It was back in 2014 that Clive Barker talked up his Hellraiser revival, a loose reboot said to follow the creator of the Cenobite-shuttling Lament Configuration puzzle box. Unfortunately, his script languished under the troubled umbrella of producer Bob Weinstein and another sequel—the execrable Hellraiser: Judgement—emerged to further taint the gory, self-serious franchise. Now, pins poking from his head, comes The Dark Knight scribe David S. Goyer, who Deadline reports will shepherd the franchise’s rebirth for Spyglass Media Group.
The project is the first to come from Gary Barber’s relaunched studio, which is said to be fast-tracking its “loyal, yet evolved reimagining” of the original 1987 film. Goyer will both produce and write the reboot, which he’s hoping will manifest as something “dark and visceral.”
“I’ve been a fan of Clive’s work since the original Books Of Blood paperbacks and The Hellbound Heart novella,” he said. “Having the chance to reimagine Pinhead and the Cenobites for a new audience is a nightmare-come-true. Gary is a true fan as well and we’re committed to making something dark and visceral.”
Dark and visceral is good, and Goyer’s straight-faced style is a much better fit for Hellraiser’s gut-spewing sadism than it was for the DC universe, as evidenced by the blowback met by his Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. After all, we affectionately described the Hellraiser franchise as “the humorless art student who wears a dog collar and black lipstick and prefers staying home and reading poetry to getting wasted at keg parties.”
Now, will someone please call Doug Bradley? No more fake Pinheads.
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And here’s a reminder that David Goyer once called She-Hulk a “prostitute that only the Hulk could fuck.” (https://www.themarysue.com/david-goyer-calls-she-hulk-sex-fantasy).
Yeah, I thought his reputation was more “hack with enough credits that there have to be some good ones” rather than “guy you want in charge of your horror reboot.”Regardless, the Hellraiser series spawned exactly two good* movies 30 years ago. The face/voice of the franchise is 64 years old, and I doubt he wants to spend hours in the makeup chair, just on the off-chance that this one won’t be a piece of shit. The whole concept doesn’t have much to recommend it besides the creature designs, unless horror audiences somehow aren’t getting their fix of graphic, sexualized violence elsewhere.*Hellraiser 2 is barely watchable, and Hellraiser is a few notches above that, but they were two of my favorite movies as a moody teenager, so they get endless nostalgia points.
Hell even Barker has lost it since then, The Scarlet Gospels was mostly hot garbage.
I am still not convinced that Barker actually wrote that thing.
Nor I. I suspect it was hacked to shit by Mark Miller, who Clive not infrequently credited as “editing” it. To be fair, it sounded like Clive had let the story significantly get away from him and had written FAR more than was reasonable. But the answer is not going to the manuscript (or yellow pads as Clive seems to prefer) with a fucking chainsaw.To be honest I always got a distinct vibe of gross use/abuse from Miller. It wouldn’t surprise me if he either strung Clive along with sex/intimacy or Clive had an unrequited crush. In any case someone recently whispered in my ear that he and Clive are on the outs. I hope so, for Clive’s sake. I know he’s not perfect but I love him sooo much.
Yeah I’d believe the editing thing. Clive is on record as saying the thing was over 1000 pages at one point so he’d probably gone way overboard, then someone edited it down into the choppy, uneven mess that it ended up becoming.
When I was in college, it felt like Clive Barker was a fixture in documentaries or DVD supplements on horror movies. It was delightful to see him, and he added a second level by always holding a cigar (often unlit) while being interviewed: just a big, phallic sight gag while he chatted about Nightmare on Elm Street.
Hot garbage is far too generous a way to describe it.
I liked Hellraiser 3 when they were running constantly on one of those premium cable channels. Somehow I doubt 14 year old me had very good taste.
I have been told by someone mid-way up the food chain that Goyer’s productivity for about a 5 year period had to do with the fact that he had a boiler room of neophyte screenwriters working for him. They would turn in the pages, he would take the credit. I believe everyone signed NDAs, so it may never come out exactly who these writers were or if they’ve moved on to greener pastures.
I’ve only seen the first one, but I guess I don’t really understand why it needs to be a “reboot.” Like, once you’re dealing with an inexplicable portal box thing that summons sadistic gore demons, it’s not like you really need to worry about continuity or motivation or, well, anything. He can just do the uninspired thing you know he wants to do and senselessly make Pinhead an uncomfortably sexy lady demon thing and don’t explain it.
I’d bump 2 up a bit (there’s a definite grandeur about it, and a magnificent score), and slip in Hellraiser 3 at the bottom as “barely watchable”. I honestly enjoyed Doug Bradley and Terry Farrell’s screen rapport, and thought there were some good visual and conceptual bits, though also a lot of poorly conceived ones. And, of course, it faced the basic hurdle of trying to make a strip mall in suburban Greensboro, NC look like the streets of Manhattan.
Hellraiser 3 also had that boss Motorhead song over the end credits. As a movie it hangs together better than the first or second one, but it doesn’t capture that unbridled sense of whatthefuck.I don’t want to be too hard on Hellraiser 2 – as a dreamlike parade of outlandish violence, there’s nothing like it (not even Lucio Fulci). The production design and makeup effects are really effective. I just couldn’t get on its wavelength the last time I tried to watch it.
I remember MTV did a promotional tie-in when the movie came out, with Lemmy guest-veejaying and premiering the “. I believe Doug Bradley showed up too, with the proper air of disdain for the proceedings.
Hellraiser 2 gets points for being so wildly WTF in quite a few scenes, especially the uncut version. It is mostly unwatchable though. The acting is uniformly bad and the script is nonsensical. It had some inspired, horrifying visuals, but they’re stitched together with too much dramatically flat nonsense. Hellraiser is more coherent but it hasn’t aged well either. Again, a lot of overwrought and bad acting. That’s pretty much every Barker directed movie though.
More to the point, yeah, the Hellraiser well is long dry and there’s no point in trying to revive it other than the reboot mania that’s been the bane of horror films for well over a decade now.
I watched the original Hellraiser on Skinemax around ‘88 when I was maybe 13 and it scared the shit out of me. There is no Pinhead but Doug Bradley, and it will be a sheer triumph for Goyer and his casting agents to find anyone even close to being able to inhabit the character.
If I’m elected President, my first act will be to pass a law disqualifying anyone who had any role in BvS from ever making a movie again.
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aren’t the strangers in dark city just cenobites sans nails?
Say what you will about the tenets of of the Strangers in Dark City, at least it’s an ethos.
So it’ll be just as bad as almost all the Hellraiser movies, eh?
Bet it ends up being PG-13.
Actually, much like Star Wars and Marvel I read Disney was about to purchase the Hellraiser IP! I can’t wait for “Goofy and Pinhead’s Adventures in Hell”!
“We have such Martha’s to show you.”
As opposed to the light and cerebral originals?
Cenobites have feelings too, my dudes.
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I honestly sat down to watch Hellraiser: Judgement with high hopes it would be decent. It was not. It was terrible, and insanely cliched. I still hold out hope that someone will remake hellraiser into a good horror film, but after 32 years, I should probably just give it up.
Goyer to write Hellraiser reboot.“ Jesus wept…”
What about Paul Bettany for Pinhead? Quick! Before he’s too wrapped up in WandaVision!
I’m definitely looking forward to all the sweet CGI gore! I also can’t wait to see how convoluted the formerly-straightforward story becomes, as the producers bend over backward dumping exposition that explains who the cenobites are, where they came from, their motivation, and all the other terrifying information that horror remakes have to ensure that modern audiences are spared from having to use any critical thinking skills to understand the movie.
(catching my breath.)
I would actually be delighted if they used a Paranormal Activity/Insidious-style “info-dump the movie’s mythology” but kept the same mythology from the novella. It would mean a ten-minute scene where a disposable side-character goes on and on about how BDSM is awesome and all, but being literally torn apart by sex-demons is the best way to get your rocks off.
“Execrable” I guess, technically true since it literally had a vomitorium, but I liked Judgement a lot. The first 10 minutes or so was brutal, although the detective story did kind of suck, as did the costume choice for a certain deus ex machina character.
I’m pretty sure you’ve misunderstood what “execrable” and “vomitorium” mean.
Looking forward to whatever Philosophy 101 ethical dilemma he writes for the Cenobites to use. Maybe we’ll get lucky and Pinhead can spout insane expository subtext as text like “You either die a hero or live-No. You know what? FUCK that. I’m not even finishing that goddam garbage quote.The Dark Knight is mediocre pap.
It’s a great performance surrounded by a thoroughly okay movie. Nolan has real skill with big setpieces (the bank robbery, the car/truck chase), but his hand-to-hand fights are choppy and hard to enjoy – kind of a handicap for a Batman movie.Also, it’s nice that he nods to the idea of Batman being a detective, but most of the “detective work” is just Christian Bale using a computer.
The bank robbery is a perfect example of Goyer being self-fellating “clever”. It’s a tense, interesting scene! But if you examine it in the context of the whole film and the “real” “gritty” tone it completely falls apart. So nobody notices the school bus drive out of the bank? Did the Joker plant bus drivers in that route? Were the streets cleared? How did the driver know when to bust through? It’s so much contrivance! The car chase is full of contrivance, too. There are a dozen or more of these “Okay, but…” scenes in there. And let’s not even get into the thuddingly expository dialogue…
You sound like a fun person to watch a movie with.
Look all the Hellraiser movies are bad on one level or another, but I still love them. Pinhead I think still has some of the best line of any character in a horror franchise. Personally if ANYONE was going to have a hand in rebooting the franchise, I would only accept Jason Blum full stop. That man and his studio(s) pretty much single handedly brought the horror movie back from the brink of death.
Could people stop calling David Goyer the writer of The Dark Knight? He had fuck all to do with it. That film was written by Christopher and Jonathan Nolan, just like Batman Begins and The Dark Knight Rises were.
If they lean into the mystical side, it could be cool. But the franchise always prioritizes the gore instead, and modern tastes are even less fond of that stuff now.
Peter Gabriel is really workin’ it man.