Movies
Take A Trip To Hell: Early ‘Hellraiser’ Concept Art!
I’m having trouble finding the actual source of the following (since nobody provides links anymore), but below you’ll find early concept art for the potential Hellraiser reboot, being developed at Dimension Films. The art was designed by Paul Gerrard (Wrath of the Titans, Battle: Los Angeles), and were created for a teaser trailer directed by Mike Le Han (Mrs. Peppercorn’s Magical Reading Room).
Here’s a description of the pitch: “In July Paul Gerrard and Mike Le Han produced a teaser trailer to accompany the pitch document which has many more conceptual designs that revision Hellraiser. Paul designed the new look for Pinhead and was production designer on the shoot and Le Han pulled in all of his film resources and directed the teaser on the new Alex 4:3 camera with anamorphic lenses.
With a crew of 47 an over 100 bloodied extras, the shoot was completed and is now in the depths of post production with a massive amount of VFX work being undertaken. Method Studios, Fugitive Studios and Flipbook Animation are helming the chi/VFX with the talented Glen Southern designing (CG build of) the new Hellraiser box.
When the teaser is complete they’ll be presenting it to Dimension Films along with an outline of the first film story and conceptual art pitch document with the hope to work on rebooting the Hell raiser franchise and bringing it into the 21st Century.”
Now, it should be clear that Dimension is actively searching for writers and directors to remake Clive Barker’s classic, so these are just part of a pitch (that could easily be rejected by the incredibly indecisive Wienstein brothers). Platinum Dunes was once in the mix, and there’s no word on what the status is on director/writer duo Patrick Lussier and Todd Farmer (My Bloody Valentine, Drive Angry).
Check out three incredible pieces of concept art inside.
There’s been a lot of talk about how Christopher Nolan snuck in some horror elements into his epic adaptation of The Odyssey. However, even before the Cyclops began to eat Ithican soldiers and Circe subjected them to magical body-horror, cinemagoers were already witnessing supernatural terror through a certain trailer that was attached to most IMAX screenings of Nolan’s film.
It turns out that this trailer was for Rob Savage’s Other Mommy, an adaptation of Bird Box author Josh Malerman’s horror novel, Incidents Around the House. With the teaser now available online and revealing that the award-winning Jessica Chastain is playing the titular antagonist (as well as her ill-fated human counterpart), not to mention the fact that the picture is being helmed by the director of hits like Host and The Boogeyman, genre fans are understandably hyped for this upcoming thriller.
That’s why I’ve decided to take a closer look at the trailer and share four things we learned from this sneak peek at Other Mommy!
4. Rob Savage is Going Back to His Supernatural Horror Roots
I know I’m in the minority when I admit that Dashcam is my favorite Rob Savage movie, but even I understand why the filmmakers’ fans have been waiting a while for the director to get back to telling more grounded paranormal stories as he did with 2020’s Host.
Other Mommy obviously isn’t a found footage movie, but moments like the poltergeist activity on the kitchen table combined with the nature of the source material, which actually features a full-on exorcism, indicate that this adaptation is more than a simple creature feature. That’s why I think Savage is once again going to borrow from the same ghostly narratives that made his debut film such a viral hit.
3. Other Mommy is a More Convincing Doppelganger in the Adaptation
Part of the horror from Malerman’s original novel came from the fact that the entity taking on the form of Bela’s (Arabella Olivia Clark) mother wasn’t very good at passing itself off as human. This resulted in several uncanny moments where other characters began to notice that there was something visibly wrong with the family and decided to keep their distance.
Savage’s film appears to be taking a different route, with the trailer showing a version of the entity that can, at least physically, imitate Chastain’s character perfectly. This change is likely the result of the filmmakers wanting to incorporate more paranoid scenes where Bela and her father, played by Jay Duplass, are confused about which Mommy is safe to interact with.
2. The Family is Also Better Off This Time Around
Incidents Around the House featured some interesting subtext about how poverty can negatively affect American family dynamics. After all, the main characters were already feeling scared and isolated before the entity emerged from Bela’s closet and began scratching at their emotional wounds. The trailer for the movie, however, depicts the family as being relatively well off before these incidents begin to occur.
I can only imagine that this part of the story was changed so that the family’s fall from grace can be even more dramatic as the mom and dad’s pasts are revealed and Bela falls further into the clutches of the demonic antagonist.
1. Jessica Chastain is Embodying Evil Dead Rise’s Alyssa Sutherland
Mothers turning against their children is one of the most disturbing horror tropes out there (just check out classics like Hereditary and Carrie if you need proof), but it takes a remarkably skilled actress to pull off such a monstrous transformation. This is especially true when both a regular, loving mother and the Other share the screen in the same film.
That’s why I appreciate how Chastain appears to be channeling another evil redhead mother that recently traumatized audiences with her performance. It’s too early to be sure, but I’m fairly confident that Chastain’s character has at least some amount of Ellie in her cinematic DNA – Ellie being the iconic deadite brought to life by Australian actress Alyssa Sutherland in 2023’s Evil Dead Rise.
Let us know in the comments if you think we missed any important details from the trailer, and don’t forget to check out Other Mommy when it hits theaters on October 9!
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