Movies
‘Hellraiser’: The Movie vs. The Book
The Hellraiser series is a topic of a lot of contention here on Bloody-Disgusting. There are some who are extremely passionate about the series and all the entries it has offered. However, there are some, like myself, who feel the series has gone down significantly in quality, even though there is an amazing universe and lore available to pull from. I even went so far as to say the best way of fixing the Hellraiser series is by getting rid of Pinhead. That one definitely drew some ire.
All that aside, I think we can all agree that the premise of the Hellraiser films is really awesome! A malevolent puzzle box that acts as a gateway to Hell and releases the demonic Cenobites to absolutely wreck eternity for those who simply wanted to beat the world record time on a shimmery faux Rubik’s cube? Count me in. But considering that the story truly began with creator Clive Barker’s novella “The Hellbound Heart”, it begs the questions, “What’s different? What was changed?”
Well, the folk over at Cinefix have decided to look into just that and compare “The Hellbound Heart” with Hellraiser. And while there aren’t too many differences, there are enough that the films would’ve been quite different had Barker been 100% faithful to his original story!
Check out the video below and then let us know if you would’ve rather seen Barker keep to the original story or if you’re happy with the way things turned out!
It’s been eight years since Ari Aster came onto the scene and helped usher in a new wave of horror with Hereditary, one of the rare horror movies from the past ten years that still seems to come up in conversation every single week. And it’s back in the conversation this week, with Ari Aster revealing at an event that he’s already written a prequel to Hereditary!
Ari Aster was on hand at the American Cinematheque for Bleak Week: Cinema of Despair last week, a Los Angeles festival that screened all of Aster’s movies to date. The website Gold Derby reports that Aster revealed the Hereditary prequel script during a Q&A at the event, and you can watch the full Q&A conversation below for confirmation on the website’s report.
“I wrote a prequel to this,” Aster told the crowd, referring to Hereditary. “It never feels like the right time to do it. It’s a prequel, not a sequel so I don’t know where this goes.”
Would a potential Hereditary prequel dig deeper into the mythology of demon king Paimon? Unfortunately, Aster provides no further details on his prequel approach at this time.
Aster said of Hereditary during the same Q&A, “I was just trying to make a really good horror movie.” I think most horror fans would agree that he more than accomplished that goal, and the past eight years have proven that Hereditary is an enduring classic of its generation.
We celebrated the fifth anniversary of Hereditary here on BD back in 2023.
Ron Breton wrote, “Hereditary offers a similar emotional resonance to this new generation of horror – my generation of horror– as movie-goers in the seventies when they first saw Exorcist. Much like Aster’s film, we see the incomprehensible evil wear the face of a young girl; the victim of a raw deal she had no say in, as it tears a family to its core. Sure, both films offer so many terrifying visuals that can make the hair stand up on anyone’s neck – but it also depicts intense relationships and emotions that are tangible. Real. Familiar.”
“In that familiarity lies the uncanny, ready to rear its ugly head and force us to confront thoughts and horrors laying dormant and clawing at our psyche,” Breton continued his 5th anniversary celebration of Hereditary. “And it doesn’t matter if it’s been five or fifty years. These horrors are always there, as we become pawns in its horrible, hopeless machine.”
Toni Collette, Gabriel Byrne, Alex Wolff, Ann Dowd, and Milly Shapiro star in Hereditary. In the film, “A grieving family is haunted by tragic and disturbing occurrences.”
That’s putting it mildly, eh?!
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