Interviews
[Interview] Meet the New Pinhead – Paul T. Taylor on ‘Hellraiser: Judgment’
It’s no mystery that a new Hellraiser film is on the way entitled Judgement. It’s also no mystery that actor Doug Bradley will not be reprising his iconic role of lead cenobite, Pinhead. In his place will be an actor by the name of Paul T. Taylor. We recently got a new glimpse of Taylor in makeup. Unfortunately, the image isn’t terribly clear and judging by some of the comments, fans were not too pleased. I can assure you that smokey image doesn’t do the new design justice, but patience is a virtue, my friends.
In the meantime, as we wait for any kind of official release information, I was able to chat with Taylor about his background, his take on the character, and just what we might expect from the 10th film of the franchise. Taylor, a self-proclaimed “freak for Halloween and all things horror” won me over with his candor and excitement during our conversations. He seems to be extremely proud of his work on the film and recognizes that fans have been unhappy with most of the recent entries in the franchise. I know you guys might be finding a new actor in the role of Pinhead to be a prickly pill to swallow. However, I can tell you my biggest takeaway from the interview is this: Taylor is an incredibly charming, excited fan of the works of Clive Barker who wants nothing more than to do right by the franchise and the people who love it.
We started by discussing his background and just what lead him down the path of becoming an actor.
I grew up watching my dad do community theater. I took to it, and then I started doing community theater…I just knew that that’s what I wanted to do. And also, being taught that was an impractical choice for a career, but I really just didn’t care…It’s in my blood.
Taylor’s first film took him a short distance from his home in Dallas to Austin, TX for a small role in Robert Rodriguez’s Sin City. The size of the part (credited as “Assistant DA”) didn’t dampen Taylor’s excitement one bit. “I don’t have any lines, but who cares?! I’m recognizable in it. I’m in SIN CITY!” While the film opened doors for Taylor, it wasn’t long before his path became obstructed by disease, Hepatitis C. Upon diagnosis, he continued to try and live his life as normal as possible, however, as the years went on he began to slow down. This sent him into a downward spiral of depression.
I had stopped enjoying the business. I had started just being a hermit, staying home. [I was] just eating pizza while watching movies, and that was my life…I felt like shit all the time. I felt like I had the flu all the time. Hepatitis C is a horrible, horrible disease.
As his condition worsened, thoughts of suicide began to pollute Taylor’s mind. The same week news coverage had become over saturated with word of Osama Bin Laden’s death and at the end of his rope, Taylor decided to reach out to his doctor one last time. He was informed of a brand new drug with a high success rate in curing patients with Hep C. The news of the drug’s release was, of course, overshadowed by Bin Laden and came as a surprise to Taylor. Thankfully, it proved successful in his case. This miracle provided him with the new lease on life that he had desperately needed, “I got my life back. Not something I was prepared for…It took me awhile to get back on track.”
With a new found optimism, Taylor jumped back into the acting gig, booking numerous commercials and some small film roles. One day an email arrived from his agent requesting an audition tape for a mysterious role.
The role they wanted to put me on tape for was The Auditor, and I read the description and I read the first side. With the first line I read, they were keeping it a secret then that it was a Hellraiser movie. They were just calling it Judgement…The first line I read, I said, ‘This is a Hellraiser movie.’ I knew it, because I’m already well versed in the language of Hellraiser. I’m a huge fan. This is a Hellraiser movie!
The tip off? “It had something to do with ‘We have such sights to show you.” This audition was quickly followed by another email requesting Taylor audition for the role of Pinhead. Doug Bradley had declined again, much like he did for the previous film, Resurrection. Taylor’s response, “I’m like, there’s no frickin’ way I’m going to be Pinhead. This is a joke from the cosmos!” With only four days to prepare for both roles, Taylor gave it his all. At the time he was acting in a play, Martyrs, about religious fundamentalists. Taylor played the role of a priest. He managed to continue memorizing his lines while waiting offstage in between scenes. Taylor managed to get away with it by hiding his sides within his stage prop, a Bible. Suffice to say, after weeks of nervous anticipation he found out that he’d nailed the audition.
Naturally, with a new actor taking up the mantle of Pinhead, there was bound to be an uproar in the fan community. Taylor admits he actually hadn’t considered such a backlash until director, Gary J. Tunnicliffe, brought it to his attention.
My first response was ‘Oh shit! Damn, that’s going to be hard. Oh, poor me.’ And then, that didn’t last long. I thought, you know what, fuck that. I’m not here to try and get approval from everyone. I’ve spent my…almost my entire life trying to get the approval of others. I mean, I’m an actor so first of all, you’re going in and asking for rejection all the time anyway…I know a lot of people whose goal in life is to be liked and to please everyone, and it just kills you. I don’t care if these people don’t like me. They don’t know me. I care if they like my performance…
…What Doug Bradley has created, what was created before me – Those are big shoes to fill, and I am super grateful for that and for the opportunity…There had to come a point where I said, ‘Nope. It’s time to make this mine.’…You can try as hard as you can to ape [another actor’s] performance, but then it’s going to lose its life.
On how he brought his own spin to the character:
You know how in the third movie Pinhead comes back and he’s in that column? Things have changed, and he’s changed. He has no rules. There’s no Leviathan controlling him, and he’s just off the chain. He’s doing whatever the hell he wants. Hell on Earth, yeah, okay. He’s making jokes and he’s Freddy Krueger-ing it up. In this script there’s none of that from Pinhead. He’s a totally serious individual…I think he’s older, if you can even age as Pinhead. He’s a little over it. And yet, this is what he does….I do think he’s in a different phase of his existence.
Taylor further explains the evolution of the series and where he believes it has landed with the upcoming Judgement:
It used to be Pinhead just came in and just does his job because you opened the box. There’s no judgment because this is what you wanted…Here is this physical experience that you wanted. It’s changed over the years and become ‘You’re a bad person and we’re here to punish you.’…The script [for Judgement] is making an effort to get back to the original concept of what the puzzle box is all about.
I pushed Taylor for a bit more information in regards to the plot and the various factions of hell presented within the film. He explained to me there are different levels throughout. “There’s a very creative serial killer” who is being hunted by the detectives in the film, and “There’s the cenobites and the [hell] workers and Leviathan who are doing their job.” Some of the new characters such as The Butcher and The Surgeon “seem to be on the team of The Processor of Souls.” Taylor also promised we’d be getting a peak of an old fan favorite, Chatterer. He further added: “It’s certainly not a comedy, but in its structure it’s a little bit like Office Space in hell. It’s nothing like the Mike Judge film but it goes to a different place that we’ve never explored before.”
On a recent conversation with Tunnicliffe, Taylor revealed Gary’s influence with writing the script wasn’t tied exclusively to Clive Barker’s Hellbound Heart so much as the style of a lot of Barker’s early work including The Books of Blood. Regarding the style of the film itself, “He said it was really driven by what he calls the ‘Three Davids’ who are Cronenberg, Lynch, and Fincher.” He also wanted to clear up a previous statement where he referred to the film as “horror porn”. Taylor felt he’d misspoken.
There’s a difference between creative and disgusting…I think [the gore in the film] is done because of the style and aesthetics in a beautiful way. I just didn’t want to get it across that it’s torture porn…This is not self indulgent. This is not masturbation, and let’s just throw blood at the screen.
He revealed he hasn’t seen much of the finished product, but he has seen some footage from a rough cut trailer shown to him on an iPhone. The excitement in Taylor’s voice is infectious as it becomes obvious that he’s as much a fan as we all are of the series, and he’s truly hoping for the best of this sequel. While he hasn’t been signed on for any future films in the franchise, Taylor expresses he has “really high hopes” that he’ll get the chance to do it again. “The bottom line is that if people like me as Pinhead then that’s really the most important thing.”
I think that this movie could possibly reignite the franchise. Yes, it’s a low budget film, but these days low budget horror is huge. It doesn’t matter so much what the budget is…I’m excited about it because it’s a Hellraiser movie, and it might be pleasing to some people. The franchise is not exactly a healthy one, and I know that…It’s a real Hellraiser movie, and it’s a passion project [for Tunnicliffe].
While we all wait impatiently wait for any release news or at least a trailer for Hellraiser: Judgement, Taylor promises to continue making his name known in the horror genre. Sick for Toys is an upcoming film where he gets to be “creepy as hell” playing a drunken pedophile, and several other local Dallas horror projects are presenting themselves to the actor. For those looking to stay up to date on his future projects (including Judgment), he can be found on Twitter and Facebook and check out his official website here.
Of all the places to find a coven of witches, the attic above a Christian youth camp is probably the last place you’d think to look. But that’s just what we find in Camp, a surrealist nightmare of feminist empowerment from Canadian filmmaker Avalon Fast.
Emily (Zola Grimmer) is still reckoning with her involvement in a horrific tragedy when she accidentally contributes to the death of her best friend, Charlie (Giselle Morison). Unable to move on, the traumatized teen takes a job at a rural summer camp, hoping to forget her own sorrows by looking after at-risk kids. She quickly connects with a counselor named Clara (Alice Wordsworth) and finds comfort in her close-knit group of female friends. But a mysterious whisper from deep in the woods warns that they may be leading her down a darker path.
Fast burst onto the scene in 2022 with Honeycomb, a psychological horror film that follows a burgeoning matriarchy. Known for their focus on “Girl Horror” stories, the talented young filmmaker tackles similar themes in Camp as Emily leaves the modern world behind to embrace a dark vision of self-discovery through magic.
Ahead of the film’s U.S. release on June 26, Bloody Disgusting sat down with Fast to chat about the nebulous nature of good vs. evil and the intoxicating power of female-driven horror.
Bloody Disgusting: What inspired this unique story? Did you go to religious summer camps when you were young?
Avalon Fast: I did. I went to lots of different summer camps, but all of them were primarily Bible camps. The memory I have of camp is kind of strange. I was very homesick as a kid, and I didn’t necessarily enjoy all my time there. I definitely remember meeting some interesting girls at camp and having that presence of religion hovering around the whole experience.
BD: I really love the film’s gorgeous natural setting. Camp is the kind of surrealist nightmare that you don’t just watch. You feel it too. How did you approach creating this world?
AF: Well, a huge part of it was working with my cinematographer Eily Sprungman, who’s a very close friend. We spent years prepping, shot listing, storyboarding, and mood boarding. She’d had a similar experience to mine. We grew up around the same place, and so we understood each other’s visions from the get-go. But there are so many other pieces that came together. The costuming, the art, and the animated sequences were done by Sofiya Iurkevych. One of our producers, Taylor Nodrick, was obsessed with shooting on Super 8 film. I’ve always wanted to as well, so all the memory sequences were shot on Super 8. It was just a lot of people with an understanding and a vision for what this project was. I’m really happy with the way it turned out.
To the extent that you’re comfortable sharing, what’s your relationship to witchcraft, and what does Camp have to say about modern witches?
Well, that’s the question of Camp. It’s not that I don’t resonate with any of these things, but I specifically wanted Camp to be a little bit ambiguous around what witchcraft looks like. Is this witchcraft? Are these girls witches? Emily explicitly asks if that’s what’s happening here, and the answer isn’t yes. The film isn’t going to answer that question for you. My relationship to magic and witchcraft? It’s tough. I feel like there’s so much magic, connection, and spirituality that comes from these friendships, the closeness of these women, and what’s happening around them. A lot of what Camp is trying to say or show is just that magic can come out of friendship.
I loved watching these female friendships develop. And you’re right. No one ever says the word “coven,” but you can feel that connection, and you can see a change in Emily as those relationships grow. I’m also really fascinated with the way Camp plays with the idea of good and evil. At one point, Clara says, “Maybe God drew us to the devil,” which stopped me in my tracks. How do you view witchcraft or the magic these girls are experiencing in regard to good and evil?
That was such a huge part of the script’s construction. The story is really trying to keep a balance between those two things. I like asking people if they think these girls are good or bad, because I feel like a lot of people come out of the film thinking one or the other. They’ll say things like “thank God Emily found her people” or “God, I really wish she’d gone home.” I just don’t think there’s ever an answer. I wanted to explore the idea of going down the wrong path, especially coming out of grief. What makes you a bad person, and does healing mean you’re looking to become a better person? I don’t have an answer, but I do feel like that’s a huge part of what Camp is asking. What is good? What is bad? Why did God bring me to the devil?
Yes, because this is all happening at “God camp” in Emily’s words. So how can both of those things exist at the same time? Along those lines, I’m also fascinated by the voice Emily hears in the woods. Without spoiling too much, what is this voice asking, and what is required in return?
Emily comes to camp with a shout into the void, asking can anyone hear me? Does anyone want to? And it’s answered so clearly by these girls, specifically responding only with love, care, support, and trust. It’s like her prayers were answered. It doesn’t mean that everything is going to be alright, but Emily is looking for peace. She’s looking for a moment where she feels pure good. And I think, even at its surface level, she does get that experience.
Personally, I don’t really think people are good or bad. I think we all exist somewhere in the middle. Camp centers traditionally villainized characters, but that’s where Emily seems to find her peace, however you choose to define it.
I also wanted to show the experience of having decided that you are a bad person, you’ve made mistakes, and you feel cursed. Then when you meet other people who have done things that you would consider worse, you can actually feel good in their presence. You feel like less of a bad person. I think that’s a huge part of the story as well. Emily’s finding her version of other fucked up people, and she feels less fucked up around them. I’ve found that in my own life. It’s a cool thing. I don’t think it’s bad.
I don’t think it’s bad either. It’s finding your home, your people. We meet Emily in the aftermath of unthinkable trauma. Is this a story about mental health and healing?
Witnessing it myself. witnessing other people experience tragedy and then move through grief, you hear a lot of talk about healing or coming out the other side. There’s so much conversation around what that looks like, with self-care and showing up for yourself. I always felt really averse to it. It annoyed me. I think the beginning of the film speaks to that. The therapeutic version of what getting help looks like is obviously very different from what Camp is showing. And again, I don’t have an answer for what you’re supposed to do. But I think that’s another question I was asking: how do you heal? Do you heal at all? Is that the end goal, or are we just trying to get better? It’s something I experienced in my own grief. And the answer, for me, at least now, is just that I’m not looking to get better. So I felt like I hadn’t. I found it hard to find people to have those conversations with. And I think that’s what I ultimately wanted to make a film about.
I love that unanswered question. In my own experience, I’ve had to reframe what healing actually looks like. There’s not really an endpoint. It’s just finding a way to keep going. There’s also an element of sacrifice in this story, particularly regarding another counselor named Jo (Sophie Bawks-Smith). What role does she play in Emily’s journey?
For me, Jo is this human embodiment of Charlie, Emily’s friend. As Jo, she had a life at this camp before meeting Emily, and then was kind of taken over by Charlie’s spirit. I think a lot of people view Emily’s final choice as horrendous and tragic. In a way it is, but for me, if Jo becomes her angel, it’s almost like a self-sacrifice. Jo knows that by sacrificing herself, she’ll be giving Emily power to move forward. In the original script, the girls were supposed to bring out another counselor, JB (Aidan Laudersmith), and burn his body. But I just thought, there’s no way sacrificing this guy could give the girls enough power. There’s just no way, right? Logically, that just didn’t line up for me.
I’m glad you mentioned JB, because he has his own tragic arc. How do men factor into the world of Camp?
The way men factor into my world is so bizarre. I have such little respect for them in my films, which is something I’ve been called on. I think I have to challenge myself in the future to make a movie about a boy because, these boys … It’s not that the men in my films aren’t redeemable, but there’s no depth to these characters. They’re just treated with such disrespect. I don’t know why I do that, actually. That’s something for me to look into. It was the same with Honeycomb. They’re just such peripheral characters. I’ve had people ask about Kayne (Henri Gillespi), the scary guy at the fire, what happens to him? I just think, I don’t know. I don’t care. That’s not the point of the story.
Well, I can say after a lifetime of watching women on the periphery of the story, the course correction feels nice. In a similar vein, I’m in love with your homepage, avalonfast.com. There’s an image of girls on a film set and then a still from Honeycomb in which a blood-covered girl is screaming at the sky. And in the middle, it just says Girl Horror. It’s a really powerful statement that gives me chills. How do you define Girl Horror, and what draws you to these types of stories?
I was obsessed with the term when I started making my movies. It was something I’d come up with to kind of brand myself and describe what I was doing. Then I went through a period where I felt like it was a bit gender exclusive and didn’t interest me as much. But now I’ve come full circle on the term. I think it’s a bit of a commentary on youth and the horror of growing up female. But I think everybody can relate to that experience. I don’t want it to feel like this exclusive thing, that I make movies exclusively for girls, because I don’t think I do. I’m interested in exploring what Girl Horror means. Originally, it was just a title, something I came up with, and now it’s become something that resonates with people. You said it gave you chills. That’s cool for me to hear because there’s obviously some depth there.
Are you working on anything new?
Yes. I am actually making a movie about a boy. That’s the next thing.
That’s exciting! The more I think about feminism, the more I end up coming back to men and boys, because they have a place in the world of Girl Horror too.
Absolutely. It’s all just part of being human.
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