MovieChat Forums > Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1988) Discussion > Hellraiser 1-4

Hellraiser 1-4

posted 8 years ago by melovell
5 replies | jump to latest

im watchin the Hellraisers again from when I first watched them when they came out. I had no idea that 9 had been made, so I watched them with excitement of seeing the infamous Pinhead,

Then I just watched episode 5 and 6, and Omgawd they are boring as hell, the story is all upon a single person and their story, and hardly about the Horror of Pinhead, He's barely even in these two episodes,

Now I'm like I have three more to watch 7-9 but yet I don't even wanna watch them as they are prob the same storyline as the last two I've seen, my Gawd man, why did they ruin this great movie :(

[–] HellboundHero 8 years ago

Even the first two Hellraiser movies were hardly all about the horror of Pinhead. First one was more about the horror of Frank and Julia, while Hellraiser II was about the horror of Julia and Channard. People watch the DTV movies and seem to have these false memories that every movie before Inferno were big Pinhead-fests with him killing a bunch of people like a Freddy Krueger wannabe, when that really only describes III and Bloodline to a lesser extent.

[–] kylopod 8 years ago

There's a categorical difference in the way Pinhead is handled in the first two films and the later DTV ones. He was originally intended to be a fairly minor character (he didn't even have a name in the first film), but after achieving cult status among fans, he was promoted to a starring role where he became, as you put it, a Freddy wannabe. The fifth and sixth films were examples of what TV Tropes calls Dolled Up Installments--they were both low-rent ripoffs of Jacob's Ladder that had nothing in particular to do with the Hellraiser series, but then some enterprising producers added about five minutes of Pinhead, the puzzle box, etc., so that they could be marketed as Hellraiser "sequels." It's different from the first two films, where Pinhead may have had relatively little screen time but was still integral to the story in a way he wasn't in the DTV films. And it wasn't just Pinhead; the entire universe of the Cenobites had a tagged-on feel in these later sequels.

[–] HellboundHero 8 years ago

I really don't know where the rumor comes from that ALL the DTV sequels were based on unrelated spec scripts, because the only ones I know of that were ever confirmed to be were Deader and Hellworld. Deader was a script by Neil Marshall Stephens who wrote 13 Ghosts, and he was livid over Deader being turned into a Hellraiser movie. Hellworld was a treatment called Dark Can't Breathe, written by Joel Soisson.

Scott Derrickson, co-writer and director of Hellraiser: Inferno has always maintained that the script was a Hellraiser story from the beginning. It's possible that he may have based it on an unused concept of his, but it sounds to me like it became a Hellraiser movie very early on rather than a hastily converted spec script.

Hellseeker seems to be a total enigma. The only thing I know about it is originally didn't involve Kirsty Cotton, that the wife of Trevor was a brand new character with no history with Pinhead. Other than that, I've never seen any quotes or interviews confirming exactly what Hellseeker was at its inception.

I honestly believe the notion that Inferno and Hellseeker were originally not Hellraiser movies was a rumor started by fans and critics who watched it and were disappointed to find how little screen time Pinhead had, and the relative lack of gore. Of course, if it was a rumor, it turned out to at least be true of Deader and Hellworld. But if the people behind these movies were so open about 7 and 8's origins, why is there almost no talk about the origins of 5 and 6?

[–] kylopod 8 years ago

Whatever the origin of Inferno and Hellseeker, the fact is that both movies were heavily lacking not just in Pinhead, but in practically the entire mythos of the Cenobites that the earlier segments of the series were based on. They were mostly psychological horror with elements taken from a lot of outside sources (Jacob's Ladder, detective noirs, even Groundhog Day) with the Cenobite stuff kept to a minimum, making it seem tacked on.

Furthermore, I think the series at this point strayed heavily from its original premise by presenting the Cenobite realm as a place where the dead were being punished for their sins. If you look at the original film (as well as the short story it was based on), the realm is never even referred to as "Hell," the inhabitants come there alive and mostly voluntarily (even if they don't realize what they're getting themselves into), and the Cenobites themselves are basically a kind of supernatural sadomasochistic cult from another dimension. And while the second film does start using the word "Hell" to describe the realm, it still remains pretty far from the traditional Western concept of Hell.

By Inferno and Hellseeker, the original concept had made way for simplistic religious fables about sinners reaping what they sowed in the afterlife. Whether these installments were actually conceived as Hellraiser stories from the start or not isn't the point. One way or another, they didn't have a whole lot of the original conception of the series in them, and you wouldn't have had to change a lot to turn them into something totally different.

[–] hurricanehorton 8 years ago

Hellseeker seems to be a total enigma. The only thing I know about it is originally didn't involve Kirsty Cotton, that the wife of Trevor was a brand new character with no history with Pinhead. Other than that, I've never seen any quotes or interviews confirming exactly what Hellseeker was at its inception.

Not sure whether it's true, mainly because I can't remember where I heard it. But wasn't she supposed to be an unrelated character, but also called Kirsty? Ashley Laurence auditioned for the role, so they changed the script so she was the original Kirsty, and not just some other person who happened to have the same first name?

I actually think it was originally intended to be a tribute/nod to the first two movies, before the original actress returned.