The Hellraiser Films and Their Legacy

by Kane, Paul

  The allusions to the sport of fishing serve to illustrate this, too, when they enter Jay Cho’s crime scene—“Ever go fishing, Tony?”—and when Thorne informs his wife, “Actually I caught a case.” Thorne is used to being the one with the rod, but suddenly things have turned around. The hooks and chains are directed at him during the finale. And now that the viewer realizes Tony is merely a construct of Hell, it is safe for him to admit to Thorne that he’s been fishing as well.

  Once again, this desire to win probably stems from Thorne’s lonely upbringing. We see him in flashback playing alone in his room; the adult Thorne looking out of the window to show us we are on a farm miles from anywhere. Thorne had only his parents for company, and subsequently abandoned them in later life. “Why don’t you visit us, Joe?” asks his mother sitting by his father’s bedside. This isolation accounts for the reason why he uses his magic tricks to entertain himself rather than his daughter. The sleight of hand as he palms the coke at the first crime scene, then brings it out again when he’s with Daphne, is just for his own amusement, as are the worry balls he plays with constantly during the film. “That’s a Chinese thing, isn’t it?” says Gregory with tongue firmly in cheek, an obvious reference to the puzzle box. Thorne has spent so long challenging himself he thinks nothing of trampling over his rivals.

  But in Inferno the competition is the greatest game player of them all.

  Pins and Needles

  Still, the most interesting aspect of Inferno is the fact that Hellraiser’s influence—like Thorne’s word puzzle—has come full circle. When the original came out, body piercing was more of an underground scene, and certainly not as prevalent as it is today. The series must take some credit for popularizing the art of adorning one’s flesh with metal. In the documentary Hellraiser Resurrection, Barker enforces this: “Now there’s a whole movement of people who’ve made an art form of their bodies, piercing, scarification, brandings of various kinds. Back then [when Hellraiser was made] it was much, much harder to see that; there was much less of that around.”2 The performance artists Puncture, who also feature, confirm: “Hellraiser is like a breeding ground for our imaginations, for our next performance.”3

  Life imitating art imitating life. An example of body piercing, the back corset. Piercer: Shorty, West Palm Beach, FL. Model: Kacey (www.theshorty.com. Photograph courtesy Marc Calma).

  In Hellraiser V we are taken to Leon’s Stigmata body piercing parlor, introduced by shots of the pictures on his wall. Black and white images of needles through the eyebrow and nose, stitched lips, latticed backs, hooked nostrils, give way to a live procedure of someone having their tongue pierced with a large spike. Into this world comes Thorne, to ask Leon about the Lament Configuration. Leon himself is bald, covered in tattoos, and has a hook through his nose. On his walls hang studded collars and a lethal multistranded whip with hooks on each of its ends—the same one used in Bernie’s death later. This is the influence of Hellraiser in the real world, but it is an effect Thorne cannot possibly understand. The only metal he has on him is his badge and his gun, which is why it takes him so long to figure out the enigma and why the Cenobites appear so alien to him. Here Inferno is art imitating life, which in turn has been already been influenced by art.

  21

  WELCOME TO HELL

  It was anticipated to a certain extent, but no one could have predicted the sheer disappointment of Hellraiser fans who bemoaned the virtual absence of their favorite Cenobite in the new film. “The series had become the Pinhead show,” stated Derrickson in retrospect. “Personally, I’m very happy about the lack of Pinhead in Inferno, but if I had to do it over again, I’d put a bit more of him in there for the sake of the fans.”1 To have held back with Pinhead was one thing, but it was the use of his image for promotional purposes that seemed to upset people, as Bradley suggested: “What irritates me, and I know it upsets the fans as well, was that they then smothered the video cover with pictures of Pinhead, and that tells everybody it’s his film again—he’s the featured character. Well, no, he isn’t, so don’t sell it on that.”2

  Barker, too, was displeased by the film, as evidenced in a question and answer session at a Hellraiser screening in Los Angeles in August 2000: “I really don’t like to say this about another’s work but I really hate this movie and it seems to have violated a lot of the things that I like about Hellraiser.”3 They were thoughts he reiterated in the Lost Souls newsletter: “[Hellraiser: Inferno] is terrible. It pains me to say things like that because nobody sets out in the morning to make a bad movie....”4

  Derrickson’s chess move was to send an e-mail to Esplatter arguing his case, “[Clive’s] reaction, I must admit, was not entirely unexpected.... I never expected that he would appreciate seeing the treasured iconography of his brainchild tossed out of the window and replaced by a whole new set of rules. But it seems to me that I made a movie that is too good, or at least too provocative, for him to just simply dismiss.... This is, in fact, a very good film. It is philosophically ambitious (unlike Hellraiser II, III, or IV), and it represents a moral framework outside that of the previous Hellraiser films and (apparently) outside that of Clive Barker’s personal taste. Quite simply, I subverted Clive Barker’s franchise with a point of view that he does not share, and I think that really pisses him off.”5

  The reviews, on the whole, came down on the side of Barker and Bradley. Fangoria’s Allan Dart compared the film to that of Halloween III and Friday The 13th Part V, which also abandoned their original concepts in favor of a new start but were lambasted by the fans: “And while Hellraiser: Inferno doesn’t completely disregard its Pinhead origins, it is guilty of demoting everybody’s favorite Cenobite to a bench player on a losing team....” He goes on to compare the lead character of Thorne to the director, saying, “The person who is really in over his head is co-scripter/director Scott Derrickson. His demon-haunted detective tale, while not bad on its own, doesn’t belong in the Hellraiser storyline. It’s an odd and uncomfortable fit that makes Derrickson, like Joseph, damned from the beginning.”

  David Trier at Movie Vault reported that Hellraiser was a series close to his heart and so approached this new installment with the lowest of expectations. But he was impressed that this was a self-contained movie with coherent beginning, middle and end (unlike, in his opinion, Bloodline) and liked the sense of style it displayed. His reservations, though, revolve around those same questions again: “There are two main things that keep this from being a ‘good’ movie. First and foremost, it is not a Hellraiser movie. The presence of the box and the minute or two of Pinhead’s screen time are the only things that tie it to the series.... Pinhead’s provoking commentary has always been one of the greatest assets to the series and I could tell Doug Bradley just wanted to cry. It’s really just a supernatural detective story....”

  Efilmcritic.com reviewer Scott Weinberg, like Bradley, was concerned for the fans: “Here’s what I don’t get: A studio goes to all the trouble of producing a new horror sequel, but time and again they simply refuse to acknowledge that these movies have fans and followers, people who love the series and will pretty much rent any movie with a number in the title.”

  The consensus of opinion tended to be that as a stand alone film this might have worked better, but as a Hellraiser movie there weren’t enough elements from the mythos to warrant the title. Incredible as it may seem, Derrickson was asked if he wanted to direct the next film in the sequence as well, but he declined as he and Boardman were already working on other projects, one a thriller for Dimension. So it would be time for yet another person to take charge of the franchise. Would that person stay faithful to the mythos or carry it on in the direction Inferno had taken it? Only time would tell.

  22

  HIDE AND SEEK

  The person chosen by Dimension to immediately follow up Inferno was cinematographer Rick Bota, who had begun his career—like Kevin Yagher before him—working on episodes of Tales from the Crypt. Not the best omen Hell
raiser supporters could have wished for. But he also had ten years of experience on films such as Final Embrace (Oley Sassone, 1992), Pamela Anderson’s flashy—in more ways than one—comic book flick Barb Wire (David Hogan, 1996), the interesting though inferior remake of House on Haunted Hill (William Malone, 1999) and serial killer jaunt Valentine (Jamie Blanks, 2001) starring Angel heartthrob David Boreanaz. In addition to this, Bota had been a second unit director on Guillermo del Toro’s impressive monster movie Mimic (1997) starring Mira Sorvino, and Kiss the Girls (Gary Fleder, 1997), with Morgan Freeman taking up the role of Dr. Alex Cross from James Patterson’s successful novels.

  Providing the script this time would be two writers. Carl V. Dupré had been a writer on TV’s Bone Chillers (1996), had penned Detroit Rock City (Adam Rifkin, 1999), Prophecy 3: The Ascent (Patrick Lussier, 2000) and Broke Even (David Feldman, 2000), but had cut his teeth in the industry working in a variety of positions since 1992, from assistant editor to production assistant. This was also true of Tim Day, who had started out as electrician on 9½ Ninjas! (Aaron Barsky, 1991) and Anthony Hickox’s Waxwork II (1992), before working as best boy and key grip on a number of productions. Day was actually an old friend of Bota’s from his Tales from the Crypt days. The now titled Hellraiser: Hellseeker would be his first writing assignment, but between the pair of them they had a wealth of filmic experience which they could draw on when fleshing out the story. They were also, quite obviously, fans of the Hellraiser canon, which is why the script is peppered with homages to previous films in the series (even down to calling places of work Cubic Route and Kircher Imports after the character who provides Frank with the box in The Hellbound Heart novella).

  But it is fair to say that without Inferno’s influence Hellseeker probably wouldn’t have been the screenplay it was, hinging, as it does, around the gradual descent into madness of a man who loses his wife in a car accident, then has to piece together the mystery of what’s happened. A further resemblance arises when we discover that someone has been killing the other people in his life, such as his boss, his neighbor and his best friend at work. Time is also nonlinear, as it was in Inferno, and the lead character of Trevor experiences flashbacks and jumps in time, which may or may not have been caused by a head injury after the accident. And he gets his just desserts at the end, exactly like Thorne, when he discovers he is dead, too. What was particularly exciting about the script, though, was the missing wife’s name: Kirsty.

  Dupré and Day had originally intended to bring back the character of Kirsty from the first three Hellraiser films, a fascinating and attractive idea for long-term devotees of the mythos, but Bota and the team had trouble contacting Ashley Laurence. The character then had to be altered to make her a new one, the name remaining in deference to both the character and the early films (and the couple’s friendly pit bull took on the name of Cotton). This was the version of the script sent to Doug Bradley, who was initially intrigued to read that Kirsty was in it, then disappointed to discover that it wasn’t Kirsty Cotton. Because negotiations for the role of Pinhead were left until quite late into preproduction, Bradley didn’t get the chance to discuss this with Bota. He got on with the director immediately, impressed by his enthusiasm and distinct vision: Bota had been very influenced by avant-garde art and was extremely interested in colors because of his director of photography background.

  When the story became clear, Bradley offered to get in touch with Laurence himself, as they had kept in contact. In the intervening years the actress had starred in movies such as Lurking Fear (C. Courtney Joyner, 1994) based loosely on the H.P. Lovecraft tale Felony (David A. Prior, 1996) and Cupid (Doug Campbell, 1997), as well as appearing on TV in Legend, Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Suddenly Susan, before taking some time out from show business to concentrate on her family. She’d just started back, featuring in Warlock III: The End of Innocence (Eric Freiser, 1999) and Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction on television—still firmly established in the genre—when the Hellseeker offer came. Laurence accepted it, delighted to be able to play alongside Bradley once more. “[It] was really nice for me [after] so many years, to come back and be in an environment as an adult that I had started as a child,” she said in an interview on Hellseeker’s release, “to come back and look at things through those eyes.”1

  But this didn’t leave long to rewrite the script again—she was actually added back in just days before filming started—and so information about where the character had been and what had happened to her since we last saw her was included in a title sequence with Trevor in the car. This was subsequently dropped in favor of Jamison Goei’s spinning digital puzzle box over which the credits play, something he came up with in his spare time. The script also alluded to money Frank and Larry had left her when they disappeared “under some rather unusual circumstances” and which might have been a motivation for Trevor to kill her. The most enticing addition, though, was actually embroidered upon by Bradley—a lengthy conversation between Pinhead and Kirsty when she re-opens the puzzle box. “I gave it to Doug Bradley,” said Bota, “and asked him to put it into the words of Pinhead but also expand on the story if he wanted to.... And he did a great job and added a lot of pages of great dialogue and great backstory which we already had in there, but he filled in between the lines. It’s great stuff.”2 Sadly, most of this was also excised, although it survives as an extra on the finished release. The very fact that Bota was open to this and wanted the Hellraiser mythos to gel pleased Bradley enormously.

  The rest of the cast and crew were now in place as well, ready for the February 2001 shoot in Vancouver, Canada. When casting for Trevor, the director looked at a number of different actors before executive producer Jesse Berdinka sent him a tape of Dean Winters playing Ryan O’Reily in the HBO series Oz. Winters’ brother Scott had originally persuaded him to attend acting school, and he made subsequent appearances in Homicide: Life on the Street, NYPD Blue, Millennium and Sex and the City, as well as in the films Conspiracy Theory (Richard Donner, 1997), Undercover Angel (Bryan Michael Stoller, 1999), Snipes (Rich Murray, 2001) and Bullet in the Brain (David Von Ancken, 2001). The script for Hellseeker was sent to him and three weeks later he was shooting the film.

  Because of what had happened with Thorne on Inferno, the makers developed Trevor into a more likeable character the audience could care about before revealing too much of his true persona. In earlier drafts of the script he had less of the endearing qualities that Winters brought to life on-screen, such as his own interpretation on how much he loved his wife. “I think he did a great job with Trevor,” said Bota. “It was a really difficult part to play because he goes through a range of emotions and I think that’s what essentially was appealing to Dean.”3

  Because the script had so many morally bankrupt characters in it, one nice person was introduced: Dr. Allison Dormere (the name itself being an in-joke as it is French for “sleeping”). Described by the director as “a sort of guardian angel,” in the script it goes on to say, “Something about her just radiates a calming presence”4 It was Canadian actress Rachel Hayward’s mission to sell this to the audience. Hayward’s first film role was as Angie in Breaking All the Rules (James Orr, 1985), before graduating to, aptly enough, “woman in morgue” for the adaptation of Dean Koontz’s Whispers (Douglas Jackson, 1989). Further movies included Time Runner (Michael Mazo, 1993), Voyage of Terror (Brian Trenchard-Smith, 1998), and Cabin Pressure (Alan Simmonds, 2001), while her TV series CV featured parts in shows such as Sliders, Highlander, Stargate SG-1, First Wave, Xena: Warrior Princess and Cold Squad.

  Trevor’s vampish boss, Gwen, was to be played by Sarah-Jane Redmond, who initially came in to read for the Kirsty part. She had such a presence that Bota wanted to use her somewhere, and she proved to be perfect casting for this dominating and sexually aware woman. Born in Cyprus, Greece, Redmond’s first movie was From Pig to Oblivion (Simon Barry, 1993) and she filled in the time between her next one—Disturbing Behavior (David Nutter,
1998)—with roles in The X-Files, Millenium (as The Devil, for which she was voted the Internet’s number one villain), Sleepwalkers and Poltergeist: The Legacy. She had recently enjoyed a lengthy stretch on the new reworking of the Superman legend, Smallville, as well as James Cameron’s televisual brainchild, Dark Angel. As research she viewed dominatrix sessions at a local dungeon and said, “When I auditioned for the part, I used a photograph out of Stanton’s illustrated book, For the Man Who Knows His Place, as my headshot. It’s a photo of a man on his hands and knees slaving to his female master in his office.”5

  The part of his equally rampant neighbor, Tawny, was taken by twenty-four year-old actress Jody Thompson from Death Game (Randy Cheveldave, 1996) and Fear of Flying (David Mackay, 2000). Completing Trevor’s harem of women was Kaaren de Zilva as the acupuncturist Sage. De Zilva’s acting experience involved work on Final Round (George Erschbamer, 1993), John McTiernan’s The 13th Warrior (1999), based on the Michael Crichton book and This Is the Disk-O-Boyz (Morris G. Sim, 1999). Bota wanted Sage to have an accent because it would add to her exotic charms, but because de Zilva looked quite exotic anyway, the decision was taken to have her speak with a British lilt, for which she copied her English mother’s accent.

  Bota came across Canadian actor Trevor White in a play. “When I first got to Vancouver and we were doing the casting I was taking in some local theatre on the weekends,” the director explained.6 Bota tracked the thespian down and asked him to read for the part of Bret, Trevor’s best friend. The actor, who has a look of Clive Barker about him, had previously starred in films like Groomed (Trent Carlson, 1996), The Rememberer (Coreen Mayrs, 1999), The Vigil (Justin MacGregor, 1999) and Epicenter (Richard Pepin, 2000).