Editorials
Best Blu-ray Releases of 2015: The Collections Edition
2. Hellraiser: The Scarlet Box (Arrow)
I told you there would be more Arrow on this list and here we are at number two with Hellraiser: The Scarlet Box! This may have been the most anticipated release of the year. For me it certainly was and in news that will shock no one, Arrow absolutely delivered in every way imaginable.
The set includes Hellraiser, Hellbound: Hellraiser II and Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth. These three films have never looked better. The crazy thing is that this set is so gorgeous that it’s hardly about the films. Ok, so maybe it still is mostly about the films, but the bonus content included is ridiculously good.
Special features include short films from Clive Barker, documentaries, on-set interviews but the real winner here is the 200-page hardback book with new writings on Hellraiser and the entire Barker universe. This book is a beauty to behold. The entire thing is packaged in one of the best box sets I have ever seen. It’s breathtaking in every way. Unfortunately this was a limited set and sold out rather quickly. If you want to get it now you’ll have to pay a hefty sum to a third party seller but you could probably justify it.
So if this Hellraiser set is so good, how is it not number one? Well…
The trailer for Ti West’s upcoming adaptation of A Christmas Carol raised a lot of eyebrows when it dropped earlier this week. While plenty of folks initially dismissed Ebenezer as a derivative project meant to cash in on the recent wave of unnecessary prequels that expand the backstory of beloved characters (such as 2023’s Wonka), Charles Dickens’ original novel already made a point of exploring Ebenezer Scrooge’s origins in detail – meaning that this new film is likely just a particularly faithful adaptation of the source material under a different name.
Couple that with the fact that the movie is being helmed by a genuine horror auteur and I think it’s safe to say that the latest iteration of the first modern ghost story is in good hands.
That being said, one detail that immediately jumped out at me during the brief teaser (other than a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it nod to Johnny Depp’s iconic bedroom death scene from the original A Nightmare on Elm Street) is the fact that many of Ebenezer’s ghosts appear to have been directly lifted from the iconic John Leech illustrations that accompanied the first edition of Dickens’ novel.
Here are a couple of stills from the trailer compared to the original artwork:
The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
The Phantoms in ‘A Christmas Carol’ and ‘Ebenezer’
Marley’s Ghost in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
Mainly working with old-school wood and steel engravings that would later be transferred to print, Leech was instrumental in crafting the iconic look of history’s most influential phantoms – especially since Dickens is said to have been deeply involved with the creation of these so-called “comic illustrations.”
And since the novel is commonly said to have popularized spiritualism in Victorian England, much of the ghostly iconography that we still see in genre media to this very day (including some of Ti West’s previous films) can be traced back to the author’s partnership with Leech.
Ebenezer won’t be the first A Christmas Carol adaptation to borrow heavily from these designs, but I can appreciate how Ti West is incorporating an important part of horror history into his latest film.
Ebenezer will be available in theaters starting November 13.
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