Editorials
I’ve Read the ‘Hellraiser’ Treatments by Todd Farmer and Patrick Lussier [Exclusive]
Longtime horror fans know disappointment. We have suffered quite a bit when it comes to our beloved franchises, which all have gone through their own version of development hell. None quite as brutal as that of Hellraiser, which has been trapped at The Weinstein Company/Dimension Films for the better part of 30 years.
While we have seen several direct-to-video sequels rushed into production in order for the company to retain the rights, they have been in development on a remake for over a decade. Nobody knows the actual intentions or if the company was just spinning their wheels in order to keep the rights in their firm grasp. Over the years we’ve heard of several remake attempts, one even by Clive Barker, the creator of the franchise and its iconic, pain-loving Pinhead.
In 2011, director Patrick Lussier and longtime collaborative writer Todd Farmer (the duo behind My Bloody Valentine and Drive Angry) would spend the year developing several different takes on the Hell-verse. I was able to get my hands on two of them.
Those familiar with Clive Barker’s remarkable 1987 indie Hellraiser remember that the central antagonist wasn’t actually PINHEAD (brought to life by Doug Bradley) and the Cenobites, but “Uncle” Frank (played by Sean Chapman). The franchise kicked off with Frank receiving Lemarchand’s box and opening it in his attic. When his brother and wife move in, a drop of blood releases him from Hell, sending the Cenobites after him. The treatments that I read are very different and, while possibly also conceived as a prequel, these read as a canonized sequel to Barker’s film and its several sequels. In fact, the duo had hoped on bringing Doug Bradley back as Pinhead for one last hurrah!
The earlier of two drafts recalls much of the franchise’s mythology, but also introduces fresh elements. The TOYMAKER/ENGINEER is reintroduced and what we learn is that, over the years, hundreds of boxes have been crafted and put out into the world. In the process, the Toymaker is murdered with the killer taking the mantle as the new Engineer. The boxes multiply over the years, as do the creation of new Engineers.
An exciting new addition to the mythology would have been the TOYBREAKERS, a secret group of devoted individuals who dedicate their lives to finding and destroying these gateways to Hell.
This version of Hellraiser would have opened with a family’s house being blown up, killing a mother and two of her children. A surviving daughter becomes the central protagonist as “the” box eventually finds her. Later, two of these Toybreakers (BLYTHE and TRUMAN) discover a reconfigured box that offers hope to close all of the gateways forever. This insane sequence introduces the central Cenobites, BLACK and WHITE (the Yin and Yang of Hell) and the big bad, GLASS, a black-clad figure with ribbons of jagged stained glass protruding from his face.
White: “I smell deceit.“
Truman turns on Blythe, but it’s in an attempt to stop the Cenobites forever. This will come into play later as the story returns to the survivor of the explosion, LISA, who is now 19 years old. The character MULE is introduced: a fat and sweaty man that actually delivered the explosive package in the opening scene. This becomes a huge ordeal for Lisa and her friends that ends with a car accident and a trip to the hospital. There, it’s revealed that Mule holds the box in his stomach and cuts it out, while also delivering a message to Lisa:
“I have traveled far to make you an offer.“
He recounts her loss and offers her the opportunity to reunite with her family. She must solve the puzzle and open the box. She’s then haunted by the sight and sound of her family calling her to use the key, and open the box. This unleashes an orgy of Cenobites onto the hospital which are known as LO-BITES. Aided by Black and White, and the return of Glass, the reckoning also reunites Lisa with her father… Truman! This set piece is a massive labyrinth of blood, guts, and torture, before Lisa eventually closes the box and shuts the door on Hell (for the time being).
As the characters come to terms with what just happened, there’s an interesting development in the morgue… the Mule, well, his flesh was just a shell…and inside are dozens of pins! Meanwhile, Black and White are attempting to convince Truman to destroy the Engineer and thus become the Engineer. You know, kill it from the inside. Another wild set piece traps Lisa and Erik in a Hellavator, while clues begin to emerge. The biggest tie-in is the infamous quote, “Jesus wept,” and the elevator leads them all to a frozen statue that doubles as the final puzzle. Lisa solves it and with it comes the Cenobites and a massive battle.
This is when the big reveal occurs: Erik is just flesh and underneath it all is a dying and withering Pinhead.
He urges her to stop her father if she ever wants to see her family again. With the help of Black and White, Truman kills Pinhead and thus takes his throne. Or does he? Something isn’t right. Lisa stands up to reveal her body has become a puzzle box and dares her father to solve it. “Would you destroy the last of your family to get what you want?” Truman explains that he’ll do what he has to because he’s the good guy and folds Lisa up, solving the puzzle. As Pinhead slowly deteriorates, Truman exclaims, “Thought you could trick me? Make a puzzle of my daughter? Well, I solved your puzzle. The world is mine now.”
Pinhead: “You did not… solve it. You put it… back together.“
As Pinhead closes his eyes forever, the Lisa-box lights up and unfolds to reveal that she is now covered in pins. “Perfectly symmetrical pins. Row after row all over. Everywhere.” It is revealed that Truman and Lisa are both part of the Toymaker’s original bloodline and with these turns of events have created the most powerful of all Engineers. Truman has failed and Hell has a new Queen. Lisa’s family is returned, as promised by Pinhead, and Truman’s punishment is to be trapped in his body… to watch as his family lives among the most powerful demon Hell has ever seen.
End.
Interestingly, there was a different spin on this mythology that was outlined later that year, and leads me to believe the executives at Dimension wished for a more teen-friendly, toned-down version of the treatment. While it is dialed back, the film opens with an insane sequence in which the box quickly moves from person to person, killing everyone in its path (right down to a plane explosion) as it makes its way to…TANNER. In this version, which feels rights out of a Final Destination sequel, Tanner is a red herring that’s used to set up the surprise that the box was meant for Lisa. Through the outline, Lisa’s friends are, one by one, turned into Cenobites. In the alternate finale, Pinhead offers her their lives in exchange for her soul.
“Choose hell and the suffering of your friends will end.”
Lisa considers, then, “I don’t choose hell. I choose my friends.” Pinhead: “As I knew you would.”
It appears that the twist here is that Pinhead is unaware that, in turning Lisa into Cenobite, he’s fulfilling the destiny that she’s the last descendant of the Toymaker. Lisa destroys Pinhead. Melts Glass’s face into an eternal, horrific smile. Combines Black and White making Gray.
As Pinhead lays dying, he exclaims, “So the power is yours now. Free your friends yourself then.” She turns to them within her newfound evil. “Why would I want to do that?” Suddenly her friends scream as she changes them back into Cenobites.
As Pinhead dies…he smiles. This was his plan all along…
It’s incredibly important to note that both treatments/outlines were in very early stages of development; much of the structure and dialogue would have evolved and changed drastically. With that said, it’s so much fun to see what could have been and I loved Lussier and Farmer’s strategy to pass the torch from Pinhead to Lisa. The plan to introduce a female Pinhead way back in 2011 was clearly ahead of the times.
What do you think?
Image Source: Rick Jones and Horrify Me
Horror was thriving so well in the 1980s that movies like Pen Densham’s The Kiss (1988) would understandably get lost in the shuffle, only to then gain their fans later on in life. Even still, this one Canadian-American curio has had a more challenging time than others, as far as contemporary reevaluations go, which is very likely due to the movie’s limited availability—at least as of this write-up.
However, the scarceness of The Kiss, while a bit annoying, makes it like catnip for ‘80s horror completists everywhere. Hopefully, a lot of them will walk away satisfied after watching this hidden gem.
Even though The Kiss was intended as the first of several horror collaborations between Astral Pictures and TriStar, as well as the first feature produced by Densham, Richard B. Lewis and John Watson’s Trilogy Entertainment Group, it ended up being the only one produced from that former union. Once the movie was released, TriStar’s distribution jitters—they opted for a regional rollout—did the $6-million flick no favors. TriStar’s cold feet toward horror releases have been well noted, but The Kiss still did a tad better than Night of the Creeps (1986), another genre outing that flopped due to its regional opening.
Shot in Montreal, but set in Albany, New York, The Kiss—which was still called The Host just a few months before its October premiere—concerns an average middle-class family and their forthcoming situation. The uncanny problem in store for them was, in fact, set in motion some years earlier. As that hot and dusty flashback to the Belgian Congo shows, a familial curse was set upon the two Dunbar sisters well before Meredith Salenger’s teenage character was born.
Meredith Salenger, Nicholas Kilbertus and Mimi Kuzyk in The Kiss
The Kiss, which was based on a story by co-writer Stephen Volk (Ghostwatch) and penned by both Volk and Tom Ropelewski, has the outward appearance of The Stepfather (1987). This movie, though, is anything but a gender-flipped retread of that classic domestic disturber. For starters, The Kiss is far less grounded in reality—that much is clear from its unsettling opening scene. There, a trusting girl (Priscilla Mouzakiotis) is the victim of her own deceptive aunt (Céline Lomez); the movie’s titular act, and the story’s first shock, becomes the means of transferring an ancient evil from one host to another.
In the present day, Salenger’s role of Amy Halloran, a religious schoolgirl, is dealt a harsh blow in life once her mother, Hilary Halloran née Dunbar (Pamela Collyer), suddenly dies in a freak accident. But rather than a complete stranger sweeping the Halloran widower (Nicholas Kilbertus) off his feet some months later, Joanna Pacula’s character is that chosen temptress. Here, Pacula plays the grown-up version of the afflicted girl last seen in the movie’s opener. Since Amy’s mother is insistent about there being no reunion between estranged sisters, and she even contemplates buying a gun shortly before her tragic demise, it’s presumable that Aunt Felice poses a threat to her family.
The Kiss isn’t a movie ever too concerned about its own predictability. The audience is indeed often one step ahead of the story here, but also keep in mind how every one of those steps is loud. Take, for instance, the death of Amy’s mother; the Halloran matriarch goes out in garish, gruesome fashion, as a supernaturally commandeered truck sends Collyer’s character through a store window first, then leaves her one leg short. The directorial enthusiasm truly comes out in horrific moments such as these.
The Kiss is always sure to revel in its characters’ ills and misfortunes. So if the plot doesn’t impress, then its lurid parts should. Amy’s mother’s exit scene was proof of an eager, first-time horror director proving his worth. Then, bestie Heather (Sabrina Boudot) survives to tell the tale of a bizarre escalator mishap that, despite showing relatively less gore, spikes viewers’ empathy meter. The wilder bits of this movie, however, commence with that inevitable hookup between Felice and Amy’s bewitched father; their kitchen coitus is paralleled by Amy’s feverish classroom terror. The outcome there is a disquieting cross-cut of sex magic and a young woman’s menstrual onset plus hallucinations.
Sabrina Boudot in The Kiss
From foam appliances to bladders, that parade of special effects in The Kiss casts its own spell on the audience. Felice’s familiar, a visibly malevolent cat, was realized here with several models, some more articulate than others. Admittedly, the demon cat’s not as convincing as most of the effects here, but accepting that artifice, as opposed to fighting it, will make the whole experience way more enjoyable. As for the makeup used to manifest Felice’s inner villainy, it is more minimal and subtle than one might like; yet the work done to turn Pacula into an antithesis of herself is nonetheless compelling.
The otherworldly perils and dreadful goings-on wouldn’t work half as well as they do in The Kiss without the story’s contrast effect. Finding frights in picturesque, extremely ordinary settings was something that took off in the ‘80s, thanks to that sweeping shift to locales like the suburbs. And Amy’s home, a replica of a real Montreal suburban house, is the ideal battleground for any proper good-versus-evil story. It’s also prime real estate for this movie’s satanic panic-inspired horrors.
Because of their ostensibly similar plots, The Kiss has been compared to The Exorcist (1973). Except in Densham’s movie, the sinister, non-Christian entity targeting a teen girl lies within something less apparent and, perhaps, more devastating upon its exposure. To an outsider, Pacula’s Aunt Felice is too beautiful and unobjectionable to ever suspect of being a monster. More suspicious is how quickly she rips into the fabric of the Halloran home. Felice’s mere presence upsets the “texture of family life,” according to the director.
The demon cat in The Kiss
Taking out Amy’s mother and best friend, and distracting her father, would suggest The Kiss is playing by a different set of rules. It is initially leaving its adolescent target unsupported in a rather grim scenario. In contrast, though, this story offers up a surrogate parent who does her best to fill in the holes of Amy’s eroding home life. Mimi Kuzyk does good work as that family friend and doctor, Brenda, who guides the lost child without also steering her in any one direction; she is naturally skeptical of Amy’s accusations until it’s almost too late to do anything about them. So although The Kiss does an admirable job of undoing the main character’s support system, it never leaves her without a lifeline. This dark movie, in spite of everything that’s transpired, doesn’t deprive itself of light and hope.
The Kiss is a potent mélange of familiar ideas. If not for the director’s surprise flair for horror, though, the movie would have been less effective. What a shame that Pen Densham didn’t continue with the genre. As for Joanna Pacula, she is, too, owed credit as the wicked vixen opposite Meredith Salenger’s pitiable Amy; she never fails to be unsettling in her role. Pacula makes Aunt Felice a sexy yet intimidating character.
For horror that steadily doles out madness and menace, while also delivering a flashy and ghastly conclusion, The Kiss is certain to please. Yes, it’s cheesy all the way, but most favorably, everyone involved plays everything straight. That kind of commitment goes a long way with this movie.
The Kiss
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