Clive Barker’s 1987 horror film, Hellraiser is famous for introducing audiences to a darkly beautiful and grotesque hellscape and the captivating creatures who live there, the cenobites. Though Barker’s original concept for the film focused much more on the horror of humanity and the interpersonal relationships between his characters, the cenobites stole the show and took over subsequent films in the series.
Recently, it was announced that David Brucker, best known for directing Night House and The Ritual as well as segments in V/H/S and Southbound, will be directing a re-imagining of Barker’s 1980’s classic with Spyglass Media. The project will bring on Ben Collins and Luke Piotrowski, who are known for SiREN and Super Dark Times, to write the screenplay.
While horror fans are likely feeling remake fatigue, the writing and directing team Spyglass has chosen offers more promise than some other less well-received remakes that have been recently released. There’s absolutely room for this re-imagining to be great or terrible, but it has the chance to correct a lot of the mistakes that were made by the later films in the Hellraiser series.
The biggest critique of the later films in the Hellraiser franchise, in fact every film after the sequel, is their total departure from the mood and intent of Clive Barker’s world. They focus too heavily on Pinhead specifically and the cenobites in general, ignore the rules established in the first two films, and stray too far from the central focus on human evil, sin, pleasure, and pain. Their desire to focus on the cenobites led the later films to create more and more outlandish and ridiculous plots with less focus on characterization and more interest in producing bloody kills.
In order to be successful, a Hellraiser remake would need to either follow Halloween 2018’s lead and serve as a sequel to the original, ignoring the rest of the films, or start over fresh from the beginning, while still delivering the dark humanism Clive Barker gave to his stories. Original interpersonal conflicts, complex characters, creative practical effects, and creature design are key, and without them, the film won't come close. Obviously, Hellraiser is a tough film to remake, having a substantial legacy and sizeable following from genre fans, but with the right balance of good writing, interesting characters, and unique designs, can be successful. The key will be to take the focus back off of Pinhead, as no one wants to see anyone but Doug Bradley playing the character, and move more towards either exploring the culture and world of the cenobites, or place the focus back on human evil if the aim is to produce a re-imagining of the original Hellraiser.
Creating exceptionally human characters with complex emotions in contrast to totally alien cenobites with flat affects and wholly unknown motivations is a large part of what made Hellraiser a successful film and what made the later follow-ups lackluster at their best and painfully bad at their worst. Regardless of the direction the production team chooses to take this re-imagining, making an effort to return to the mood and intent of Clive Barker’s story will be the best way for Spyglass to create a successful Hellraiser film.
