Minos. When Parker and Rimmer let the Cenobites out of the holding pen—tricked by a monitor showing frightened and hungry children—they are immediately dispatched. Angelique’s Cenobitization has more of an impact here because we know she has been made a slave once more. Moreover, Pinhead’s line “No time for games” is a complete contrast to her philosophy in France. Chamberlain is killed by Cenobite twins and Roscoe by the Chatter Beast; Carducci is dispatched by Angelique using a mirror—dragging him so far through and slicing him in half.
Corrine is forced to strike Edwards in order to free Paul, who tells them both to flee. Corrine makes it only after blasting the Chatter Beast with the exhaust of her escape vehicle, but Edwards isn’t so fortunate and encounters both Angelique and the Twins. The scene is then set for Paul to face off against Pinhead, and there is another dramatic release of chains before Pinhead grasps he’s been fooled by the hologram. It also allows for a final scene between Angelique and Lemarchand’s descendant. In the end, the hologram only buys time for Corrine to activate the Elysium Configuration, not for Paul to escape, and he shares the Cenobites’ fate as Minos breaks apart. The camera then tracks in on a piece of the debris—the puzzle box—and suddenly we pull out to show the box resting in the hand of Phillip Lemarchand in his workshop in France, bringing the script completely full circle.
In a post–Bloodline interview Doug Bradley described a couple of very interesting variations on this ending that were considered: “The ending originally involved the space station folding up into the puzzle box. Then a hand came through space, picked up the box and dropped it onto a merchant’s table. Back to the first film, we had completed a time loop. When that was dropped, the final shot was going to be the shuttle returning to Earth with a trail of pins following it. Then they dropped the pins, so all you have now is the shuttle flying away.”18
This screenplay is definitely one of the best of the Hellraiser sequels. It is intelligent, thorough, self-reflective—with superb parallels between the time zones—and hugely ambitious. Therein lay the first stumbling block. To make a film of this script would have required a considerable financial investment from Miramax. What was on offer was closer to that of the original film, an estimated $4 million. Without even taking into account inflation it was an impossible feat. Immediately, certain scenes involving special effects were scrutinized then dropped, and the space effects and Cenobite fights needed to be scaled down. The next step would be finding a director used to making less seem like more, someone able to make the impossible possible.
The search was not an easy one. Barker was an obvious choice, but quite apart from the fact he’d publicly stated he didn’t want to direct any sequels, he was also about to film Lord of Illusions for United Artists, an adaptation of his own short “The Last Illusion,” starring Scott Bakula as Harry D’Amour. Factor in executive producer duties on Candyman 2: Farewell to the Flesh (directed by Bill Condon), and Barker was well and truly crossed off the list. The other main contenders were Guillermo del Torro, whose 1993 vampire film, Cronos, had seriously impressed everyone in the genre, and Stuart Gordon, a director who thrived on low-budget horror fare, known largely for H.P. Lovecraft adaptations like From Beyond (1986). Gordon was all but signed up for the project when an artistic disagreement forced him to back out. It was now that special effects maestro Kevin Yagher was approached via his agents. Yagher had been in the film business several years, providing make-up for horror movies such as Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (Joseph Zito, 1984), Trick or Treat (Charles Martin Smith, 1986) and a couple of Nightmare on Elm Street films. Yagher was also well known as the creator of the withering corpse-like Crypt keeper—from the anthology TV series, Tales from the Crypt, and designer of Chucky from Child’s Play (Tom Holland, 1988).
Pinhead with director Kevin Yagher (courtesy Gary J. Tunnicliffe).
In fact it was these two projects that afforded him the opportunity to direct. Famous producer Joel Silver, who had an office across from Yagher’s effects shop, was instrumental in securing him the Crypt effects work. When the technician promised he could shave the costs off a season of the series in exchange for directing an episode, the result was “Lower Birth,” which explained the origins of the Cryptkeeper. This in turn led to Yagher directing yet another episode in 1989, “Strung Along,” and finally to the second unit director’s job on Child’s Play 2 (John Lafia, 1990). By turning his hand to directing, Yagher was following in the footsteps of other effects men, now filmmakers, such as Brian Yuzna (Society, 1989) and Tom Savini (Night of the Living Dead, 1990).
“When I got the call,” Yagher said in an on-set interview, “I told my agents that I didn’t want to do Hellraiser IV. I mean, what could I possibly do that was different and hadn’t been done before in one, two and three? I thought the original film was great! Then I got Pete Atkins’ script and I fell in love with it.”19 Yagher was especially taken with the eighteenth century scenes and going back to the Hellraiser origins, or “visual circularity,” as Barker described it to him.20 So with a director secured, the cast came next. Doug Bradley would be reprising his role as Pinhead, a given after his reaction to seeing some else in the make-up during Hellraiser III. However, he agreed that Pinhead should be slightly less prominent than in III. For the other characters, just as they had done in previous entries, the makers would hone in on relative unknowns.
Twenty-seven-year-old Canadian-born actor Bruce Ramsey was cast in the three important main roles: that of Phillip Lemarchand and his descendants John and Paul Merchant. After small TV roles and a part as a teenager in Sandor Stern’s creepy horror film Pin in 1988, Ramsey went on to star in films such as the cannibal survival movie Alive (Frank Marshall, 1993) and Killing Zoe (Roger Avary, 1994). Speaking about the part, the actor said, “Phillip is a young man with great ambition and he wants to be recognized, so he is seduced by Angelique’s power.... Lemarchand is not an evil man, but he is attracted to the dark side.”21 About John and Paul, he mused: “In the second story, his descendant, who is a husband and a father, is more mature and understands himself better. The third character is an old and weathered man who has spent his whole life trying to secure the ultimate trap for the horror which has plagued his entire family for several hundred years.”22
Cast as principal female villain Angelique was Chilean Valentina Vargas. With her dark, sultry looks she was perfect. Her acting CV began with European TV work, playing Laure in an episode of Le Petit Docteur (1986), then a role as La masseuse in Pierre Jolivet’s Strictement personnel (1985). But it was in Jean-Jacques Annaud’s The Name of the Rose (1986) that she made a real impact starring alongside Sean Connery and Christian Slater in this fourteenth century murder mystery. Parts followed in Luc Besson’s Le Grand Bleu (The Big Blue, 1988) and Street of No Return (Samuel Fuller, 1989). The uneven Twin Sitters (John Paragon, 1994) marked something of a low spot, but did at least prophesy what her character would be doing in Bloodline. Though she almost didn’t take the role because s
he was having nightmares about Pinhead coming to kill her,23 she soon warmed to the idea and even embraced tapping into this side of her character. “For the first time in my career, I’m playing a villainess in a horror movie, and I’m really loving it,” she said. “In the first two tales, she’s like a serpent because she’ll trick, seduce and manipulate people. They’ll think they’re in Heaven until she turns around and backstabs them.”24
For the role of John Merchant’s wife, Bobbi, Kim Meyers was selected. Meyers had worked with Yagher once before on A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy’s Revenge (1985), where she played Lisa Webber, but her other credits included parts on TV’s L.A. Law, Tales from Hollywood Hills and the Chuck Norris vehicle, Walker, Texas Ranger, as well as the films White Palace (Luis Mandoki, 1990) and At Risk (Elana K. Pyle, 1994). Playing a similar part was Charlotte Chatton as Genevieve. Chatton also had TV experience, most notably in popular British detective series Inspector Morse (1992). That same year she starred as Jen Cross in Dakota Road (Nick Ward) opposite Alexis Denisof before going on to feature as Emma in the show starring Jane Seymour Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman (1995–6).
Bit-part actor Mickey Cottrell was chosen for the role of the evil Duc de L’Isle, having established himself in a number of parts in addition to serving as a unit publicist for movies like Bagdad Cafe (Percy Adlon, 1987). His first big film role was alongside Keanu Reeves and River Phoenix in Gus Van Sant’s My Own Private Idaho (1991) where he played Daddy Carroll.
Up for the role of De L’Isle’s apprentice, Jacques, was 21-year-old Californian Adam Scott, who was also building his career on TV appearances. The first of these was as Dan in the pilot episode of Dead at 21 (1994), followed by a couple of turns in Boy Meets World. Post–Hellraiser, the actor could be seen in such high profile shows as E.R. and Murder One, as well as Martin Scorsese’s The Aviator (2004).
Louis Turenne—another Canadian by birth—stepped into the role of Phillip’s friend, Auguste, bringing with him over twenty years of acting experience starting with Happy Birthday, Wanda June (Mark Robson, 1971) right through to Mystic Pizza (Donald Petrie, 1988) with Julia Roberts. Louis Mustillo would play Sharpe, a victim of Angelique who opens the puzzle box and calls forth Pinhead. But audiences may have recognized him from brief appearances on Quantum Leap, Married with Children and L.A. Law. A child actor with the requisite experience was required for the scenes with Jack and Pinhead and they found this in Courtland Mead. At only seven, the young actor had nonetheless amassed a serious number of parts, from For Parents Only (Bill Shepherd, 1991) to Little Rascals (Penelope Spheeris, 1994).
Due to a reshuffle and cull of characters, there was no need to find anyone to play Roscoe or Corrine Cotton. Rimmer was now to take on a more central role and would be played by Christine Harnos. Though she had appeared in films like Cold Dog Soup (Alan Metter, 1990) and Dazed and Confused (Richard Linklater, 1993), most viewers would recognize her as Mark Greene’s wife, Jennifer, in E.R.—from 1994 onwards. Making up the rest of the SWAT team were Wren T. Brown as Parker (from The Hidden—Jack Sholder, 1987), Tom Dugan as Chamberlain (The Puppet Masters—Stuart Orme, 1994), Pat Skipper as Carducci (Predator 2—Stephen Hopkins, 1990), and Paul Perri as Edwards (from Manhunter—Michael Mann, 1986), now their commander.
Replacing security guard Valerie Dyson were twins Jimmy and David Schuelke, who had only appeared together before Hellraiser IV in Ruben Preuss’s horror film, Almost Dead (1994). Story-wise this would make more sense, as they are supposedly transformed into the Twin Cenobites we see on Minos, but under the latex were two other twins, first time performers Michael and Mark Polish.
This was an assignment handed to the new head of Image Animation’s U.S. branch, Gary Tunnicliffe. “Basically what happened was that myself and Bob Keen were jointly running the company in England,” explained Gary. “We were taking on more and more projects and a lot of work was coming from America. We therefore decided to set up a U.S. shop and I ended up coming out here to run it.”25 Tunnicliffe had already been involved in the effects for Hellraiser III, in particular the re-shoots suggested by Barker, so he was no stranger to this universe. But upon hearing that effects-man Yagher would be directing, he was worried that Image Animation might be surplus to requirements, fears that were to prove unfounded: “Kevin rang us up and basically said, ‘Hey, I want you to be involved, you’re the only people who’ve been around doing all of the films, can we meet?’”26 This secured IA’s position on the movie and led to Tunnicliffe handling the make-up on the Twins, actually based on Greek comedy and tragedy masks (sculpted by Steve Norrington). Tunnicliffe was also responsible for the design of Angelique’s stunning Cenobite, some of which he got from watching the film Sister Act (Emile Ardolino, 1992): “It’s true, honestly! I was watching these singing nuns and seeing the way their cowls fall down and I thought it would be interesting to do something with flesh rather than material.”27 Thankfully, there was also a touch of slinky Morticia Addams thrown in, the skin-tight outfit actually securing Vargas a place on the cover of Femme Fatale and Fangoria magazines.
Fortunately, Tunnicliffe was also keen to return to the original Pinhead look, having been a great admirer of the work done in the first two movies. The make-up in the third film had been designed for speed and it was reduced to a two-piece appliance; Tunnicliffe always felt that the pins were a little too long and cumbersome: “Personally, I thought Pinhead was fine the way he was, so we went back to the original design and pattern.”28 This would involve one-inch gold pins and a grid closely copying Geoff Portass’s original. The return to this old look would also help Bradley to get back into character. After loosening up his performance when Pinhead was set free in Hell on Earth he would now have to rein that in again and re-establish the boundaries of Pinhead’s persona.
Though Yagher left Tunnicliffe to handle these make-ups, he couldn’t resist designing the Chatter Beast himself and letting his own shop bring it to life. But it would take the talents of Jody St. Michael, who had been one of Rick Baker’s apes in Gorillas in the Mist (Michael Apted, 1988), to truly animate the monster. “There’s a center that an animal has that a human doesn’t,” St. Michael clarified. “Humans do human things, have human intentions and human emotions. Animals all have this one center, and it takes some practice to capture it.”29 Other notable crew positions were filled by Ivo Christante as production designer, costume designs by Dayna Cussler and Eileen Kennedy, Rick Kerrigan as visual effects supervisor, and David Douglas designing the spacecraft.
A design for Valentina Vargass costume, which was inspired by Sister Act. Gary Tunnicliffes idea is rendered here by Myles Teves (courtesy Gary J. Tunnicliffe).
Filming began in August 1994 in order to meet Miramax’s proposed release date of January 1995. The location for the first few weeks of principle photography was L.A., specifically floor three of Hollywood’s old I Magnin building, transformed into expansive corporate offices for the purposes of the shoot. Before setting up here, rumors abounded that, like the house in Dollis Hill from Hellraiser, this place was haunted. The ghost of the woman who was married to I Magnin was said to roam the building and didn’t want a group of filmmakers invading her territory. By the time they were finished, even Yagher had cause to believe this might be true.
Cast and crew had bad luck right from the start. There were concerns about the cinematography—rightly so—leading to the dismissal of a DP and drafting in of Gerry (Hellraiser III) Lively. Indeed, according to Bradley the entire art department and camera crew were sacked after just one week.30 A strike shut down production for a whole day, resulting in loss of footage. A fire broke out at the building that set off the sprinklers and caused a flood. An emergency called the assistant director away from work for a couple of weeks, and Courtland Mead developed a bad case of chicken pox. To his credit, Yagher remained composed, patient and professional, something he said he inherited from his dad: “My father was a very patient man, and I inherited a little of that. I’ve been
concerned here and there, but I’ve stayed pretty calm....”31
Shooting the eighteenth century France scenes were much more satisfying, it seemed. Likening the shoot to making three separate films, Yagher said on the set, “It’s a great experience to start on something this difficult and hopefully, if I work again, the projects will not be as tough. Right now, I’m tired, but I’m happy tired.”32 He also sang the praises of Barker—who would drop by when he had any free time and offer his advice—Atkins, who was on hand to do any rewrites, and the Weinstein brothers at Miramax. Publicity photographs from that time also reveal Tunnicliffe’s work on the transformed gamblers, one of them with his eyes healed over and another with his lips pulled back even further than the Chatterer.
The production then moved to an abandoned A-1 Spaghetti factory, only a few blocks from where Barker was filming Lord of Illusions. This would be transformed into a makeshift soundstage, and technicians recreated the Minos corridors—reverting to sci-fi type by making them completely metallic. The Minos was now a free-floating space station rather than part of an asteroid and the year had changed to 2127. Here the crew encountered yet more difficulties, including Vargas suffering from a reaction to the glue and prosthetics used in her Cenobite make-up. The whole experience had been too much for some, so much so that, looking back, Bradley said that, “Bloodline was the shoot from hell; it was the most miserable professional experience of my career.”33 One of the few highlights for the actor was his sixty-fifth appearance in the Pinhead make-up over the course of eight years, for which Tunnicliffe presented him with a specially made bus pass from Leviathan City Limits Public Transportation.