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‘Hellraiser: Bloodline’ Workprint – Here’s What We Know About the Version Arrow Video Has Unearthed
Released in 1996, and co-directed by makeup effects artist Kevin Yagher and Joe Chappelle, fourth franchise installment Hellraiser: Bloodline served the dual role of being a prequel and a sequel, telling a centuries-spanning story that documents the puzzle box’s beginning and end. While horror fans have come to appreciate the ambitious “Pinhead in Space” movie in recent years, it’s the behind the scenes drama of the production that often takes center stage.
For starters, Kevin Yagher was replaced by Joe Chappelle before production was completed, and both filmmakers ultimately declined to have their names attached to the finished product.
That’s why Hellraiser: Bloodline is credited to the fake director “Alan Smithee.”
As Meagan Navarro explained here on BD back in 2020, “Writer Peter Atkins and director Kevin Yagher originally envisioned a sprawling story that took place in three separate timelines, with the past, present, and future tied to a single man. He’s reincarnated in each period to design a box that destroys the demons unwittingly summoned by his ancestor. It was a linear, special effects-laden sequel with Pinhead taking a backseat to new characters.
“Budgetary limitations caused the trimming of scenes and characters during production, however. Then, when Yagher turned in his 110-minute initial cut, Miramax balked. That Pinhead didn’t even appear on screen until roughly 40 minutes in exacerbated their frustration. They demanded rewrites and an expanded role for Pinhead. Yagher left, and the studio brought in Joe Chapelle to helm extensive rewrites that dramatically altered Angelique, Pinhead, and Lemarchand’s storylines. The final cut was reduced to 85-minutes.”
Meagan added, “While the theatrical version of Bloodline isn’t without merit, especially in hindsight with the sequels that followed, it’s hard not to mourn what could’ve been.”
But let’s talk about what actually did make it to the screen in 1996…
Playing out like a Hellraiser anthology film, Hellraiser: Bloodline‘s first story in the theatrical cut is set in 18th century France, where we meet box creator Philip LeMarchand. A master toymaker, LeMarchand is hired by an evil magician to build the iconic box, having no idea what it’s going to be used for. As it turns out, the madman is looking to open a portal to Hell, and he does just that – giving rise to the very first Cenobite, a female named Angelique.
We eventually jump forward to 1996, which was present day at the time of the film’s release. Angelique travels to New York in an effort to locate John Merchant, an engineer with family ties to LeMarchand. Driven by supernatural forces, Merchant is compelled to build a skyscraper that is literally a massive puzzle box, and Angelique – along with Pinhead – intends to use it as a much bigger portal between Hell and the real world.
The final story, which is essentially the wraparound segment, is set on a space station in the year 2127. There we meet Paul Merchant, another distant relative of LeMarchand’s who is continuing his family’s work. Merchant willingly summons Pinhead and his Cenobites aboard the ship, which happens to be modeled after the puzzle box, and he plans on blowing the whole thing up once they arrive – ending his family’s nightmare once and for all.
It’s easy to write off Hellraiser: Bloodline as “the one set in space,” as many have over the years – as all horror fans know, a franchise being sent to space is usually a very, very bad sign – but the reality is that only 1/3 of the film takes place in the future. The underrated sequel brings an incredible amount of mythology to the table, and though I’d be lying if I said it all worked, it’s the big-swinging ambition that makes this one somewhat of an undiscovered gem. Given the low budget and messy production, it’s no minor miracle that it works as well as it does.
We may never know what could’ve been, but enough of the original vision for Hellraiser: Bloodline is in the film’s theatrical cut to make it one of the franchise’s best installments.
Why are we talking about Hellraiser: Bloodline today? Because Arrow Video just announced that a never-before-seen Workprint Version of the film will be included in their upcoming Hellraiser: Quarter of Torment set, which will be released on October 23.
This freshly unearthed version of the 1996 sequel, with Kevin Yagher’s name attached, is said to “provide a fascinating insight into how [the film] changed during post production.”
But what exactly can we expect from THIS particular version of Hellraiser: Bloodline? And is this the same Workprint version of the movie that’s been floating around on YouTube?
Bloody Disgusting has learned that Arrow’s Hellraiser: Bloodline Workprint is in fact different from the one that appeared on German disc and the one you may have seen on YouTube.
We’ve been told, “The workprint version of Hellraiser: Bloodline features temporary music and sound effects, and was assembled sometime after Kevin Yagher’s departure from the film. This version, which has a different plot structure and some alternate material compared to the final ‘Alan Smithee’ cut, is presented from a timecoded VHS, the best material available.”
So does this cut of the film represent Peter Atkins and Kevin Yagher’s full original vision for Hellraiser: Bloodline? Unfortunately, that version of the movie was never actually made. That version does exist as a screenplay, however, which was finally published back in 2021.
Atkins explained to Bloody Disgusting in 2021, “There are work assemblies going around, people dreaming of a director’s cut surfacing, but it simply will not because the best it could be would be an assembly of the footage that Kevin shot. Which is 90% of the finished movie, but it’s nowhere near 90% of the script, and what would be missing would be all the shit we love.”
“You know, all the fun effects stuff, several major horror sequences. None of that stuff was shot,” Atkins continues. “There can never be a director’s cut of Bloodline the way we usually think of as a director’s cut. You know, “The cut they wouldn’t let you see!” That’s not the case. In this instance, unfortunately, it’s just not there.”
What we WILL see on October 23, however, is a Workprint version of Hellraiser: Bloodline that we have indeed never seen. A fresh piece of the puzzle box, if you will. And one that will perhaps bring us closer than ever before to seeing what Bloodline almost was.
Arrow Video, it seems, has such sights to show us this Halloween.
Night School, director Ken Hughes and writer Ruth Avergon‘s tale of a headhunting slasher on the streets of Boston, arrived in the early Golden Age of the slasher film and never quite broke through the endurance test that other films in the subgenre, like Friday the 13th, managed to pass with flying colors. Blame it on a more cerebral tone, a crowded market, whatever you like, but saying it’s a shame that the film didn’t break through doesn’t begin to cover it.
Night School isn’t just an underrated slasher, or an underseen one. For my money, it’s one of the best films the subgenre has ever produced, full stop, and Vinegar Syndrome’s new 4K UHD restoration, arriving just in time for the film’s 45th anniversary, is must-have proof. Stacked with special features highlighting the craft of the film and its place in slasher history, and headlined by a gorgeous restoration showcasing the wonderfully textured production, this is Night School as it’s meant to be seen for slasher devotees everywhere.
So, what makes the film so effective? It starts very simply, with the revelation that a killer with a very cool knife and a motorcycle helmet as a mask is murdering young women in Boston, taking off their heads, and dropping those heads in the nearest body of water (no matter how small).
Solving the case falls on Judd Austin (Leonard Mann), a detective with an academic background who traces all of the victims in one way or another back to a local night school. There, suspicion falls on a womanizing professor (Drew Snyder) who sleeps around on his research assistant and romantic partner, Eleanor (Rachel Ward), whose own death could be right around the corner.
I’m doing my best to stay as spoiler-free as possible here, not just because I think plenty of slasher fans still need to see Night School, but because the film is quite determined to be a whodunit in the classic Italian giallo sense. The kills are brutal and elaborate, the killer deliberately covered head-to-toe in leather and a gleaming black helmet, the knife and the headhunting a disturbing signature. Avergon’s script is well-versed in the trappings of exactly this kind of story, complete with red herrings galore. And yet, by the time it’s all wrapping up, there’s also the sense that the answer was right there in front of you the entire time, something the very best films by legends like Mario Bava and Dario Argento could also achieve.
But on to the restoration: Like the best of the gialli, Night School is also a beautifully engineered film full of colors and delicate camera compositions and sound design. The opening kill, which takes place on a playground carousel outside of a daycare, is rich in exactly this kind of thing, from the cityscapes that lead into the scene to the sound of a motorcycle slowly rolling forward, its engine already dead. Cinematographer Mark Irwin, best known for his many collaborations with David Cronenberg, paints the film in rich reds, absinthe greens, and haunting, chilled blue-white light on wet Boston streets, all of which are preserved beautifully by the restoration team at work on this one.
It’s a movie that very deliberately evokes a specific place – the aging streets of Boston in the 1980s, and the halls of relatively low-level academia – and then takes that place into haunted territory, saturating every frame with color and shadow that suggests a killer lurking just out of view.
Night School is not a massively gore-heavy film, but it does deliver the slasher goods with a series of tense, often unpredictable kills and body discoveries that range from the darkly comic to the flat-out jaw-dropping. That’s thanks to the sound design, the score, the editing from Robert Reitano, and more, all of which add to the film’s giallo soul.
In every case, the scene’s geography is outstanding, and it’s easy to see where the simplest possible kill shot might land, but the film never goes for the obvious. Throw in a surprisingly (for 1981, anyway) feminist bent to the storytelling and some very progressive moments for an early slasher film, and this one fits right in with Black Christmas and The Slumber Party Massacre as a film with depth you can just keep unpacking.
That depth, helped along by a load of featurettes and two new commentary tracks featuring members of the crew, is what stands out the most in this new 4K set. Night School may be a niche film recognized mostly by horror addicts and the slasher faithful, but it deserves to be something more, a landmark on the roadmap of slasher cinema history. It’s one of the best in the genre, and this restoration highlights, underlines, and shouts that from the rooftops.
Night School is now available in 4K UHD from Vinegar Syndrome.
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