The Hellraiser Films and Their Legacy

by Kane, Paul

  He also gathered together friends and colleagues to help with the film, which he had written himself and would produce, direct and stand in as DP and production designer. Executive producing the short were Claire-Jane Vranian and Michael Jay Regan (who would play Chatterer again for this production). Regan would also help with the set construction along with Steven Lawrence (who was playing Bound) and Blake Bolger (who doubled as the Prosthetics assistant). And when it came to putting everything together in postproduction, Tunnicliffe found assistance in the form of Kirk Morri as post production supervisor, Patrick Lussier (who edited all the Scream films for Dimension) and Lisa Romano as editors, with sound design from Jonathan Miller and music by Deader’s Henning Lohner. And there was certainly no shortage of special effects people on hand to deal with this side of the film.

  Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of No More Souls’ shoot was the fact that Tunnicliffe played an old version of Pinhead, making him only the second person to appear in the famous make-up in the series’ history. In a final dedication on the film, Tunnicliffe writes: “For Doug ... For creating the wonderful character that budget decreed I mimic ... Please forgive me.” With cataracts in his eyes and a general world-weariness, this more thick-set version of Pinhead is possibly what the character would look like after centuries had passed by; no longer enjoying the sport, he simply sits on what looks like a plain wooden chair or throne, the monarch of a long dead kingdom.

  The movie itself begins with a pan across scorched earth with skulls half buried in the sand. These simple images accompany the almost Shakespearian monologue that Pinhead gives us: “In the end it was just two sins that proved deadly for the world, greed and lust. And when the leading superpowers saw the end was nigh they chose to cut off the nose of humanity to spite the face of mankind.” We then descend into that earth, traveling below to Hell, which would suggest a more traditional one than we have seen before. Except we pan down to see Pinhead sitting, bored and tired amidst the hanging chains and stone walls. He continues to relate the story: “The years have passed silently, taking with them my will, and my hunger. For what is there to wait for? Another 65 million years until I can know the eternal delight of an experience where hurt and ecstasy become one. Too much time to wait for such a fleeting sensation.”

  Gary as an old and weary Pinhead in No More Souls (courtesy Gary J. Tunnicliffe).

  Believing his once loyal troops will turn on him eventually anyway, Pinhead opens the Lament Configuration and gives them one last soul to gorge upon: his own. The final scenes show Chatterer and Bound appearing in a flash of blue light and attacking Pinhead, his mouth now smeared with blood. We then cut to Chatterer nailing something onto the now-familiar Torture Pillar, and when he steps away we see it is the stretched skin of Pinhead’s face, not alive as it was at the end of Hellbound, but flat and lifeless.

  Lasting only about five minutes in total, the film has a deep impact beyond its running time and deserves its place in the Hellraiser canon, simply for the audacity of the ending. For here, Pinhead not only dies, but the whole of Hell has been utterly defeated by what it coveted in the first place. Leviathan has been hoist by its own petard. But, as we will see in the final chapter Tunnicliffe wasn’t the only one planning Pinhead’s final exit. No More Souls appeared as part of the Deader package on DVD in 2005, tucked away as a hidden “Easter Egg” which could be accessed by selecting Special Features on the main menu, scrolling down to More at the bottom and selecting that, then moving down the second page, so that Play is highlighted, and pressing the down button once more on the DVD remote. Nothing appears to be highlighted now, but by pressing the Right button the Lament Configuration lights up and the film plays. A puzzle worthy of Hellraiser in its own right.

  33

  COMICS FROM HELL

  In addition to the cinematic outings of the Cenobites and their puzzle box, an official graphic interpretation of the mythos appeared from 1989 to 1993 and spawned its own spin-offs and sequels, often more cerebral and ambitious than its filmic counterparts. Published by Marvel’s Epic Imprint and launched as a quarterly, Book 1 of the comic series—actually more a 64-page book with a spine than a comic—boasted an eye-catching John Bolton rendering of Pinhead on the cover, and introductions by editor Daniel Chichester and Clive Barker. In his foreword, Chichester discloses that the possibility of a horror comic from Epic had long been a possibility, but they were waiting for the right subject matter: “We were ... convinced that to use the medium to its fullest potential today would require us to overcome the pitfalls of so many horror comics of the recent past, the ones where the stories always ended with a clichéd ‘twist’ of ‘And she woke up the next morning to find that her husband—in the bed next to her—HAD REALLY BEEN DEAD FOR THE PAST SIX YEARS!’”1

  He found this in Hellraiser, but knew that a straightforward adaptation wouldn’t do the title any justice. Hence, right from the start, the aim of the comic series was to set stories in the same universe, exploring possibilities only hinted at in the movies. Barker used his space to expound upon the curious nature of a creation becoming public property: “The little bastard movie I made’s got a life of its own. Who’d have thought it? Who’d have ever thought?”2 He was to remain a consultant on the series, though, and he had final approval over everything.

  As for the stories themselves, writer Erik Saltzgaber and Bolton came up with a brilliant medieval tale called “The Canons of Pain,” in which a Lament Configuration is discovered in the Holy Land and brought back to England, thus extending Hellraiser’s back-history even further. “Dead Man’s Hand,” written by Sholly Fisch and illustrated by Dan Spiegle, was set in another historical period, the Wild West, and centered on a Guardian gambling in a saloon with the puzzle box. By winning, the cowboy he’s playing against doesn’t get to see what’s inside. In “The Warm Red” Jan Strnad created in Maureen a character to rival Julia, wonderfully rendered by Bernie Wrightson. Out to cheat a lonely man out of his land and make herself a fortune in the process, Maureen uses her feminine charms, little realizing that the man has struck up another deal with a Cenobite. There’s a final gripping twist, however, which sees Maureen once again taking control of the situation and teaming up with the demon. Finally, “Dance of the Fetus” by Ted McKeever, was the most poignant entry in this first volume. Presented with virtually no dialogue, it told of what happened to a woman’s unborn child after she agrees to go to Hell. (“This just won’t do,” says the Cenobite to the fetus. “There are regulations. I mean, what would it be like if we could just take anyone?”)

  Cover of Check Books Best of Hellraiser collection, volume 1 (courtesy Checker Books).

  This initial collection set the tone for the volumes to come, and also introduced us to some new Cenobites, such as Face—who we later discovered was an actor before Hell took him, and who now wears the skin masks of his victims (“To Prepare a Face” Hellraiser Book 4, 1990). Other fan favorites would join him over the comings months, like the stick thin Hunger (introduced in a superb story called “Diver’s Hands” in Book 2 about the relationship between a patient suffering from leprosy and his caregiver) and former Vietnam vet Atkins (from “Tunnel of Love” in Book 6), weapons master in Leviathan’s ranks. And while fresh Cenobites were utilized, Pinhead and his original cohorts were far from absent in these pages. The range of ideas was also impressive in those fledgling volumes, covering everything from virtual reality torture in “The Threshold” (Book 2), to the impact of the Cenobites on 1920s Paris avant-garde in “The Blood of a Poet” (Book 3), and a link to Jack the Ripper in “Under the Knife” (Book 7). The Lament Configuration itself was ripe for reinvention, too, as we saw the various guises it could take. In “Glitter and Go” (Book 5), for example, people cast themselves from the rooftops of an office building like lemmings in the hopes they would fall through the dimensional portal, while in “Demons to Some, Angels to Others” (Book 7), it takes the form of a rod puzzle wielded by a minister. (“If thou desirest gl
ory enough, then it shall be given unto you to solve.”)

  In its first couple of years, the title attracted some of the best writers and artists working in the industry, as well as old friends of the Hellraiser series. Peter Atkins penned Book 3’s standout “Songs of Metal and Flesh,” about a blind musician who eventually plays the Devil’s music to get into Hell, lavishly illustrated by Dave Dorman and Lurene Haines. Erstwhile Chatterer Nicholas Vince joined in for Volume 4 and wrote “Cenobite!” about one person’s journey to become a demon, featuring artwork by John Van Fleet. By this time, Marc McLaurin had taken over as editor and was instrumental in steering the series towards a bimonthly production schedule and introducing a longer multilayered story arc called “The Devil’s Brigade.” Speaking in an interview with Fangoria he said, “The anthology is firmly entrenched, and each issue will still have at least one self-contained story. But I’ve found that many of our readers appreciate a sense of continuity, so we’re aiming for stronger, more detailed storylines and stretching them from issue to issue.”3

  This storyline, written in part by Chichester, saw a selection of Cenobites, including Pinhead, Atkins, Face, Abigor (a dominatrix-esque warrior Cenobite), and Balberith (Hell’s Librarian), each set a task to influence events on Earth. Their targets were a pair of police detectives, a woman on the verge of curing AIDS, a priest, a politician in an apartheid divided country, and a spokesperson for the homeless, all of whom stood at the crossroads between chaos and order at the pivotal “Time of Configuration” (an infernal equinox foretold by the Flagellum, who reads her own entrails to discover the truth before calling the Cenobites to arms). This lengthy and multifaceted tale ran over nineteen parts—including a prelude and epilogue—up until Book 16 of the series, and was definitely one of the highlights of the comic incarnation.

  By the conclusion of this arc, Hellraiser had already started to produce its own spin-off publications. Summer, spring and Christmas specials were only to be expected, the latter displaying a Kevin (Nemesis the Warlock) O’Neill picture of Pinhead as Santa Claus on the cover. The last of these specials, though, in 1994 was actually written by Larry Wachowski, now famous for the Matrix trilogy which he co-wrote and directed with his brother. Indeed, Wachowski had contributed a story previously to Book 9 of the regular anthology called “Closets” which has some delicious hints of things to come. (A character asks in true Oracle fashion, “Would you like a candy?” and a child is found inside a cupboard with its mouth stitched up, just as Neo’s mouth is sealed over in the first Matrix film.) But nothing could have been as eagerly anticipated as Chichester’s two-part Jihad from 1991. Epic had already been running its own Nightbreed comic parallel to the Hellraiser one, which had itself been fleshing out that other Barker universe with new characters and situations. In Jihad these two universes spectacularly collided, positing a tantalizing theory that the Nightbreed were the chaotic yang to the Cenobites’ ordered yin.

  Talking about this project to Dread magazine, Chichester explained: “We’re going on the theory that the Nightbreed and the Cenobites have a history, although the Nightbreed don’t necessarily know about this history. At this point in time, with the Nightbreed being released back into the world after being driven out of Midian, they are a massive chaotic force.... Hell has got to deal with this in order to get on with their war against mankind.”4

  In the story, the Breed’s Peloquin becomes a central character and even has to take over when Boone is killed. Pinhead finds himself stranded behind enemy lines after members of his own army turn on him, forcing him to form an uneasy alliance with the Nightbreed. The body of Boone must then join with the god Baphomet in order to defeat the rogue Cenobites. The story ends with a promise of another round of the war to come as Pinhead states: “Unity against a common threat was a necessary evil—not a pardon, but a stay.” Excellent visuals by Paul Johnson, in particular the two-panel battle scenes, helped to give this release an almost cinematic feel.

  More text-based was Clive Barker’s Book of the Damned, a biannual companion to the comics. The first—also 1991—contained scraps of information about one man’s encounter with a “Prophet of Doom” on Michigan Avenue, who reveals to him that the events in the Hellraiser films are real. The contents of a canvas bag the prophet gives him include written extracts about the Guardians of the Box, the genesis of the Revelation Puzzle, extracts from Of Hell (written by Wachowski, which formed the basis of his Spring Special story), notes on the tarot High Priestess card based on the Female Cenobite from Hellraiser and Hellbound, the origins of Abigor, and a love story involving Pinhead: the only time he broke Leviathan’s rules. The whole book had a distinctly post modern feel to it, its self-referential flavor embodied by a mock cover of Domination Magazine. A showcase for the writers and for artists to do full page work, the Book of the Damned ran to four volumes, the third of which pre-empted Bloodline by giving readers the journal of Lemarchand, the maker of the puzzle box. Far from being a simple toymaker, he was presented here as being of noble birth, someone who delves into the areas of the occult and bases his plans on a box built by Albertus Magnus.

  Book 17 of the Hellraiser anthologies (1992) marked the start of yet another serial, this one created by Barker himself. In an introduction he told readers: “Pinhead and his cohorts have wandered through these tales with the arrogant air of creatures who are wise to every trick humanity has up its sleeve ... never, that I can remember, has a soul they have taken to Leviathan’s corridors returned to the land of the living. After all, who would dare those infernal depths, policed as they are by the Cenobitical clan? The Harrowers, that’s who.”5 The Harrowers (the name of which itself comes from Dante) in question were nicely set up by a backstory in the previous issue about a goddess called Morté Mámme.

  She fought the Cenobites thousands of years ago using specially trained humans, but all were captured and buried alive. “Resurrection,” written by Anna Miller, Malcolm Smith and Fred Vicarel—based on the Barker story—introduced the replacements: New York tattooist and biker Ron Ringwood; escaped convict Vera Wyshak; Winston Gage and his cat Zinc; twins Lavinia and Lucinda; Native American Marty Sevenbirds; and former professor Dublin Morse. Each were drawn to the location of the former Harrowers’ defeat, then given special weapons by the goddess to combat the Cenobites (Dublin could turn invisible, for instance, while Vera’s spittle was like acid to them) and free trapped human souls. This intriguing premise had real potential, and Alex Ross’s illustrations were breath-taking. Unfortunately, when the team moved to their own, slimmer, publication in December 1993, the plotlines deteriorated into nonsense about setting Cleopatra free and the spirit of Marc Antony taking over a stone statue and rampaging through the streets of New York. More interesting was the downfall of Dublin, who sacrificed his place with the Harrowers to make his own Faustian pact and free his twin brother from Hell.

  The Harrowers were not the only characters to get their own title, though. In a shrewd move, Epic gave Leviathan’s favorite son a six part comic series which ran from Dec 1993 to May 1994. It wasn’t the first time Pinhead’s name had been on the front cover, but on the last occasion a month previously he’d had to share it with Pat Mills and Kevin O’Neill’s superhero-hunting creation, Marshall Law, a tongue in cheek crossover which had Law and Pinhead slugging it out in the corridors of Hell. Now, in Chichester’s spotlight story, Pinhead was sent back through time to inhabit various incarnations of himself and heal a rift that threatened to destroy them all. But as an act of revenge for keeping him in Hell, Ludovico Maria Sinistrari sabotaged his time machine. The result was that Pinhead not only had to contend with The Aggregate, a creature made up from the present-day remains of Leviathan’s victims, but also the consciousness of whichever incarnation he had jumped into. While it was fun to see Pinhead as the likes of a Sioux warrior in 1879, a Monsignor from the Vatican in 1728 Paris, and a Mayan in 627 A.D., the artwork on occasion let the Quantum Leap-style plot down.

  Its parent series
went out on a high with Book 20, after McLaurin had left to oversee the spin-off Barker titles (which also included Ectokid and SaintSinner). This also coincided with a drop in page count to 48 pages. David Wohl took over as editor for this final issue, but this at least gave collectors a story from Sandman creator Neil Gaiman, working with his old friend Dave McKean. (The pair have recently gone on to make a film together, MirrorMask, 2005.) “Wordsworth” used the clever notion of a crossword puzzle as a Lament Configuration, and the experimental layout of the pages meant that this was one of the most remarkable stories they had ever published. Though Hellraiser should have continued much longer, its narrative influence can still be seen in the movies from the early 1990s onwards, and they are now, thankfully, being re-released in superb bumper collected “best of” books from Checker, the first of which included the classic stories such as “Like Flies to Wanton Boys,” “Dead Things Rot” and the first two tales of “The Harrowing.”

  34

  FURTHER EXPLORATIONS

  So now that we are coming to the end of our examination of the Hellraiser mythology in all its forms, what does the future hold for the series? A few tantalizing glimpses of new projects have been afforded us, but whether they will actually become a reality someday is yet to be seen.

  Helloween

  Prior to the success of Freddy vs. Jason (Ronny Yu, 2003) the prospect of Pinhead and Michael Myers from Halloween sharing the screen seemed remote. Dave Parker (Masters of Horror) had apparently already suggested these ideas in the mid–’90s and had been turned down on both scores: “I had pitched, unsuccessfully, Freddy vs. Jason to a guy named Ross Hammer at Sean Cunningham’s company around ’94 or early ’95. After that didn’t go well, I started to think about what other franchises were at other studios. It was a no-brainer to see that Dimension had both the Halloween and Hellraiser franchises, so I put together a trailer using footage from the Halloween movies, including Halloween 6 which was just getting ready to come out, and the Hellraiser movies one through four.”1 He added in a later interview, “The (original) story takes place when people try to destroy the Myers house and they find the box hidden between the walls. Of course, they open it and Pinhead shows up, and it’s Halloween and it’s the Myers house, so Michael shows up because there are people there and Pinhead recognizes that Michael is Sam Hain because he can feel it, which begins this whole battle in the real world. And of course, the third act takes them all to Hell.”2