Movies
Patrick Lussier Updates ‘Hellraiser’ – Won’t Necessarily Be in 3-D
In our exclusive chat with Drive Angry 3D director Patrick Lussier about his latest film – releasing in theaters this Friday! – B-D reporter Chris Eggertsen of course had to ask him about the planned Hellraiser reboot, the script for which he and partner-in-crime Todd Farmer are currently writing. As has previously been reported, the film will not be a traditional remake following the plot of the original story but rather a “reboot” that will come at the Hellraiser universe from a new angle focusing heavily on the “world” of the Lament Configuration puzzle box.
Luckily for true horror fans, Lussier and Farmer were also mindful of moving the project away from the “teen-oriented” direction the Weinsteins were originally (reportedly) considering for the film.
“[We made sure] it would be an ‘R’-rated movie, it would not be a teen movie,” Lussier told me, while declining to give specifics on the plot. “You know, it’s not ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’, it’s called fucking ‘Hellraiser’.”
Of course, no film bearing the ‘Hellraiser’ name would be complete without Cenobites, and Lussier – while he wouldn’t spill on which specific Cenobites (outside of Pinhead) will be appearing in the movie – nevertheless hinted that we will perhaps be seeing a new dimension to our favorite extradimensional beings.
“We’re in the process of going through [which Cenobites we’ll be featuring] right now,” said the director. “There will be a variety of them that will move and function in perhaps familiar ways, and perhaps new and exciting ways, and in ways that are unexpected.”
As for Pinhead, the most famous of all Cenobites, Lussier maintained that while it would be great to have Doug Bradley return, that piece of the puzzle (so to speak) hasn’t yet been decided.
“To be honest, I don’t know at this time,” he said. “We discussed it a variety of ways. So there’s bigger questions with that, in terms of…execution. There’s all sorts of ways to do that or to not do that. And right now we’re just seeing how that’s gonna fall together. If it were to work out, of course it would be amazing to have Mr. Bradley involved. We have to see how that whole thing evolves.”
One thing you can expect is that looks-wise, Pinhead won’t merely be a carbon-copy of the character featured in all of the previous films. Indeed, his updated appearance was something that factored heavily into Lussier and Farmer’s conception of the project.
“[Our new look for Pinhead] was part of the original pitch” said the director. “I will tell you that the original pitch was the look of Pinhead. That’s how we pitched it. But uh…what that is I’m not gonna tell you. But that was very much how we pitched the film.”
And while it was previously reported (in one of its many earlier incarnations) that the reboot would definitely be shot in 3-D, Lussier said that as far as he and Farmer’s version is concerned, that decision still hasn’t been made.
“That’s not 100% decided,” he said. “It’s something that we discussed. It’s certainly a film that would really lend itself to it, given the visual motif of how it works. But that hasn’t been locked down at this time. You know, right now we’re just focusing on the story and the characters, and the building of the world.” Of course given the nature of the franchise, I suggested the film would seem to lend itself more to an “immersive” type of 3-D than the gimmicky sort utilized in his two most recent films. Lussier agreed: “Yeah. It’s a different kind of rollercoaster. ‘Drive Angry’ and ‘Valentine’ are very specific, but ‘Hellraiser’ is ultimately far more gothic in terms of that stuff.”
So when can we expect this baby to start filming? Unfortunately, Lussier still has no idea – although he indicated the Weinsteins are anxious to get the project off the ground. Of course, as he well knows (‘Halloween 3-D’, anyone?) you just never know with these things.
“This is a project that has been in development for some time…a large-scale revisitation of this world,” he told me. “So I think it’s something they’re very excited to do, very excited to do sooner than later. But in terms of time, I can’t predict with that. [Laughs]”
The trailer for Ti West’s upcoming adaptation of A Christmas Carol raised a lot of eyebrows when it dropped earlier this week. While plenty of folks initially dismissed Ebenezer as a derivative project meant to cash in on the recent wave of unnecessary prequels that expand the backstory of beloved characters (such as 2023’s Wonka), Charles Dickens’ original novel already made a point of exploring Ebenezer Scrooge’s origins in detail – meaning that this new film is likely just a particularly faithful adaptation of the source material under a different name.
Couple that with the fact that the movie is being helmed by a genuine horror auteur and I think it’s safe to say that the latest iteration of the first modern ghost story is in good hands.
That being said, one detail that immediately jumped out at me during the brief teaser (other than a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it nod to Johnny Depp’s iconic bedroom death scene from the original A Nightmare on Elm Street) is the fact that many of Ebenezer’s ghosts appear to have been directly lifted from the iconic John Leech illustrations that accompanied the first edition of Dickens’ novel.
Here are a couple of stills from the trailer compared to the original artwork:
The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
The Phantoms in ‘A Christmas Carol’ and ‘Ebenezer’
Marley’s Ghost in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
Mainly working with old-school wood and steel engravings that would later be transferred to print, Leech was instrumental in crafting the iconic look of history’s most influential phantoms – especially since Dickens is said to have been deeply involved with the creation of these so-called “comic illustrations.”
And since the novel is commonly said to have popularized spiritualism in Victorian England, much of the ghostly iconography that we still see in genre media to this very day (including some of Ti West’s previous films) can be traced back to the author’s partnership with Leech.
Ebenezer won’t be the first A Christmas Carol adaptation to borrow heavily from these designs, but I can appreciate how Ti West is incorporating an important part of horror history into his latest film.
Ebenezer will be available in theaters starting November 13.
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