Editorials
‘Hellraiser: Origins’ Remains the Best Thing Done With the Franchise in Decades
The Hellraiser franchise desperately needs a reboot. Several years ago, two fans tried.
As much as we love that we’re still getting Hellraiser films to this day – new sequel Hellraiser: Judgment was finally released this week – there’s no denying that the series has been on its last legs for an impossibly long stretch of time. The 1996 film Hellraiser: Bloodline was the last to be released in theaters; since then, well… yeah.
It’s public knowledge by now that Dimension Films is only churning out new sequels every several years to retain the rights, the last two of which have seen the role of Pinhead recast with two different actors – the less said about Hellraiser: Revelations‘ Pinhead, the better, but Judgment‘s Pinhead is admittedly a worthy successor to Doug Bradley’s. But the Hellraiser problem over the course of the last several years, despite the insistence of Bradley purists, goes way beyond who’s playing Pinhead.
The problem is that Dimension clearly just doesn’t care about the franchise. Sure, they want to retain the rights for monetary purposes, but they aren’t invested in the franchise enough to, well, invest any of their money or resources into it. The budgets are getting lower, and even if you consider Judgement a marked improvement over Revelations – credit goes to writer/director Gary J. Tunnicliffe who, the film’s faults aside, genuinely does care about the world of Hellraiser – the reality is that it’s another sad reminder of how far the series has fallen since Clive Barker was in charge of his baby.
What’s most upsetting about all of this is that Hellraiser, perhaps more than any of the major franchises, has limitless potential; it’s not simply a movie series about a masked killer slicing up teenagers, but rather a rich mythology involving a score of hell monsters with access into our world. If the budget is no issue, the sky is truly the limit.
A handful of Hellraiser projects have come and gone over the years, including proposed reboots with names like Pascal Laugier (Martyrs), Patrick Lussier (My Bloody Valentine 3D) and even Clive Barker attached, but Dimension remains steadfast in their bizarre decision to make the least out of a property with such vast potential. While all of those aforementioned projects remained on the page, there was another one that actually did leap to the screen… even if it was merely a computer screen.
We began talking about Hellraiser: Origins back in 2012, the brainchild of concept artist Paul Gerrard (Wrath of the Titans, Battle: Los Angeles) and director Mike Le Han (“Mrs. Peppercorn’s Magical Reading Room”). Combining their talents, Gerrard and Le Han aimed to pitch Dimension on a visionary new take on the Hellraiser franchise, which was initially teased to us courtesy of some truly attention-grabbing concept art.
Then, on Halloween 2013, their Origins pitch trailer surfaced.
The Hellraiser: Origins trailer ran just two minutes long, yet has proven itself to be more memorable than anything that has come out of the Hellraiser franchise in the last couple decades. Dimension never ended up biting, but the concept grabbed the attention of Hellraiser fans who were fed up with the official trajectory of the franchise. The pitch for Origins opened up the Hellraiser world in a way that it has long been begging to be opened up, reminding that in the right hands, it still has such sights to show us.
The Origins trailer begins with a familiar image, that of a man playing with the iconic Puzzle Box, but then it takes us straight into literal Hell to showcase a newly-redesigned version of Pinhead standing high atop a sea of writhing human bodies. “Welcome to Hell,” Pinhead says as the trailer comes to a close, leaving us begging for more.
All of the project’s concept art further delved into the proposed world of Origins, full of striking imagery and brand new Cenobites that surely would’ve terrified a whole new generation of fans. Literally everything about the pitch was EPIC in scope, which was indeed Gerrard and Le Hand’s general approach to their vision.
“Our goal was to expand and explore the mythology, to create an epic vibe while retaining the mystery of the Cenobite order,” Gerrard explained to Horror Homework back in 2013. “It’s about keeping that balance between the mystery of the unknown, and need to see more, to experience more. The original movie was indeed a masterpiece of imagination and iconic horror. The world we live in so saturated with the tones and taboos explored in those early movies that in order to truly capture the imagination of today’s audience a new direction was needed. I wanted the design, particularly of Pinhead to firstly be stripped of the current restraints and second to be driven by esoteric lines, shapes, and concepts.”
In a later interview, Gerrard opined that perhaps he and Le Han aimed *too* high with their pitch to Dimension, and I’d say that’s a fair assessment. Hellraiser: Origins would’ve required Dimension to pump way more money into Hellraiser than they’ve ever really desired, as well as put way too much of their own faith into it, making it an obvious no-go for a studio that’s sadly much more comfortable playing it safe and ensuring that they lose no money with a series of films they just don’t have much love for.
Here’s hoping Dimenion’s troubles end up placing Hellraiser into more loving hands.
Years later, Gerrard and Le Han’s Origins trailer still excites us about that potential.
Having grown up in a religious family, Christian movie night was something that happened a lot more often than I care to admit. However, back when I was a teenager, my parents showed up one night with an unusually cool-looking DVD of a movie that had been recommended to them by a church leader. Curious to see what new kind of evangelical propaganda my parents had rented this time, I proceeded to watch the film with them expecting a heavy-handed snoozefest.
To my surprise, I was a few minutes in when Denzel Washington proceeded to dismember a band of cannibal raiders when I realized that this was in fact a real movie. My mom was horrified by the flick’s extreme violence and dark subject matter, but I instantly became a fan of the Hughes Brothers’ faith-based 2010 thriller, The Book of Eli. And with the film’s atomic apocalypse having apparently taken place in 2024, I think this is the perfect time to dive into why this grim parable might also be entertaining for horror fans.
Originally penned by gaming journalist and The Walking Dead: The Game co-writer Gary Whitta, the spec script for The Book of Eli was already making waves back in 2007 when it appeared on the coveted Blacklist. It wasn’t long before Columbia and Warner Bros. snatched up the rights to the project, hiring From Hell directors Albert and Allen Hughes while also garnering attention from industry heavyweights like Denzel Washington and Gary Oldman.
After a series of revisions by Anthony Peckham meant to make the story more consumer-friendly, the picture was finally released in January of 2010, with the finished film following Denzel as a mysterious wanderer making his way across a post-apocalyptic America while protecting a sacred book. Along the way, he encounters a run-down settlement controlled by Bill Carnegie (Gary Oldman), a man desperate to get his hands on Eli’s book so he can motivate his underlings to expand his empire. Unwilling to let this power fall into the wrong hands, Eli embarks on a dangerous journey that will test the limits of his faith.
SO WHY IS IT WORTH WATCHING?
Judging by the film’s box-office success, mainstream audiences appear to have enjoyed the Hughes’ bleak vision of a future where everything went wrong, but critics were left divided by the flick’s trope-heavy narrative and unapologetic religious elements. And while I’ll be the first to admit that The Book of Eli isn’t particularly subtle or original, I appreciate the film’s earnest execution of familiar ideas.
For starters, I’d like to address the religious elephant in the room, as I understand the hesitation that some folks (myself included) might have about watching something that sounds like Christian propaganda. Faith does indeed play a huge part in the narrative here, but I’d argue that the film is more about the power of stories than a specific religion. The entire point of Oldman’s character is that he needs a unifying narrative that he can take advantage of in order to manipulate others, while Eli ultimately chooses to deliver his gift to a community of scholars. In fact, the movie even makes a point of placing the Bible in between equally culturally important books like the Torah and Quran, which I think is pretty poignant for a flick inspired by exploitation cinema.
Sure, the film has its fair share of logical inconsistencies (ranging from the extent of Eli’s Daredevil superpowers to his impossibly small Braille Bible), but I think the film more than makes up for these nitpicks with a genuine passion for classic post-apocalyptic cinema. Several critics accused the film of being a knockoff of superior productions, but I’d argue that both Whitta and the Hughes knowingly crafted a loving pastiche of genre influences like Mad Max and A Boy and His Dog.
Lastly, it’s no surprise that the cast here absolutely kicks ass. Denzel plays the title role of a stoic badass perfectly (going so far as to train with Bruce Lee’s protégée in order to perform his own stunts) while Oldman effortlessly assumes a surprisingly subdued yet incredibly intimidating persona. Even Mila Kunis is remarkably charming here, though I wish the script had taken the time to develop these secondary characters a little further. And hey, did I mention that Tom Waits is in this?
AND WHAT MAKES IT HORROR ADJACENT?
Denzel’s very first interaction with another human being in this movie results in a gory fight scene culminating in a face-off against a masked brute wielding a chainsaw (which he presumably uses to butcher travelers before eating them), so I think it’s safe to say that this dog-eat-dog vision of America will likely appeal to horror fans.
From diseased cannibals to hyper-violent motorcycle gangs roaming the wasteland, there’s plenty of disturbing R-rated material here – which is even more impressive when you remember that this story revolves around the bible. And while there are a few too many references to sexual assault for my taste, even if it does make sense in-universe, the flick does a great job of immersing you in this post-nuclear nightmare.
The excessively depressing color palette and obvious green screen effects may take some viewers out of the experience, but the beat-up and lived-in sets and costume design do their best to bring this dead world to life – which might just be the scariest part of the experience.
Ultimately, I believe your enjoyment of The Book of Eli will largely depend on how willing you are to overlook some ham-fisted biblical references in order to enjoy some brutal post-apocalyptic shenanigans. And while I can’t really blame folks who’d rather not deal with that, I think it would be a shame to miss out on a genuinely engaging thrill-ride because of one minor detail.
With that in mind, I’m incredibly curious to see what Whitta and the Hughes Brothers have planned for the upcoming prequel series starring John Boyega…
There’s no understating the importance of a balanced media diet, and since bloody and disgusting entertainment isn’t exclusive to the horror genre, we’ve come up with Horror Adjacent – a recurring column where we recommend non-horror movies that horror fans might enjoy.
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