Interviews
How ‘Hellraiser’ Inspired ‘The Night House’ – Which Paved the Way for a ‘Hellraiser’ Relaunch [Interview]
In director David Bruckner‘s latest, The Night House, recently widowed Beth (Rebecca Hall) discovers disturbing secrets about her husband after beginning to experience paranormal events at their remote lakeside house. As Beth plays detective to uncover those secrets, she also finds clues for a supernatural mystery.
Screenwriters Ben Collins and Luke Piotrowski (Super Dark Times, Siren) shared with Bloody Disgusting their process in building Beth’s journey and the unique mythology behind the presence haunting her. The screenwriting partners revealed their influences, including a surprising horror movie inspiration for the main story.
“Magic doesn’t always equate with something evil, but when you’re writing a horror movie, you want something that feels like it could be real. So just reading and dabbling in a lot of ideas and images that are based in reality, but wanting to wholly invent our own for our own purposes. The idea of architecture was occult architecture. The idea of spaces as incantation and mazes to trap or confuse spirits, like the Caerdroia mazes. The Louvre doll that you see in the movie is based on a real doll,” Piotrowski explains of the various occult pieces they employed when building a narrative that sees its protagonist plunged into the world of the occult.
Rebecca Hall appears in The Night House.
More surprisingly, Piotrowski revealed that the story idea itself was born, at least in part, from a rejected pitch for a Hellraiser reboot. He explains, “The Night House for us was an amalgamation of a lot of pieces of different pitches and ideas and stuff that we wanted to do, or elements from other movies that we were told to take out. It was like, ‘Is there some way we can build a container for all of our most beloved discarded pieces?’ Of those discarded pieces, a huge part of that was -back when Hellraiser was at Dimension- we did pitch on a Hellraiser reboot. At that time, it was a lot of looking at the Hellraiser story and noticing that the Julia character is, in many ways, the central character of the story. It’s her story; it’s not really Kirsty’s story. It is about Julia.
“We gave ourselves the task of finding if could you retell that story with Julia as a sympathetic figure who is drawn to this occult world through the grief of having lost her husband. And, to bring him back, she starts engaging with these dark things and goes to these dark places through grief until it’s this Black Swan style, beautiful story about that character. They didn’t want to hear Black Swan; they didn’t want to hear art house, dreamy, or beautiful for Hellraiser at that time. We took a lot of that idea. We still wanted to tell a story about grief that has beautiful haunting imagery. We still wanted to tell a story about somebody who’s going to dark places and finding secrets that somebody left behind. In some of the most basic broad strokes, a lot of the genesis of The Night House did come from us not being able to do Hellraiser.”
The irony of this, of course, is that Collins and Piotrowski are reteaming with Bruckner for the Spyglass Media relaunch of Hellraiser, coming to Hulu. Collins explained the uncanny connection that led to their dream project, “Ultimately we got lucky because [producer] Keith Levine used to work at Dimension. We initially met him via those pitches that didn’t work out, and he was the guy on the phone saying no to us. We didn’t have any context. Then he started working for David Goyer.”
Goyer produced The Night House. It was during production that the announcement came of Goyer’s involvement with the new Hellraiser. “I definitely remember being on the set of Night House with Keith Levine and cornering him,” Piotrowski jokes of the perfect coincidence. Collins adds, “I’m pretty sure I told him that we would never talk to them again if they didn’t at least let us meet on it. I was joking, but we also wanted to at least put our names on the list, try to get in there, and it worked out really well.”
It’s a dream project for the screenwriters, something they’ve been thinking about for a long time. “Hellraiser just became increasingly the thing that we felt so compelled to do, and it was so frustrating the way the rights were just impossible to manage. For so long, there was nothing you could do about it, but then we did,” Collins shares.
The pair remain mum on plot details, naturally. Piotrowski at least teases this much, “We’ll get the hooks and chains. We’ll see. Hellraiser is so many things. There are so many elements that make it what it is and when you’re dealing with these franchises, it’s like, well, different aspects of it are different people’s favorite parts.”
While we wait for more details to emerge, The Night House gives horror audiences plenty to chew on in the meantime from the team behind it. Especially when it comes to expert scare crafting, a collaboration between Bruckner, Collins, and Piotrowski. Piotrowski touches upon one of the film’s most prominent scares, “I will say I think the biggest jump scare in the movie that everybody points to, you probably know what I’m talking about. That was in the script and based on an experience of Ben playing very scary music for me one night when we were hanging out. We’re concerned with scary ideas, and that’s what we spend most of our time thinking about, but we know that you need those moments of jumping and release. I think David Bruckner is also really mindful of that and brought a lot to it as well, building on what was there and making the sequences a little more sustained.”
The Night House (read my review) releases in theaters on August 20, 2021.
Interviews
The Work ‘Grind’ Is Hell, So Brea Grant & Ed Dougherty Made a Horror Anthology About It [CFF 2026 Interview]
Genre fans rejoice! Chattanooga Film Festival is back for its 13th year in 2026 with a killer lineup and once again offering audiences both in-person and virtual options. After having its World Premiere at SXSW this spring, the horror comedy anthology Grind is playing CFF 2026 opening weekend.
From a screenplay by Brea Grant (Torn Hearts, 12 Hour Shift) and Ed Dougherty (MLM) and segments directed by Grant, Dougherty, and Chelsea Stardust (Satanic Panic), Grind features four interwoven stories that parody the gig economy, hustle culture, and the evils of late-stage capitalism.
The anthology follows weary everyday people juggling side hustles just to survive, while going up against greedy oligarchs, and cleverly uses dark humor and bloody practical effects to portray a world much like our current economic nightmare.
Bloody Disgusting had the pleasure of chatting with Brea Grant and Ed Dougherty about the socioeconomic commentary in Grind, casting Barbara Crampton as a villain, and DIY filmmaking.
Bloody Disgusting: Every segment in this anthology feels relatable because people are actually struggling to survive in the gig economy right now. How did the two of you come up with the idea of creating Grind?
Brea Grant: Like you said, we were trying to come up with a cool idea that seemed relevant right now. The thing that everyone we know is talking about is the economy, the lack of work, and the nightmare hellscape that is late-stage capitalism. It felt like the right time to write something that really featured that as the main horror. As the main thing that people were scared of, this world sort of came to us over the course of a couple of years.
Ed Dougherty: We wanted to make a hit film, and we said, “Let’s make a horror anthology, that’s the most marketable thing there is.” [laughs]
BG: [laughs] Definitely not!
BD: I love anthologies!
ED: We do, too. We feel like it’s kind of an undervalued form of horror film, but it’s a hard sell.
BG: People told us not to make it. They said, “Don’t make an anthology. It’s too hard to sell.” But we did it anyway.
BD: I guess I’m just one of those weirdos who likes anthologies and watches them all.
ED: We believe that there are a lot of weirdos like you out there. It seems like every good horror anthology has a long life, but it’s just getting over the initial hump that’s difficult.
BD: Chelsea Stardust directed some of the segments with the two of you and serves as a producer. How did she first get involved with this project?
BG: The project has a long history. We shot the first segment, which is about multi-level marketing, a couple of years ago. We had decided we wanted to make a full anthology, but it took us about a year after shooting that initial segment to shoot the rest of the movie. When we did that, we knew we needed to bring on a producer aside from Ed and me, since we were directing the bulk of the movie, so that was how she came on board. I’ve been friends with her for a long time, and the one thing I know about her as a friend is that she is very organized, so it felt like a good fit. I just called her one day and said, “Would you want to produce these three segments that we have left to shoot of Grind?” and she came on board.
BD: There are some fun cameos in Grind, but we have to talk about Barbara Crampton. She’s so good as a villainess. Why did you want her for this role, and what was it like working with her on this film?
BG: She’s in her villain era, which is so fun. [laughs] Obviously, we’re huge Barbara Crampton fans, and when we were making MLM, it was a smaller part of the movie that we knew we needed to call on people who could do a good job but were also friendly to us [laughs]. I’m friends with Barbara Crampton, and we’ve done three movies together before this. So, it felt like someone within our reach, but could also really draw a horror crowd. She has a huge fanbase, and she’s also super supportive of all the projects that she’s been in, so that was also really exciting. She’s a great actress, and she’s super funny. I think a lot of these horror actresses, especially those who came up in the eighties and nineties, weren’t given an opportunity to be funny. I think she was ready to jump on an opportunity that was different than what she was used to; it’s not running around and screaming. She is a cult leader, and she is quite funny in it. She just takes the comedy so well and seriously, and she does such an amazing job with it. She has a scene across from Rob Huebel, who is obviously a comedy master, and I feel like the two of them together were hilarious. It’s been fun to watch Barbara go from these iconic roles to a different kind of role at this point in her career. We’re super happy to be a part of that.
ED: And she loves the movie and has been so supportive. Every time she posts about it, I’m like, “I can’t believe this. This is amazing.”
BD: This is an accurate parody of the current socioeconomic situation in this country, as well as our obsession with online culture. It repeatedly asks the question, “What are you willing to do to make money,” in a world with wealth inequality and evil oligarchs. It’s fun, and it’s a horror movie, but it’s thought-provoking. What do you hope audiences take away from Grind, besides having a good time?
ED: I read every review and every Letterboxd review; Brea does not. So, I’ve seen it all. I’ve seen some reviews that say, “Good movie but doesn’t propose a solution.” I think we do propose a solution, which is that the power of unions and organizing is the only way that we will be able to fight back against oligarchs. I do think that is the message of the film. Organizing is the only way to defeat these villains. I do think we have a lot to say in the film. I’d want someone to say, “Man, I’ve never seen a horror anthology that had a political message before.” [laughs]
BG: I think the other thing is that what is currently happening is that we live in a world in which people kind of feel alone in this. They’re like, “Well, I’m doing bad, “or “I’m having trouble paying my rent.” We wanted to hang a lantern on the fact that this is happening to everyone, that wealth disparity is at an all-time high. We’re pointing out to people that you aren’t in this alone; you’re not the only person doing side hustles. Every filmmaker friend I have is working a side job of some sort at this point, and that is just in Los Angeles. Outside of this city, I think things are more dire. I think it was about infusing some politics into something that could make people realize that they aren’t alone and that there are ways of fighting back and fighting the system that has been set up against them.
ED: I think the tone of the movie, which is darkly comedic, also really matches the tone of life right now. Everything seems almost at a parody level as far as the disconnect between oligarchs and trying to make a living and reality. The absurdist nature of the film kind of captures the real tone of life.
BD: There are some cool creature effects and makeup effects in this movie. Can you talk a little bit about the practical effects and makeup?
ED: I think especially because of the message of the film, which is pushing back against the current hellscape we’re in, we wanted to use as many practical effects as possible. We used matte paintings, miniatures, and practical creature effects. I’m always afraid of the matte painting because we used the old school matte painter, but they do look a little AI. I heard someone make a noise behind me during one of the shots, and I was like, “I hope that noise wasn’t them using AI because that’s a matte painting.” [laughs] There’s also the fact that it’s pretty DIY. It’s a film that we financed ourselves and shot in our houses as much as possible. We wanted the whole thing to feel handmade and very tactile.
BG: We’re old school horror fans, so we love seeing practical effects. The practical stuff is really fun for us. It’s the stuff that we think is actually cool. [laughs] So, practical stuff made the most sense for us. We both grew up in the punk scene in the nineties, and I think it just kind of comes naturally to us to try to do things ourselves. And we both work on projects for big companies, with smaller companies, but always for other people, so trying to do something ourselves to see what that felt like was also part of the experiment of Grind.
ED: This was our chance to do everything we wanted our way.
Grind screens at the Chattanooga Film Festival on June 20.
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