QUANTITY
MAGAZINE

Welcome back to Devin's overview of the Hellraiser franchise. In our first installment, we covered Barker's originating novella, the first four movies, and the two long-running comic series from Boom! Studios and Epic. This installment covers the franchise's direct-to-video era (movies 5–8) and the Scarlet Gospels book. Next issue's final installment will bridge the franchise's years of famine and flush, covering the two contractually-mandated zero-budget movies 9 and 10; a sampling of the fascinating apocrypha generated by the fandom; and the sumptuous 2022 Prestige Horror reboot.

D2V, Baby!!!

The budgets for movies 5–8 were smaller, but not as drastically as you may expect: Movies 3 and 4 (Hell on Earth and Bloodline) got 5m and 4m, respectively; movies 5-8 (Inferno, Hellseeker, Deader, and Hellworld) each got between 2m and 3m.

There's conflicting first-hand accounts about whether some (or all) the D2Vs were adapted from existing spec scripts, with screenwriters casually sprinkling some Hellraiser elements into the mix. The plots of these movies would generally operate just fine without the cenobites; in Hellworld, their presence is pure set-dressing. One fascinating aspect of this script shenanigans is that we end up with more variation in terms of genre, aesthetics, and tone than a typical slasher franchise. Sequentially, we get a neo-noir, a Memento-esq amnesia thriller, a post-Hostel Eastern Bloc-sploitation flick, and -- yes, it's true! -- a Scream-esq meta-horror/comedy. In this way, the D2V movies are akin to the Epic comic anthologies in their kaleidoscopic take on what the core concepts of Hellraiser are.

Perhaps responding to the realities of their smaller budgets, the D2Vs reel in the outlandish scope creep of movies 2–4 (e.g. Hellraiser iiinnn ssspppaaaaccceeee). They stick close to the needs and troubles of their protagoinsts and the stakes remain personal throughout. In some ways, this is a realignment toward the first movie and its compact family drama. This scope retraction reaches its zenith with the first of the two $300k oddballs, the truly bizarre Revelations... but that's a story for next issue.

V: Inferno and VI: Hell-Stinker (lol gottem!)

Inferno's opening minutes are outstanding. By the time we hit the instigating event (a gory crime scene where the puzzle box is found), we have a perfect little thumbnail sketch of our protagonist (Detective Throne) and his filmic universe: A technocolor neo-noir, complete with the classic voiceover by our hard-boiled detective who sees all the angles and bends all the rules. But unfortunately, the opening's smooth concision is rapidly lost in this uneven, meandering movie. First-time director Scott Derekson innagurates Hellraiser's D2V era by embracing the medium's ability to stretch out a bit, sprinkling unusual little editing touches, transitions, and framing choices throughout. In combination with the over-saturated color palette, the net effect is sometimes music-video-esq. (One of the areas where the budget cuts are unfortunately obvious is the soundtrack. While the modern tracks are fine, the orchestral tracks are straight-up awful 2000s synth -- the horns are particularly outrageous.)

The core of Detective Thorne's character is his constant engagement with moral ambiguity, so Inferno's choice of the noir genre is astute: Like any classic noir protagonist, he finds himself doing the wrong thing for the right reasons, or vice-versa. Raymond Chandler's famous plot curlique-ing is translated here to Thorne's obsessive search for "The Engineer," which leads him through tattoo parlors, a shady ice cream truck, his parents' assisted living facility, and a cowboy poker hall — an obscure nod to the first Epic! anthology. (Side note: Inferno's take on noir actually harkens more to the "one man army" school of 1940s pulps, through which violence is sometimes a means for readers, often returning vets, to digest their otherwise-undiscussable ambivalence about their role in WWII. This style of noir was often bowlderized in film, and eventually gave way to the more psychologically potent and tension-based works of the '50s and '60s.) As Thorne's obsession deepens, the Cenobites confront him with their violent judgement on his moral compromises, until-- Surprise! He's been dead the whole time! Suck it, RogerEbert.com!!

Speaking of sucking, VI: Hellseeker is -- straight-up -- the worst movie in the franchise. Some of the later D2Vs are objectively bad movies, but VI: Hellseeker commits the cardinal sin: it is a boring movie. Its 1:29 runtime (including credits) feels like ten solid hours as we slog through a wobbly amnesia plot with a wet fish protagonist doing the filmic equivalent of Dua Lipa’s "go girl, give us nothing."

Infuriatingly, VI: Hellseeker brings back Kristi Cotton, only to table her for almost the entire movie -- so we're stuck with Mr. Wet Fish, who, because of his amnesia, is purely reactive the entire time. Things just, like, happen to him: He's at work! His work buddy is conspiratorial! He's at the apartment! His neighbor throws herself at him! He's with the cops! They're suspicious! He's at work! His Boss throws herself at him! He's at home, halucinating! There's no transitions, just poof! uh oh! Something is happening to the protagonist again, until-- Surprise! He's been dead the whole time! Suck it AGAIN, RogerEbert.com!!

This movie is horseshit. Avoid at all costs.

The Scarlet Gospels

Speaking of avoiding at all costs -- I kid, I kid -- this is perhaps a good time to talk about the second full-on Hellariser book, The Scarlet Gospels. Published in 2015, 29 years after the original Hellbound Heart novella, The Scarlet Gospels is really more of a Harry D'Amour book than a Hellraiser book. To recap from Part 1, D'Amour is "Philip Marlowe by way of Clive Barker:" a hard-boiled PI with a penchant for running into the supernatural. Barker introduced D'Amour in several shorts stories collected in the Books of Blood series; He plays a major role in the lore-heavy Boom! Studios comics; And is the main character in Barker's 1995 movie "Lord of Illusions." (Continuity-wise, The Scarlet Gospels exists separately from all of these.)

Perhaps due to D'Amour's origin in these other contexts, the tone and tenor of Gospels is 180° away from the Hellbound Heart, and not in the flattering direction. There's some online speculation that this book was ghostwritten (in full or in part) by Barker’s frequent collaborator Mark Alan Miller, who wrote the 2018 follow-up novella "The Toll," which bridges Hellbound Heart and Gospels.

Not only does The Scarlet Gospels feature riviting prose, such as...

"Nobody touched your god-damned box," D'Amour said. "You shouldn't be here."

"I no longer have need for the box and its games," the Hell Priest said. "I have begun my sublime labor."

"What in fuck's fuck are you talking about?" said Harry, tightening his grip on the knife Caz had given him.

...but it also features several straight-up editing errors. For example, the phrase "charnel house" has been erroneously auto-corrected to "channel house" and no one bothered to revert it. (I read the ebook on Hoopla, it's possible this was a digitization error.) The book's handling of queer characters is also unexpectedly clunky: The Gay characters are mincing and catty, and there's some transphobic stuff randomly thrown in there. As a reader, it was unclear how this was intended: A generous interpretation might be the queering the traditionally-hetereomasculine transgressive/problematic elements of hard-boiled crime fiction -- the hero "slaps around a dame,” uses outdated slurs like "wop," that sort of thing -- or a self-aware transgression of the 2010s-era respectability politics of queer representation? But honestly, the vibe was just kinda off.

While not canonically connected to the Boom! Studio comics, Scarlet Gospel's plot shares their narrative tendencies: Pinhead, after amassing Humanity’s magical powers, makes a play for control of Hell, while D'Amour and his rag-tag crew venture down to rescue one of their own. Scope creep continually bloats both the settings and action, until legions of demons are casually laid to waste as Pinhead battles Lucifer himself inside a massive steampunk cathedral. As I've mentioned, this kind of plot just isn't my cup of tea -- you seen one climatic fate-of-the-world battle, you seen 'em all.

VI: Deader and VIII: Hellworld

Movies 6–8 (Hellseeker, Deader, and Hellworld) were all directed by Rick Bota, but they're rather distinct from one another. Each has a unique look and feel, and responds, broadly, to certain popular films. VI: Hellseeker’s amnesia plot and office/violence combo are Fight Club-esq, while VII: Deader’s Romanian setting is a nod to Hostel, and VIII: Hellworld is a meta-horror/comedy a'la Scream. VII: Deader and VIII: Hellworld -- both released 2005, btw 😬 -- absolutely feel like spec scripts with Hellraiser stuff tacked on: In both, the cenobites don't meaningfully move the plot forward and could easily be swapped for any generic monsters.

VII: Deader is the best of the Bota-directed movies, and IMO the best of the D2Vs. Much credit goes to Kari Wuhrer, who delivers a better-than-it-needs-to-be performance as Amy Klein: Badass chainsmoking Riot Grrrl reporter for a sleazy UK alt weekly. After Mr. Wet Fish Amnesiac, our rough-n-ready, gives-no-fucks protagonist is a breath of fresh air -- and bucking the D2V trend of scattershot or deeply flawed protagonists, is someone the audience can actually empathize with, even with her rough edges.

Like Inferno, this movie's opening 15 minutes are beat-perfect, deftly sweeping us into the mise en scene and depositing Amy Klein in Romania, hot on the trail of a group called the "Deaders" -- basically Flatliners on steroids -- and their enigmatic leader Winter. Thus begins her terrifying odysee into cockroach-ridden squats, sewers, suppressed childhood trauma, etc.

Deader returns to Hellraiser's original concern with how desire drives people, though this time the desire is intellectual rather than physical. There's a great little scene where Amy's deliciously campy editor bails her out of a Romanian jail and lays out this Faustian impulse explicitly. Time and again, Amy has the ability to simply let it go and walk away... but she can't help herself until she's in too deep. It's not a great movie, but it's fun, watchable for what it is, and honestly everyone looks like they're having a good time with the shoot.

You might be forgiven for seeing the cover of VIII: Hellworld and its logline "EVIL GOES ONLINE," and expecting some kind of Lawnmower Man- or Matrix-style virtual reality situation... but Rick Bota once again throws us a curveball. Hot on the heels of the Scream franchise, VIII: Hellworld is a meta-horror/comedy which posits a world in which both the Hellraiser movies AND the actual cenobites exist? It's definitely the weirdest movie in the franchise -- IMDB's trivia section tells us it has a "record-setting 92 instances of product placement of a single product, the Nokia 3310."

The setup: There's a Hellraiser MMORPG called Hellworld, which a group of college friends are into. After solving an in-game puzzle, they get an invitation to a Hellworld party, thrown at a big ol' mansion in the woods and hosted by Bishop from Aliens. (Disappointingly, you only get to see the video game for like a minute or two.) The friends split up, but keep in touch via the aforementioned Nokias given to every party-goer. The spooky party gets spooky for realsies, and every character makes increasingly poor decisions until-- Surprise! They were actually drugged and hallucinating while buried alive (?????) the whole time!!

Un-surprisingly, this movie is schlocky as all get-out. The college party setting gives the filmmakers free reign for gratuitous nudity, while the mansion -- wait, did I mention the mansion used to be an insane asylum built by puzzle box-maker Phillip Marchand and run by abusive nuns? -- includes a basement full of spoopy funhouse horror props likely left over from other films. The script sounds like it was written by a 14-year-old and the actor's line readings range from stilted to laughable. Ostensibly, the emotional arc of the movie concerns the friend group processing their collective and individual guilt over a friend's suicide -- but given how goofy the rest of the movie is, there's no way this rather serious topic would go unfumbled.

And yet-- And yet-- I just can't bring myself to hate this movie. It didn't cross my personal so-bad-it's-good threshold (which is, of course, subjective), but even so, I found it captivating in a "wtf even is this??" kind of way. One of the things I like about the Hellraiser franchise's non-linearity and stylistic capaciousness is that it allows for this kind of experimentation, even if the end result falls completely flat. On Rotten Tomatoes, Hellworld has a 0% critic score and a 22% audience score, which feels about right. There's a strong chance that even serious fans of the first Hellraiser have never seen this one -- if you or your friends fall into this category, idk maybe get silly and make a night of it.

Slippage

Given the shrinking budgets and D2V context, a dip in quality is perhaps to be expected... but perhaps as a side-effect of the script pastiching, these movies increasingly indulge in what I consider the series' worst tendency: The increasing slippage of reality.

The original Hellraiser contains exactly one dream sequence, clearly demarkated by establishing shots and classic filmic indicators: Soft focus, slow motion, etc. III: Hell on Earth includes recurring dream sequences which function as expo dumps, but again, they're clearly delineated: Our protagonist appears in her nightgown (classy!) and clearly understands she's dreaming.

One of strengths of the first two movies is watching how the human characters react to the Cenobites and the supernatural horrors in their wake: Frank and Julia's resurrections in Hellraiser I and II include some fantastic acting from the characters witnessing these resurrection, horrified and spellbound at seeing something beyond the limits of reality and struggling to reconcile themselves to this new situation.

Because of the D2V's embrace of lazy horror tropes and last-minute twists, the Cenobites increasingly appear in moments of extreme violence jump-cutting into normalcy -- "Was it real or just in my head?" our panicked protagonist wonders as the adrenaline shock wears off. In VII: Deader, when protagonist Anna first opens the Puzzle Box, chains shoot out and snag her face; but in a flash, everything returns to normal, her face undamaged, the box closed. Was it all just a dream? After her encounter with Joey in the hedonistic subway car, White jumps in front of a train... or did he? A man stabs her in the arm... or did he?? White zips across the room, the Deaders hold her down... or do they??? (Interestingly, when her stabbed-through-the-back moment is revealed to be objectively real, we get one of the most potent scenes in the film, as she cleans her blood from the restroom. See? Real is good!)

These slippages sometimes occur in earlier movies: For example in II: Hellbound when Kristy sees the skinless body in the assylum -- but even then, while the body dissapears, its messages written in blood remains on the wall, clearly indicating the _objective_ reality of the event. As the series continues, more of these horrific moments are framed as subjective experiences, and the increasing reliance on "unreal" moments bend these movies into genercism. The plot of the first film was that, when confronted with their terrible new reality, the characters then make the conscious decision to proceed anyway. Docotor Channard's plot in the first half of II: Hellbound follows this same pattern, facilitating some solid acting performances by the Doctor and Julia. The time and space the doctor requires to decide to proceed with this new reality is rewarded in the second half of the film, as Julia betrays him to Leviathan, cluminating in his final statement, "And to think, I hesitated...”

Tune In Next Week For The Riveting Conclusion!!!