What the HELL happened to HELLRAISER V INFERNO!!!

Hellraiser Inferno

For better or worse, Hellraiser was entering into the new phases of its life.

The once beloved franchise was discarded to its own personal hell, direct to video releasing. No longer would fans line up to see what they did with the series, instead you had to follow Fangoria or the growing collection of newsgroups alerting people to the films. It was incredibly disheartening and as a fan it killed you inside. Because there was still love for these films. But knowing it was severely mishandled and robbed of the same gory glory Michael, Jason, Freddy and hell even Leatherface and Chucky were riding on. It just sucks man.

Worst of all was the quick realization that befell fans as they started discovering these new sequels. That each one wasn’t a Hellraiser written film, but a film with hellraiser inserted into it. Mind you this isn’t anything new. Studios do this often and its still done to varying degrees today. The most recent one I can think of off the top of my head was The Cloverfield Paradox, originally it was an independent science fiction film J.J. Abrams Bad Robot acquired the writes and re-tooled the film during its production and reshoots to insert the Cloverfield name, monster and bits of story to connect it with his films. That wasn’t the first time either. They did the same thing with their much more popular film 10 Cloverfield Lane, that originally was called The Cellar and was a tense thriller about a woman kidnapped by a crazed doomsday prepper. They just added the alien element and wham. Cloverfield Universe.

Covering Nicholas Cage films we learned the sequel to 8mm also suffered the same. The studio had a direct to video film that would likely do ‘okay’ but given the success of 8mm, adding the name to it and branding the film as a sequel, that could help its box office.

It’s all about gambling.

When you visited Blockbuster, and early video stores. The walls were lined with three types of films. Blockbuster big released from the theater. Classics everyone would go for, and slop. Usually those slop films were the bread and butter of studios to pump out. Like erotic crime dramas, crooked cop stories, science fiction and especially horror. Someone would always give those a try, it’s essentially what Tubi has become, and it’s why I wrote reviews. Being subjected to the trash like a raccoon looking for a piece of steak, you have to go through a lot of filth to find it, but when you do. Oh man is it nice.

It’s just unfortunate Hellraiser was now swimming with the slop, when had it been handled better. It could have either had a graceful ending with the intended part 4, or given care with its story. It could have gone different places. But here we are, a hell even the cenobites couldn’t escape, and eventually died out.

So the story of this one, as retooled by the studio?

This film follows the adventures of corrupt junky puzzle solving happy detective Joseph Thorne. He’s hot into the case of a new killer ritualistically killing people and leaving childrens fingers at crime scenes. During his investigation he stumbled upon an odd puzzle box, which he decides to solve because. Well it’s a puzzle box and he’s established as being obsessed with puzzles.

This leads him into some vague, semi sexual and lightly bloody dreams of making out with two hot faceless chicks fingering his chest. Because some people are into special things and we don’t judge them, to their face.

Pretty soon anyone this puzzled detective associates with, ends up brutally, ritualistically murdered. Found again with the finger of a child. Of course this would temper his career and what remains of his reputation, so he spends some good time cleaning up any signs of his having visited these people before they die. As he delves deeper into this murder mystery he uncovers the killer, someone known simply as “The Engineer”, a terrifying figure people are too scared to talk about but all have heard stories about.

As the film progresses and his investigation leads him from hookers, to blow, to informants, to booger sugar, to drug dealer connections, to crystal smile powder. He begins losing more of his sanity. Seeing hellish visions of demons, a figure adorned in leather and nice slacks. Beating, slashing, and whipping them like they’re making a meringue. The closer he gets, the more reality blurs and the more people die. This literally just keeps happening but he’s coked to the gills and keeps going down the rabbit hole.

No one believes the man and his visions, he’s a loose cannon. A man on the edge and he’s needing a break. But he’s just too damn good of a cop. As he struggles with visions, itchy teeth and people around him dying. He’s told by his captain to go talk to the police departments head shrink. Who is very welcoming and ready to help him. It’s a paint by numbers story you can kind of see where it’s all going. Only it’s had Hellraiser shoved into it, so it’s not going to end up with him being the killer at the end, or meeting a bunch of BDSM killers holding a fingerless child hostage for fun.  Instead as everyone he knows, cared about and screwed over are finally dead, he decides maybe it’s time to visit the doctor and let him tell me I’m not going crazy.

Thankfully the board certified doctor calms him down and explains he in fact is not crazy. He’s a little over worked but not at all crazy. The man just loves his nose candy. He also explains that he knows of the engineer. As a manifestation of an over worked coked up detective, who also stumbled upon a puzzle box which vanished from evidence. Which sounds oddly familiar and especially when our bloody nosed detective produces the box. But that’s nothing to think too much on, it’s just a huge chunk of foreshadowing.

As all hardened, drug abusing, drinking, corrupt, whore mongering detectives discover, the best medicine when your going insane is to finally head home to the wife and kid you have and never see. Sadly he’s so far gone this doesn’t comfort him. As it only ever serves any hardened detective to send them back out on the street and back on the trail. Well that and his wife tells him about a phonecall she got from his mom saying she was with a friend of his claiming to be some sort of engineer.

Yep, they’re now dead too. The mom and dad he never visited in the hospital are now victims of the ever elusive tricky Mr. Engineer.

Or at least that’s what he THOUGHT!!! Yes he suddenly wakes up on his entirely too small marital bed only to have his wife startled and tell him while he slept, his mother called saying they had a visitor, a friend of his-you get the picture. Reality blurring etc, etc. Well he goes again to the hospital. His parents are indeed dead, and there is another two kids fingers left by the engineer.

Well the movie keeps circling around repeating itself because it’s just that creative, and ultimately we get to our finale. Jospeh discovers his Doctor he vaguely talked to once, told him all about the box and the engineer coming from a coked out detective chasing a murderer, is in fact not a doctor of the mind, but a doctor of pain. The doctor is revealed to be Pinhead. Yes he finally made an appearance in the movie. Only to deliver 3 or so lines before walking off and leaving Joseph to further ponder what even is reality, and just what the hell is going on. That’s the simple part surprisingly. If no one figured it out already. Joseph is in hell. His own hell. Jospeh solved the puzzlebox and was killed when he did. Bringing him to a psychological never ending hell of the mind. Where he watches people around him die, loved ones tortured and worst of all the cocaine wasn’t even real, it was just baby powder!

That’s our film. No one was being murdered for real, no one was cutting kids fingers off. The bun was in his mind the whole time and he’s been suffering in hell. Honestly it did make me laugh because we see his parents he abandoned to a hospital turn their kill switch on and try to kill their son. He blows them away with his shotgun and zero hesitation, but the moment his partner shows up and starts chucking knifes at him, he’s willing to let him throw several at him while pleading to stop. Even in death he didn’t care for moms cookies and dads love.

So yes, that’s the movie.

The man died solving the box, his evil and sin was the engineer given form in hell, and Pinhead shows up so he can explain it all to us. Appearing in the film to deliver his lines and send hooks and chains toward Joseph making it an official Hellraiser entry.

It’s not, the worst of these direct to video sequels. It’s an interesting idea, that plays off more as something you would see in a fan made movie or at the worst, a Hellraiser TV series. Honestly it plays off like the tongue in cheek Freddy’s Nightmares series. Just done with a little more attempted seriousness.

To say it was an odd experience for hellraiser fans that decided to stick around after Bloodline. Well. It is that. But it also served as a strict reminder, much like Joseph learned in his new eternity to repeatedly suffer over and over the same fate, the same story. That this was now the hell fans were going to endure. Odd stories with glimpses of cenobites and a special guest appearance from Pinhead.

It doesn’t help, or say much for that matter. That rewatching this and the others? I only remembered one murder scene, and Pinhead in the snow. It’s not because the film is forgettable. Which it really is, that only contributes to it. It’s the fact that every one of these films, seems to blur into the next and repeat itself almost. Like a predictable Dungeon Master who had one good campaign and keeps reusing his favorite creatures and story, just poorly repeating the campaign and everyone being tired of it. `                However the film is a good honest attempt at its story. It just got fucked over by the studio when it was retooled as a Hellraiser film.

I really do mean that. The very interesting part of this film and my solid belief it was good at one time? Is that this was the directorial debut of Scott Derrickson. The first movie of his I saw was one I heard about because of my fondness for the fun revies written by Robert Cargill who the internet knew as Massawyrm. He actually is the reviewer who got me into the idea of writing reviews and doing so in my way. The two became good friends and ended up working on together and releasing SINISTER, one of my favorite films I wish we got more of.

He also might be more known to Marvel fans as the man who directed Doctor Strange or another good solo watch if you ignore the sequel. Black Phone.

This now upsets me. Because even MORE SO this would be a fun idea to see the movie he intended to make! Shit like this makes it frustrating and the idea of having your first gig and a script/story you liked, wanting to sink your teeth into. Gets pulled back and redone while your already into preproduction. I mean. Yeah that’s fucked.

To make matters worse, or at the very least interesting. There was an honest attempt before this at an original Hellraiser story.

Now originally they revisited another idea. That barker had backed, Atkins thought had legs, and now was being pinned by two different writers. The film was Hellraiser: Hellfire. It was written as a large scale epic. It would bring back Kirsty Cotton and her involvement with a cult devoted to Leviathan and the box trying their best to locate the configurations and use them to enclose London in a city-sized Lament configuration. Kirsty would once more be drawn into the world of the cenobites and save the lives of all in London. It’s almost funny that this idea just would not die. They kept coming back to it, At least this time it didn’t involve Julia or recasting the actress still happy to be removed from the series since the end of Hellbound.

It’s also worth noting that early on? Clive Barker attempted reconciling things with the studio. The two had reached out to one another and considered a collaboration on the 5th film. Barker proposed what he always had. A return to the original roots of Hellraiser, bring in deals with devils, sexual flesh taring demons and more of hells mythology. Bring it back to the lore and source while creating something new for the fans.

The studio reminded Barker, that they were not going to stray away from their last designs for the franchise. They still wanted what they gutted the last production to get. A quickly shot, down and dirty commercial horror slasher under 80 minutes. Clive was less than pleased and walked away.

The studio was not going to deal with him any longer. No one knows what happened at this meeting, and what was clearly said. What we do know, however. Is that the studio reacted how they showed they handled things before.

The banished Barker. Not sacked, not dropped. They black listed him. He would no longer have his name attached to the films, never wear a producers title or have anything to say OR do with anything related to Hellraiser. To be fair, the man sold the rights to the franchise and his characters back with the first film. But they respected him and New World kept him on and heavily involved. They all learned having his name attached helped with selling the film, and once he was attached he would help in any way he could. I mean they brought the man in to safe Hell on Earth. But no. They were done with him completely and he was removed indefinitely. Resigned to watch what they did to his creations with the rest of the audience. Who also wasn’t watching anymore.

Whatever he intended to pitch, we would never know and they didn’t care.

In the end, Derrickson and co-writer Paul Harris had planned on and wrote a noir style psychological crime thriller focused on a corrupt detective.

This is worth noting because what we know of the script. Well. I’ll let you figure it out.

Their detective film followed an unlikable drug abusing, hooker loving detective who couldn’t stand to look at his family knowing what he did to them, and no one in his department liked. Fallen from grace and seen as a shadow of himself. He investigates a string of bizarre ritualistic murders, leading him to a strange figure known as The Engineer. Who kidnaps a child and begins sending fingers to the detective. As the investigation deepens Thorne goes more paranoid and suffers a psychotic break leading to haunting visions, hallucinations of faceless beings, chasing down the engineer as his friends, family and partner eventually end up dead. The twist ending has him finding the engineer, shooting and confronting them only to discover. He was the engineer, that. There was no engineer. The kidnapped child was his innocence, taken by the engineer, his sins and crimes, taring it apart and torturing himself. Think Jacob’s Latter Meets Seven.

Dimension films, saw this, and thought. Lets use this. They did not ask Scott to make a Hellraiser film out of this. They never suggested it. They told Scott flat out. He was going to shoehorn Pinhead into this, and it was now going to be a Hellraiser film.

This was confirmed by Doug Bradley. He shared that the studio did in fact tell them a Godfather like deal where, either Pinhead would be forced into your film, or you’ll never work for another studio again.

So, given the script, and production having moved along already. They did as forced. The source of the hallucinations was changed to the puzzle box. The puzzle box was added into the ritual murder, and his psychiatrist no longer explains that all of this was created by his broken mind, but instead transforms into Pinhead explaining this was all a game in the mans hell, as he was the one found dead having solved the box.

The engineer funny enough, was left as just that. Because it was the one key they saw as their opening to fit Hellraiser into the film, as Hellraiser famously had an engineer in both the original book and films. As Vader once said, All too easy.

Pinhead appears for a grand total of 10 minutes in the film, by the way. I mean what else do you expect for nothing? A rubber biscuit?

To no ones surprise, least of all given the historic shit show the production of Bloodlines provided. There was no shortage of studio interference and drama. Including for one of the first times, Doug Bradley. It wasn’t really that well known at the time by many. But few fans new this about him. Doug took very seriously his character and always looked out for the fans. He really is a good man and has fought before when fans aren’t given what they expect when he makes appearances. The man needs to eat, but he also wants to make sure you enjoy yourself otherwise no one would come. He had what we can call a Mark Hamill moment. He heavily questioned the script, knowing it was being forced into something it wasn’t was, one thing on its own. But then discovering you wont even give room in the budget for his character, THE lead cenobite of the franchise you plaster on all the posters. Well it made him question why the fuck have him sit in makeup for hours if you just use him for two scenes and ten minutes of dialog? On top of that he fundamentally was against what they were doing with Pinhead as a character. The man was good friends with Clive and cared about the lore attached to him. Bless him.

The problem he had coincidentally, was the problem fans had as well with the film. Not just his lack of presence given these had been made by Dimension to BE Pinhead films, but his core character changed. Pinhead and the cenobites had a purpose in hell. They answered the call of the configuration. Punishing the ignorant who found and solved the box, and delivering pleasure to those who sought new experiences. The problem was that the cenobites being as pinhead said himself, explorers in the further regions of experience. This meant when you tell them you want to experience the ultimate orgasm. It’s the same as saying you want to know everything. It makes sense to you, you want to be the smartest person in the room with all the answers. When you tell this to beings who have experienced things we can’t even comprehend, over an eternity. Knowing everything will destroy your mind. Frank Cotton was tired of this world and wanted new experiences. He was told the box could deliver pleasures like nothing he’d known. In the book he flat out says he wanted sex. The cenobites gave him every experience, ever fetish from vanilla to the most extreme all at once, and when that was done? They took out their own pleasure on him, torture, flaying and trapping his soul. They took no sides and judged no one. Their job was a simple task.

In this film Pinhead played the moral police. Judging the detective for his failures and forsaking the life he was given. The detective is tortured for his sins. His infidelity, taking bribes, doing drugs. The studio however didn’t give a shit, They just needed a close up of Doug as Pinhead growling out “Welcome, to Hell” cue the music, pull apart the body, end scene.

This also is why Clive Barker openly bashed the film and called the whole thing an absolute abomination.

Upon further digging, it was soon pointed out exactly why this happened. It wasn’t just the writers pushing to add a character and franchise they had no idea about. It was the studio. Again.

Paur Boardman the screenwriter admitted the studio explicitly told him to ignore the rules of the franchise. He was told by the studio, and when asking for notes told by executives to write the film. A hellraiser sequel. For people with no history with the franchise, people who wouldn’t worry about the other 4 films and had expectations. Just put the man with pins in his head from hell in the movie.

The studio was just getting started. But, as a reminder. This was also a direct to video film. Which has a different production as the studio is not likely to burn it all down like they did with the last theatrical outing. Instead they only start a few fires.

But the ones they started. They raise a lot of questions. Shall we begin?

Firstly there was the budget. Direct to video means smaller budgets and quicker turn around. Usually. Bloodline was given $4 million to work with. This film was given half of that. $2 million for the project.

Now, this would seem doable. Honestly it would be. However, think of it like checking your bank account. You got paid, you want to pre-order GTA 6 because you are a filthy animal that would, but you need to make sure you have enough in your account for gas, good and bills. You know you did overtime so you should have more than enough to cover things and treat yourself. You check the balance and it says $600 deposited. Wonderful! GTA! GTA! GTA!

Then you look and see “Available Balance” $400. Well. That’s still not bad, you can cover the basics, cut down groceries and…then you see “Actual Balance”, and it drops down to $215. Because you had other charges waiting to go through. Things you thought had been paid off were just now being charged, and you now have to decide do you go to McDonalds and pay to keep the lights on, or do you order GTA 6 and sit in the dark.

If it helps? There was a time in my fandom life that I wrote a bad check for the first trilogy release of the original Star Wars films on DVD.

I digress…

The budget was $2 million. Until taxes, union pay, corporate pay outs and the studio needing to keep their lights on. So the budget was much smaller. Which again happens with direct to video and well, not their fault really. Your filming in LA, gotta pay for the permits. Cameras, catering, transportation, insurance, rentals etc.

However. For some odd reason. Which the director questioned, in fact two direct departments heavily questioned. The film was given fifty thousand dollars as their special effects budget.

A franchise, known for its heavy special effects and especially its make up effects. Was given a laughable insult of a budget. On purpose.

Again remember this film was given the go ahead as a psychological cop drama. It didn’t need a stellar budget let alone much of anything for special effects and makeup. It just needed suits, cars and stunt guns with a dash of blood.

So forcing a greenlit cop drama into a horror isn’t going to work for your budget. Do you fix it? No. Do you reallocate funds? Oh hell no. Did they offer a change, an alternative, a fix or even a deal? No of course not. So then why? Why force the wrong budget on a film that’s whole genre demands a larger budget specifically for these two departments? They did it on purpose.

Dimension purposely gave them an absolute direct insult of a budget because much like they did with the idea of retrofitting Hellraiser into a cop drama, they were going to further gamble. The effects supervisor on this film was Gary Tunnicliffe. A man who took immense pride in his work. The gamble was, knowing how he was about his work being represented on screen. His reputation and genuine care. If they purposely cut the budget to an absolutely no way it can happen number. Maybe he’d offer to do it for free?

They were right. Unfortunately the man was not going to let a bad production get released. He worked entirely for free. His paycheck went into the needed supplies and his crew. Dimension gambled and got Hollywood level effects and cenobite designs, for free. They weaponized the crews artistic integrity and pride in their work against them and it paid off.

Now, this might explain why the visual effects looked bad. Why the transformation from Psychologist to Pinhead looks cheesy and video game like. Why the elongated black demon tongues looked shitty. But that’s honestly just direct to video results. If you’ve ever rented or played a game of chance on tubi with a direct to streaming movie. You’ll notice this trend. Box art or posters that look better than the film itself and promise something you never see or get, Poor effects and acting, with one big scene or effects shot. That’s direct to video.

As long as Pinhead looked like the cenobite he is. The rest of the film could look like dog shit and that would be standard for home television viewing.

So, working for a studio gutting your budget, forcing crews to work for free, and telling the writer fuck the fans write what we tell you. Taking your first film and forcing you to abandon your project for their own. You would think that might demotivate people. You would be greatly correct.

The studio was aware of this, and they had a plan.

Oh they had a plan.

What would make a makeup supervisor work for free, to ensure his production looked top tier  on screen? What would make a young director push himself to give his all on his first directorial film?

One of the older, and dirtier tricks called, Putting the carrot before the horse.

The studio never directly promised. Or put in writing. Never even put on paper, that this film would see a theatrical screen. But they did hint at it. Canon Films famously did this with some of their projects. Famously they kept hyping up their cast and crew on set of The Apple telling them what a hit it would be, awards all around, big screen blockbuster of a musical. They repeated this for multiple productions and it worked for them. But people knew what they were getting into largely with Canon and especially when the money never rolled in that was promised. Dimension was not Canon. But they were telling Derrickson this would be his big break on the silver screen. Tunnicliffe was working under the impression his work was going to be shown in theaters so he forfeited his pay for that. A sacrifice for his art to hold up the standard he had established. Had he known this was direct to video? No chance in hell he would. He absolutely would be within his rights to tell them to fuck off, demand more money or walk off with his crew. The director would take a blow to his expectations, absolutely. But the studio never promised anything. As Spock famously said when pointed out by a fellow Vulcan that he’d lied. He responded much like Dimension had. “I exaggerated”.

So you might wonder. Once the film was finished, did the studio demand more gore like they historically have? Did the MPAA then edit out ALL that gore?

The answer surprisingly? No. No reshoots, no additional gore, no MPAA interference.

This was direct to video. The studio didn’t care once the film was done. Derrickson is a competent director. He delivered what he was told and promised them.

The studio again. Just did not give a shit. Had the film actually gone to theaters? Absolutely they would have stepped in and heavily stomped their foot down. As it was they were content to let it slide without a fuck given, and stick to just shafting the fans, lying about budgets to get free work and blacklisting Barker from his creation.

As for the MPAA? One thing. One small loophole with the MPAA, and something we brought up that future horror films exploited both knowingly and snuck past the MPAA. Films that go bypass theaters don’t generally require a passing grade from the MPAA. They edit films for general audiences and determine what will and wont be acceptable for theater goers. As far as the home viewer market goes they could care less. Go watch the snow white and the seven dwarfs porn for all they care. What you see in the finished film? Is the directors intended work. There is gore, but it’s used more in the tone it was meant. Not in a horror sense. It wasn’t exploitative and the nudity was kept to a bare minimum.

There’s no way to know how much the film made or didn’t make. What it gained or lost. This is why streaming services like Disney can tell you things like SheHULK and The Acolyte were the most viewed shows and had the highest audience ratings at premiere. Much the same as Paramount did with Star Trek Academy and Amazon’s The Rings of Power. All claimed those films were huge successes and had the largest viewership of any in history, even out foxing Game of Thrones grand shot without any fucking lights fight against the army of the dead.

They can all claim success. But the metric that best gives an idea, was critic and fan reactions.

To no ones surprise this movie was not a hit. Critics and fans hated the jarring shift from traditional cenobite horror to a crime drama featuring Pinhead for all of 5-10 minutes. There was a very small group of fans that thought it was creatively refreshing as the film stepped into new territory.

I can understand that and it’s not in any way, I feel-making excuses. I never defended the prequels, but I did say I could see what George was trying with them and appreciated the story he tried to tell. I still got called an apologist and one of my cousins said I was making excuses for the fact my beloved Star Wars was now shit. I get it, but there is logic here.

The only defense I will give this film. Is in no way at all on the part of the studio, but the director and his film. Even though it wasn’t Hellraiser in any way shape or form. It still can work.

I say that only as someone who has read the comics. Much like Tales from The Crypt and Star Trek itself. There are episodes that are absolutely classic Trek, complete Crypt horror, and then there are odd stories involving dinosaurs or Moriarty, and psychological horror that are fitting of the series. The hellraiser comics are a mix of straight up cenobite mayhem and faustian contracts, as well as simpler stories of interesting characters outside of Pinhead and his devoted followers. There is a surgeon I recall, that would dissect the bodies of the damned, while unraveling their life story. Glimpsing into what made them who they are, It wasn’t Pinhead waxing poetic about flesh and the worlds suffering being a stage he’d orchestrate. But it was interesting and felt like it fit. The idea of a man being forced to recognize his death, his eternal damnation to relieve seeing those he loved and failed being killed and coming after him. It can fit in that context. But that’s subjective, I know. It’s not something the studio deserves credit for, and the writer was told to ignore fully. It’s just a little happy accident for some, Copium for others, and overall an unfortunate shadow that would loom over the rest of the films to follow.

Dimension gambled on this. They tested the waters with hellraiser straight to video. It pulled in some fans and removed more of them. More importantly and again, unfortunately. It taught them their main gamble paid off. They could take an existing script and shove Hellraiser into it, and it ‘could’ work. Nevermind the director had a lot to do with it, and a lot of dirty trickery. Forgetting that. To them it worked and they would continue forward.

What makes it feel all the worse is again the questions it raises. Why would you do this to a property you proudly paid for. Why knowingly sabotage it again, and again, only to toss it aside, and continue abusing it and dragging it out? They obviously did not care about what they had, and now? Now they had relegated the franchise to being nothing more than something they would release occasionally to keep the rights too. Keeping it out of Clive Barkers hands. It almost feels like maybe that was part of it as well? Why let go a franchise you don’t respect and know you are milking a dead cow, when you can dangle the corpse in front of the creator and mock them.

It really cannot be undersold just how upset this all made Barker. He tried, for years to get the property back and to rescue it. Instead he and fans had to endure 5 more of these.

And once more, with feeling. It doesn’t get any better. For anyone. So what could possibly make anyone want to watch another one of these? Well  Something that’s been festering over the past few years once more in Hollywood and people are tired of once more, like they were 26 years ago. Welcome to Nostalgia-baiting.