The new Hellraiser is a fascinating entry into the modern horror canon. I liked large parts of it, and I would absolutely like to see more Hellraisers from this team, but it left me unsettled in way I was not expecting. But I’ll get to that in a few paragraphs.
First, a few facts: the new take on the Hellraiser series isn’t an adaptation of Clive Barker’s 1986 novella The Hellbound Heart, but Barker is on board as a producer. The script was written by Ben Collins and Luke Piotrowski (the pair who wrote The Night House) from a story by David Goyer. It was directed by their fellow Night House alum David Bruckner, who also directed The Ritual. I mention this first, because this group knows their way around a horror movie, but also because those two films are very much part of the current wave of horror that’s actually about grief. (See also: Mike Flanagan’s whole flippin‘ career.) And that’s both an interesting addition to Hellraiser, and, maybe, a problem.
The first thing I wrote down as Hellraiser’s credits rolled was: “Do we need grief in every horror?” (For context, I watched The Midnight Club this weekend, and caught up on The Night House, The Empty Man, The Changeling, and Doctor Sleep over the last few days. It could just be that I have grief on the brain.) But first let me say that Hellraiser is fun and scary, and the cast is excellent. Jamie Clayton is fantastic as The Priest, smaller and more sinewy than Doug Bradley’s take on our beloved Pinhead. She’s implacable, and even more eerie? She feels even less likely to care about a human’s objection to becoming pulled pork. The rest of Cenobite crew is beautiful and frightening. And the humans are great, especially Odessa A’zion as the immediately compelling Riley, who has to throw a lot of emotion at the camera while covered in various levels of blood, tears, and snot.
The Hellraiser of 1987 was gross and squicky and grotesquely erotic. It put the “fluid” in genderfluid. Plotwise, it was a pitch-dark fairytale—Bland Dad marries Wicked Woman, Wicked Woman subjugates Wholesome Daughter, Bland Dad’s Evil Hedonist Brother comes back from the dead to run away with Wicked Stepmother, Wholesome Daughter fucks around with a puzzle box and accidentally calls the Cenobites onto our plane, Cenobites wreak havoc, Wholesome Daughter barely gets away—and isn’t so wholesome anymore.
The new take on Hellraiser is fascinating to me because it takes the bones of this story—person unwittingly fucks around with a puzzle box and calls the Cenobites—and infuses it with real grief and emotional depth. And what’s fascinating about that is that it doesn’t always work for me.
In honor of the sacred month of October, the Criterion Channel is hosting a whole festival’s worth of 80s horror films. I’ve had time to watch a few of them, and it just reminds me of the particular tone of a lot of that decade’s horror. Sometimes what you need for your story is over-the-top, gross-out, gooey body horror. Blood that looks like melted crayon. Bones and teeth bursting through skin. Eroticism where you least expect and don’t want to admit it.
The new Hellraiser doesn’t do that so much.
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It gives us Riley, who’s in recovery, and in a relationship with a guy named Trevor who seems to be trying to indulge his own habits while encouraging her to stay straight. Riley lives with her brother Matt, her brother’s boyfriend Colin, and their friend Nora. It’s implied that Matt had some substance issues of his own at one point, and he tends to treat Riley like he’s a cross between her big brother and her parole officer. Through a series of hijinks the five of them get entangled in a plot to call the Cenobites. Now I guess your mileage may vary, but I was instantly concerned for the group. All of the actors were great, I am always immediately ride or die for any character wrestling with addiction, especially when they’re in a film that acknowledges how good a relapse can feel, until it doesn’t. Matt and Colin are an adorable couple, Nora’s fun and deadpan, Trevor actually seems to want more than a fling from Riley. I’m rooting for all of them!
And that’s the problem! If I’m rooting for them how the hell can I root for the Cenobites to tear them apart? And this is the uncomfortable uncanny valley created by this reboot. One thing ’80s horror, especially Hellraiser, understood was that sometimes you want to watch a monster help a human explore the outer limits of sensation—i.e., rip the skin off of them so the makeup effects designers can explore the outer limits of fake blood and tendons. You want to watch nasty little people get their comeuppance. This is what the old Hellraiser excelled at—Bland Dad was bland as fuck! Who cares if he dies? Wicked Stepmother deserved what she got! Evil Uncle Frank deserved what he got with extra sour cream and guacamole. You could enjoy watching them all get eviscerated with very little guilt or worry for your own personal moral standing. You could root for Wholesome daughter while still being amused at her shock when she has to deal with the Cenobites. This poor innocent fawn has never even been to a decent leather bar—she has no point of reference for the universe of Clive Barker. But you could also root for her to ultimately get away, which, spoiler alert, she does! Everyone wins, and you don’t feel like you need a shower afterwards.
(At least I didn’t. YMMV.)
But this one! This one made me care about these five hapless mortals, so when the Cenobites start menacing them I found myself in the annoying position of not wanting to see flesh flayed from bone. (Mostly.) So as you can imagine this made for a weird viewing experience.
Everything with Debauched Rich Person Voigt and his assistant, Extremely Morally Compromised Serena, was great because they’re both awful. Serena could insist she was just doing her job all she wanted, but like find a new job. And Voigt is a gross rich man who non-consensually sacrifices sex workers to make deals with the Cenobite, so fuck him. When the Cenobites came for those I could lean into the body horror with no problem—honestly I wanted more. I really dug the giant clockwork gear that’s stuck through Voigt’s thorax, and I would’ve loved more close-up shots to really appreciate the practical effects. The shot we did get were a fine burst of classic Clive Barker squickiness. Which again, leads us to my critique. A few people on Twitter summed it up well by pointing out that this movie just isn’t wet enough. Clive Barker stories are supposed to be dripping with goo and viscera! A chorus of snapping tendons! Fountains of metaphorically-significant-but-also-real blood!
This Hellraiser is telling a different story. This story is about addiction, compulsion, loyalty, and consequences. It’s about sorrow that follows you through your life. It’s about reaching out to powers beyond you and not even knowing, exactly, what you want to ask for. It’s about making impossible choices. And it’s good! It really is, and I think a new generation of horror fans will dig it. I just wanted to feel a little slimier once it was over.
My milage definitely varies. Hellraiser is a movie I cannot watch. I’ve tried three times because I enjoyed Nightbreed and Candyman. I can’t get past the first 5 minutes and the skinless people. Maybe less wet is more my speed. Then again maybe not Cenobites freak me the f*** out. I’ll have to check and see if 80’s movies will show original Fright Night, Candyman, Lost boys, or Nightmare on Elm Street. 80’s movies make me nostalgic.
Its surely less gory then the original. I love the original film, and really missed the leaking bandaging smugding Julia’s lips with blood kind of thing. I think thats also what I miss most from the original film, the perverted frank/julia love story, wich takes up 1/3 of the film. The new film completely sidelines that in favor for a more straight up mystery of the box story, combined with poor riley blundering her way with the box killing peeps, and oh yeah because she has a drug problem (wow really?).
It also simplified the need why people want to play with the box, in the original it asks you “What is your pleasure?”, with the new film its more a sort of gamified level system.
I dunno I was a bit underwhelmed, still I think its better then any HR film after Hellbound so Im intrested where it goes next (if that happens).
I liked Hellraiser 1 and 2. This new entry might be better than the straight to video follow ups but not by much. They lost me right from the start. I didn’t like the lead actress so I felt no sympathy for what happens to her (and mostly because of the bad choices she makes). The new Pinhead was okay but I still prefer Doug Bradley.
Isn’t that like asking if we need a rom-com Phantasm?
As a fan if the book and the original movie, I absolutely had to watch this and I absolutely hated it. The whole story was bland and the effects and colors used made me think of a cell shaded video game. The story focus on the box could have been great considering the insane amount of detail into occultism the book described during creation of the box (actually, boxes). The lack of sex in the story was also disturbing as the original work is all about the thin veil between pleasure and agony. Cenobites are supposed to be both sexy and grotesque. None of them were that way to me and the Priest (Pinhead) was so overly talkative and did not command leadership the way Bradley portrayed it. The main character wasn’t relatable and was actually annoying. The original had a story of innocence lost with the main that was a great concept against the insane hedonism of everyone else. I hope they don’t make anymore and let the original work stand as it was. In fact, Hollywood should go back to making marvel movies for dad bods in O’Neil shirts and stop remaking horror (I’m looking at you, the Thing remake).
I love the Hellraiser movies and world, but I had definitely gotten to a place where news of another new Hellraiser brought on a cringe and a grimace. The news of a major reboot had been swirling for years, and when David Bruckner was confirmed my hopes began to rise. The Ritual is a horror masterpiece. Female Hell Priest played by Jamie Clayton, sure, I’ll give it a shot. When the trailers dropped my excitement surged. It looked really good.
It’s not the story I’d tell. I could’ve done without the stale trope of degenerate and decadent wealthy buffoon given over to collecting artifacts of forbidden black magic in order to satiate their jaded desires. I’d opt for a much more immersive experience, drown the audience in the vistas of hell, Leviathan’s labyrinth, and show us ever more forbidden sites upon the way.
BUT it is a fantastic restart to the Hellraiser world. I appreciated that it was anchored in a real world flavor of evil… the greatest appeal Hellraiser has is in rooting for the bad guys, so it surely made the first third of the film a rather slow burn for me, but I much appreciate a moment or two given to build characters and plot, so it wasn’t a drag. And yes, the films could be significantly wetter. With so much new lore I hope we get a sequel or two to explore.
When I was younger around 88 and the 90s I had the feeling Hellraiser’s cenobites could leave the screen and pull me in. It was just horryfying to imagine things could create a corridor where there is none, appear where there is no door, magically teleport chains from impossible entry points, the absurdity was a torture by itself to watch. With the 2024 remake I didn’t had none of that. Maybe because I’m older and the fantasy horror can’t get to me anymore, but most likely because the remake is just too nice. This version of Pinhead was so calm and relaxed I could smoke weed with her and talk about hell like its another monday. Cenobites can now die if they get stabbed by the box (not once called “LeMarchand” in the remake) the general feeling of this remake is the opposite of the original, where no one was safe, including the viewer.
Bad remake like all remakes.