It looks like Jon was onto something when he suggested removing Pinhead in order to fix the Hellraiser franchise. While it may have sounded blasphemous to many of us hardcore horror fans, it’s not far off from what franchise creator Clive Barker was planning way back during the filming of Hellbound: Hellraiser II.

Doug Bradley, who played Pinhead in Barker’s Hellraiser and several of its sequels, appeared on Brainwaves the other night. The conversation took an interesting turn when Bradley, who has always been incredibly honest and candid, revealed Barker’s shocking original plans for Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth. Barker planned to forge a new path, which would eliminate Pinhead from the story, but also introduce the first ever Cenobite!

“Clive had a plan for a third ‘Hellraiser’ movie which he was working on while we were filming ‘Hellbound’ that didn’t involve Pinhead at all,” Bradley explained. “It was a story set in Ancient Egypt. The Great Pyramid was the first Lament Configuration that was built to raise the great Pharaoh, who was the first Cenobite.”

It’s hard to imagine them being able to pull off such a massive idea with a limited budget (the Hellraiser films were relatively cheap). But, it’s also one of the coolest takes on the mythology I’ve heard, and would do just about anything to see what Barker had penned (on paper, of course) at the time. Just thinking about the concept of the Great Pyramid as a Lament Configuration is beyond brilliant, not to mention injecting a real-world parallel that horror films so desperately need in order to add believability and horror to them. I also love how this would have set up Bloodline, which would have had the last Lament Configuration ever.

What do you guys think? I sort of feel robbed of greatness, even though I love the time Pinhead brought Hell to Earth…

Photo Credit: The National Galleries of Scotland