What the HELL happened to HELLRAISER IX REVELATIONS!!

Hellraiser Revelations.

This is the beginning of the end and thank the maker. But having to go through this film again. Nothing can make up for that. Not a single thing. It’s just horrible, and we will get into just how and why. Because this was a thing that did not need to be, but was. And not for the reasons you may be imagining.

It had been 6 years since we last had a hellraiser film at the time, and the world was better for it. Dimension was busy making its name known with, other titles. Since they were officially out from under Disney they could do whatever they wanted. Like putting out the films The Mist, which I love, Outlander, not so much, and Grindhouse.

Two of these films were failures at the box office. One of them, while entertaining, hugely underperformed.

Grindhouse underperformed.

The film cost Dimension films around $67 million and brought in around $25 million. Long gone were the days of Scream, Mimic and From Dusk till Dawn. The studio was losing money and entering crisis mode.

So enter Hellraiser?

No.

They were getting desperate but not insane. What could Hellraiser do for them after they ran it into the ground. It was the furthest thing from their mind.

They set their sites on one film. A film they thought would bring them out of their current spiral, course correct them back to the land of money and whores. That film was the redefining of a one time classic Genre of films. It would reignite horror comedy like Scream and teens would flock to it. That film, was Cursed.

If you are having trouble remembering what the fuck Cursed was? Your not alone. Cursed was a teen werewolf slasher film. It’s also where the reaction gif you might have seen used a time or two online came from of a werewolf giving the finger. Which happens in the movie.

The tossed everything behind the movie, honestly thinking it would salvage them, they even allowed for a $40 million dollar budget.

The film bombed. Fucking hard. No one cared. I did rent it and it was pretty forgettable. It had a lot of cheese but, no real substance to it. The film made under $30 million and the studio was shitting themselves.

They had no idea what to do and what could save them. Was the answer Hellraiser? No.

But it was finally on their minds!

They suddenly were reminded that the rights to the film would soon be back on the chopping black and returned to Clive Barker. This put them in a panic. They were falling off the face of relevancy, they were losing money hand over fist and their safety net was diminishing.

They suddenly had an idea. One that for them, was highly original.

They would setout to remake Hellraiser.

Yes. Dimension was going to attempt to remake Hellraiser.

This was going to be their savior and salvation. Because this was a time for remakes! The Texas Chainsaw Massacre reboot, The Amityville reboot. Platinum Dunes was tapping into a goldmine with intensive gory remakes/reboots and Dimension wanted in on it.

The problem was, they ran Hellraiser into the fucking ground, and Pinhead would not be coming back under any circumstances.

Fortunately for them, and shockingly. I do mean, shockingly. A savior would come to their doorstep.

Clive Barker.

The man they were actively keeping the property he created away from and ran it so far into the ground it had become a devalued joke of itself. He came to Dimension, not because he wanted to make a deal to get his baby back. Instead he tried making a truce with them. If he couldn’t have his property back, fine. But he could at least ask them to try and see reason, and work with him on an idea he had. His own idea to remake Hellraiser. The studio said yes and they immediately began working WITH Barker on a new Hellraiser.

Barker was happy at long last. Because they would work to help him get his vision on the big screen. Clive wanted to tell a deeper lore rich story. He wanted to revisit the 1700’s and Phillippe Lemarchand. They would begin there and lead directly into a far darker, more meaner, psychological horror retelling of his original film. But he wanted assurances this would not be a swindle, no straight to video bullshit. He also required the studio bring back, and respectfully pay Doug Bradley to return as Pinhead. There is no Pinhead without Doug and he wouldn’t write a story for the studio without his friend. They agreed immediately.

So the unlikely duo began working on what would be coined as “Clive Barker Presents Hellraiser”

Adding to their spare no expense project for this. The studio hired on the French directors Behind the film INSIDE,

Then the problems began.

The studio agreed like they did with everything. But once things were going to become a reality, that meant doing what they do. Fucking around, and finding out. AKA the old familiar problems that started their hate for each other.

Clive wanted a deeply lore driven story that would lean into psychological horror and gore.

The studio wanted a typical slasher film.

The French directors didn’t care for the story initially pitched and wanted to add their own touches. The studio told them no deal, so the pair left.

Another French horror director was brought on. And quickly left.

Barker turned in another story draft. The studio rejected it asking for less lore, more kills.

Eventually the studio started ghosting Barker and not returning his calls. Any script. Not story, but script he turned over. They immediately had their own writing teams begin reworking, but even then they weren’t happy with the results. Add to this a constant revolving door of directors for the project, and their regrown hatred for Barker and his writing well.

Eventually Clive Barker learned the lesson of going back to your ex and expecting different results. The two parted ways, but the studio continued selling people on the remake. Even though Clive was no longer attached and Doug Bradley left with him. They thought this would buy them time and interest. It did neither. They ran Hellraiser into direct to video hell, and without the original creator the interest that was there was quickly deflated.

Time was running out and the studio couldn’t keep lying about the remake moving forward.

They were getting desperate and found themselves floundering. They obviously didn’t think to give Clive his property back and count their losses. Instead they decided on a new course. Since people caught on with their forcing Hellraiser into other established work, and they didn’t want  that bogging things down for them again. They decided to actually have someone write an entirely new and original Hellraiser story.  

For this they turned to the one man who stayed with this franchise through all its trials and tribulations. The lead special effects man Gary Tunnincliffe. The same guy they had work an entire movie for free, and turned a tent in Romania into a heated work shop for his effects team. This guy had been a fan of Hellraiser since he started working in film and dreamed of working on these films. So he always stuck around, and now he had the chance to write out a script and direct.

The studio told him to give them a shootable, complete script for a new totally original Hellraiser film, on the smallest budget yet. Between $300 and $400 thousand dollars.

The man would have the lowest budget of any of the Hellraiser films to date, and he wrote a script in seven fucking days.

Welcome to Hellraiser Revolutions.

The story

Fuck me for having to do this all over again.

Alright so the movie is about two wealthy entitled teenagers who head off to Mexico for partying, drugs and prostitutes, the usual things that bring people to Tijuana. The boys come across the puzzle box and end up missing. Their rich families grieve them for some reason no one can make sense of. A grieving sister goes through her brothers belongings recovered by the police and she finds the puzzle box. As well as his camcorder which she watches as does the family. Watching little bro lose his lady friend to Neco, Seeing him banging prostitutes, drinking, doing drugs the whole shebang. Well During family dinner Trying to forget what their little baby boy did in Tijuana, Steven magically appears stating “Did somebody say yoga?” and the family is overjoyed while having a ton of questions.

The story begins to drift between a semi remake of the original and found footage. Eventually it comes to their attention, most noticeably you’d think his sister, when her brother suddenly is trying to fuck her and this, though reminiscent of their summer together with their parents away wasn’t entirely a new concept. It was rather unwelcome and doubt settles in on Steven being a good child.

The found footage angle serves as flashbacks in the film letting us know exactly what happened. That as stated while the boys are living it up in Tijuana they meet a sexy lady, and kill her, accidentally. They cover it up, come across the most laughable salesmen with the puzzle box and hell follows. The guardian of the box is only. I repeat. Only funny if you have ever watched the Tales from the Crypt movie Bordello of Blood. Because it’s a damn spot on impersonation of the guy in the bar repeating the same lines nightly to everyone “ I know a place where you can get the best gaaaaaawdamn piece of ass in the whole gaaaawwwddamn world. They got girls that’ll do things there ain’t even names for”

Once you see it you can’t unsee it and it’s the only thing I enjoyed watching this movie because it gives you an excuse to stop watching this and watch Bordello of Blood instead.

So obviously Steven is not really Steven and it begins to become painfully clear. Outside of trying to fuck his sister, there’s just a lot not right with him, so yes. Steven is not Steven, he’s Nico wearing Stevens skin.

Which is where we get the filler of the story.

While in Tijuana we learn the truth that Nico solved the box and got dragged off to hell. Being a child of privilege he was not dealing well with the pain and tortures of hell. So he strike sup a deal with Temu Pinhead and request a way back to earth, promising him souls in exchange for this. Steven  finding it easier to kill another Tijuana hooker after the shock of his first time wears off, does so again. Only this time it brings Nico back, skinless and sucking the blood off the dead hooker. So he finds more bodies for his buddy. Until Nico tares off Stevens skin, kills him and sends him off to Pinhead.

The longer Nico is here and so far avoiding giving Pinhead his souls. The more hell starts to come for him to collect. Doing so in the form of the guardian who tares the face off one of the dads and forces the family to believe “not” Steven that people called cenobites are coming.

So yes Steven not being Steven gives us the twist the movie would ultimately have, because Dimension still loves those, and to mirror the twist in the original Hellraiser with Frank taking the skin of his brother.

So with the cat out of the bag and Nico holding the family hostage with a shotgun, we move into the final acts of the film. Which are Nico sacrificing the family to escape his hell and honor the bargain.

Just as the family is gathered for a nice game of Scrabble, Nico shoots dad in the belly and Nico decides then too spills out their secrets which don’t really matter at this point. The film decides to give us another twist. Again. As we learn that yes as previously shown Nico stole Steve’s skin. But he didn’t kill Steven He left him to bleed out and die. Giving Steven enough time to solve the puzzle box himself. Does he strike a counter deal to swiftly undo what Nico did and therefor drag HIM to hell?

No. That would make sense. Instead Steven opened the puzzle box and was made into a mindless cenobite. With pins in his head, given by Temu Pinhead, which hold patches of flesh to his body. Like a human flesh puzzle.

So the big climax is the family opening the box and hell coming to their living room. Nico does not look thrilled as he meant to sacrifice Steven’s sister to the cenobites but things are a bit changed. Or he’s just pissing himself having seen his torturer pals return.

What happens is the clumsiest and funniest thing you could have ever hoped for but never imagined in a Hellraiser film.

So Emma, Stevens sister is to be given to hell. Got it. Nico had her open the box so they’d take her. Got it. Hell arrives ready for collection time. Perfect

Then hell gets hit with California retardation.

The entire California family is understandably scared and confused. Nico’s mom has questions. She is told by Pinhead to literally shut the fuck up unless she wants to die.

So she lets them know Nico forced Emma to solve the puzzle box. Pinhead gives her a Dolemite “Bitch are you for real?” and uses chains to tare her throat open.

OF COURSE THEY KNOW WHO OPENED THE FUCKING BOX! ALL YOU HAD TO DO WAS SHUT UP!

But the cenobites don’t want Emma. They want Nico. Pinhead declares their deal void. Because Nico cheated them.

Did I skip the part where he did this? No. I didn’t It isn’t explained to us so lets go over it shall we? Nico made a deal to bring Pinhead a soul or souls. In exchange for his life. Steven helped in resurrecting him. He offered Steven as a soul to Pinhead. Apparently though. Wearing Stevens skin, pretending to be someone he wasn’t voided the deal? Officially according to the original script and story, yes. When he faked being Steven that, apparently voided the deal.

So Pinhead lets them all know he has what they wanted. They got Nico and he’s off with them for an eternity of torture. Nico’s father decides to shoot Nico in the chest declaring, “No one gets to kill you but me.” Nico thanks him and dies.

Pinhead gives the most what the fuck look to the dying dad, explaining to him in painfully over acted wide eye acting that they were LITERALLY about to walk out and let them all be. But no, the dad had to fuck it up for his own self worth and take their victim away. So as payment Pinhead decides to take his wife. Who gets to be dragged off with hooks in her face idly screaming. Shortly after this and realizing his mistake, the dad dies from his earlier gun shot wound to the belly. Leaving Emma their daughter alive and contemplating solving the box because her simple mind just can’t leave well enough alone.

This is how the film ends. This family could have let the evil guy, who killed the real Steven go off to Hell. But not a single one of them could show any self control and everyone died for it.

So lets get into this already.

I genuinely dislike the movie and everything it became. However I applaud the fact they actually went with an original idea instead of taking another property they owned and retooling it. That is honestly the biggest shocker of the film. But even then. It shows a pattern that Dimension never could really break free of, and ultimately I think lead to the studios own downfall.

They couldn’t keep themselves from the apple pie by the window. It smells so good, looks great. You know how its going to taste still warm and if you pair it with ice cream? Forget about it that’s gonna be amazing. But if you cut into it too soon, the insides will pour out and turn to mash. It’s a runny mess, it won’t be the apple pie you saw in your mind and remembered having before. You gotta let it cool down, the filling needs to thicken, and the crust needs to form. They just kept meddling and these films paid the price.

As much as I dislike this movie, it shows something the others didn’t which was the possibility in investing your film with an whole original story.

Had this movie been handled the way they were handling it when the reboot/remake was still a possibility? It would have turned out differently. You can see that if you watch the movie(which I don’t encourage) and you look at the story beats. There is something there in its concept. But the execution is perversely lacking.

When the script was pinned, it was rushed and finished in a week as we said at the start. Had they refined the script, did some rewrites it would have a better chance to find itself. Things would have been clearer, like Nico’s screwing up the deal with the cenobites. With how Steven was handled, and even the actor taking over for Pinhead. But as it was, the studio self sabotaged the production for the sake and only the sake of holding onto the property rights.

The man who wrote this and came up with the story they immediately greenlit, Tunnicliffe. He wanted to also direct the picture. The studio said no. He was slated to direct Scream 4 and they weren’t going to allow him to break away and film Hellraiser. Instead they hired a new and younger director Victor Garcia. Victor was faced with a nightmare.

Victor was given specific instructions by the studio that explain perfectly why this was a mess to understand. All the time Dimension wasted on trying for a remake, then lying about it still happening to buy themselves time before the contract would expire? Did not work. So they were edging closer and closer to that dreadful moment Clive Barker would once again own his property. This meant the shoot would be draft locked. The director was told three things. You have a none negotiable budget of $300,000. You have 11 days to film this so no script rewrites, no dialog changes, nothing. You shoot what you have. Period.

$300,000 for a horror film. Especially an effects heavy film is insultingly obtuse. It basically means no special effects at even the barest of margins. No second takes or reshoots. You had to produce results and if you couldn’t? Cut it and move on. This is why the film is often said to look like a fan made film. Because it isn’t too far off.

The studio still, like it had the previous two films, shown no interest being involved with this film either. The closest they got however. Was when they attempted using what they hoped remained from Clive Barkers earlier good will. When all it took was Clive calling up Doug for him to say he’d full on sign up to play Pinhead for a Barker written reboot? They thought why not see if he still might be up for another Hellraiser. Surely if he was that quick to sign on for Barker, he might be willing to sign on for this?

He was willing to hear them out.

They sent him the script, he asked where the rest of it was, assuming this was a draft. He was informed no, that was the entire script. It would remain unchanged. They also told him the films budget and what his pay for it would be. No one knows how low the pay was the offered him. But between the budget being $300k, and the fact when they told him on top of the poorly done script? It was enough he hung up on them and again walked away from ever working with the studio again. The only thing Doug would ever say about that call and their offer was that it was an insulting slap in the face.

Mind you this is the same studio who cut his pay drastically on the last two films and he put up with it, and the same studio that forced an entire effects team to work without pay expecting their work to be on the big screen. Like an abusive relationship they figure you’ll keep putting up with it until you surprise them and yourself by sticking by your no and go to hell you deliver to them.

Because of this news, of course. That meant the studio had to struggle to find a new Pinhead once again at the last minute. Enter our new Pinhead Stephan Collins. I give the man credit, standing in to fill the shoes of a largely established character, knowing your face would now replace theirs on the poster. It takes balls to do that and the actor deserves kudos for stepping up. As his hiring was last minute the man had zero time to prepare for the role. He’d wanted to study Bradleys past performances. He wanted to get into the character and come up with something to deliver in front of the cameras. No time. He went in with zero preparations, doing everything for the first time the very moment cameras rolled.

To top it off with the extreme budget cuts to the production. This immediately hurt the key department that needed it and he would spend his days with. The effects department. With Tunnicliffe off directing Scream 4, he had nothing to do with the effects during filming, his crew was in charge of prosthetics. They did the best with what they didn’t have. Given the same rules from Romania applied here now with his film, they had to get it all done the day of or night before. It had to work the first time otherwise cut it and move on. So without screen testing the makeup, just immediately modeling and gluing prosthetics. Pinhead looked like, well yeah. Temu Pinhead. The prosthetics made him look chubby and short. His outfit wasn’t properly fitted to him and more so than the last two films you could tell the neck was foam painted black. This movie was known to all fans and viewers as ‘the shit pinhead’ film. None of the effects were stellar or sub standard. They once again employed the cheapest tricks of filming. One of them, if you care to play the pause and click through frames. Was the shotgun blast. Usually on a film for this they would use squibs. Little controlled explosives with a blood pack. In cheaper productions they would do what is the best guess from this one given what we saw. A precut hole in the fabric of the shirt, with a tube filled with fake blood, dried latex to simulate guts and flesh. Blown out using a compressor. A friend of mine her friends did a crime film as a project and for their gunshot effect they loaded up a tube on a shop vac with the same type mixture and fired it out at the actor. Causing a large blood splatter and viscera. It’s dirty but effective if you edit it just right.

And the effects department really did their best. One of the more meh kills they did what they could on was Nico’s mom and her torn open throat. They did a close up of her screaming and used a quick cut to show the chains flying out toward her. Before another cut  where we see her neck flayed open already leaking blood. When you focus in on that prosthetic?  There’s no detail in the throat like previous films. It’s a slab of flesh pulled back, looking wet and pouring out thinned blood. In a quick cut it could work. But it lingered enough once you see it, it loses its effect. Even skinless Nico was done as best they could. They had enough to do a hand neck and face for a skinless suit. The rest they covered up in bandages and kept him in the dark. It’s not nearly as much a sin as the others or how Pinhead turned out. But it is still worth noting.

And as bad as Pinhead looked. Which he genuinely did. Stven looked worse. His expression was comical and face was just. Having worked with prosthetics and made my own. It really did look like someone bought a spirit Halloween scar kit and just lathered on blood gel.

As an aside, if you felt sick while watching this movie? There’s a very good reason for that. The fim with its zero time for anything schedule literally meant the crew had no time to setup proper lighting let alone dolly shots and even tripods. They often had to rely on hand cam shots. They didn’t have the usual lenses to change out for scenes either. Everything was done on the spot and added to the fan film look and feel. This is also why the filmmakers decided to heavily lean into the found film gimmick of the story. What looked shit on camera and they couldn’t properly film and light? Now became found footage. Which is also why the cenobites were somehow caught on camera that survived the encounter in hell where as before they remained unseen to all but the person who solved the box.

Given all of this, its easy to imagine why the editor when given all this said putting this film together was less about crafting a story and more about meeting the legal definition of a feature film. With only one take per scene, no alternate angles or reshoots. The editor had to find a way to make it tell a story, the effects to not look shit, and fine the tone. Meatloaf taught us that two out of three ain’t bad. And this man was earning his paycheck. What little of it there would be.  The hand cam shots for found footage were erratic and what you would expect. But it was somehow better than the equally shaky off balance film of the rest of the movie. The editor turned over what he pieced together to make Hellraiser Revelations, and handed it to the studio.

They shit themselves.

The movie wasn’t just bad, it was unwatchable. I mean, what do you expect? For the cost and filming for 11 days. One take shots only. It’s insane. So the studio decided drastic measures were needed. Dire even. Because they decided this could not be released. Without reshoots. Gasp. Audible gasp!

They approved 3 days of additional reshoots months later to attempt making the plot more readable and the effects bloodier and more effective.

This caused a new group of fun problems.

When you shoot a film past the low end of cheap. It’s going to look cheap. Even more so when you can’t even setup your shots. So when you order reshoots, and give them the time they didn’t originally have?  It becomes a student film. The zombie film I was in. They used a camcorder from Wallmart for 70% of the film Once a friend of the director got approved using his student discount to rent a canon film camera. They used the shit out of it. They had the same problem. You had a film that was mostly absolute dog shit looking with low light quality and a barely balanced camera. Mixed in with shots that looked like you hired an art student to use thousand dollar and up lenses.

I mean shit even I’ve done that for class projects at the art institute. With my discount I felt like a big dick swinging photographer carrying a back full of over $12,000 worth of lenses. I made the choice to dump my original photos and shoot the ever loving shit out of everything with those lenses.

This production didn’t have that option. So they ended up with exactly what we got. A patch worked mess of quality and no quality with untested makeup, shit lighting and. Well just shit.

Nothing was going to salvage this and the studio new this. But it didn’t matter. In the end? They had their completed film.

However, they would not be able to meet their deadline for the contract. Even with the film finished and ready for distribution. The end of their contract would come at the end of March. The film wouldn’t be available on home video for distribution until October. Clive Barker was on the verge of having his abused property returned to him.

This lead the studio to something that even Tommy Wiseau would have to give props too , and fuck it the man did but on a bigger scale.

One of the loopholes to retaining the property. Was they had to prove the franchise was an active theatrical project. To do this, and beat the clock on home video release. They setup and reserved a one night screening in a theater.

It was designated as a cast and crew screening WITH, have to but a big caveat on with for this. A private cast and crew screening, with tickets available to the public.  They did not advertise this. The theater didn’t marque anywhere that the film would be there. You would have to walk up to the ticket window, ask what was showing and ask for Hellraiser. No one in the public showed up, only a handful of cast members bothered to show up.

But. By having released the film in theaters, even if just one, and having listed the tickets as publicly available. They met the criteria for a theatrically released active film project and they retained the property for a few more years.

Unfucking believable.

They did it though. They knew this film was a disaster and that fans would immediately turn on it. More so than the last two because this time it was an original. It replaced the one person that kept the small group of fans coming, and the new guy didn’t have the voice or the look to measure up with Bradley. So they spent a few hundred dollars to rent a room out for 2 hours, to save themselves a at one time multi-million dollar franchise asset. While dumping the unwatchable shit show that was Revelations onto store shelves. With no advertising. Why throw money at a disaster? The only thing that proved this film existed and would be on shelves, was a very hastily cut together terrible trailer they put online.

It has become an almost right of passage now for fans to grow angry with these last 3 releases. It was common now that when the next new Hellraiser came out, and we all saw what they did, reaching new levels of shit no one could have imagined possible but they somehow achieved. It didn’t lead to hating a bad movie. It lead to vicious rage fueled rants condemning the studio. Disowning the film in every conceivable way and an early example of review bombing. Not just trashing the shit show that was the zero effort film. But airing out every bit of behind the scenes news they could find telling the world what an abysmal thing this was and the studio behind it was driving it to be.

Stephan Collins earned the nickname Pillsbury Pinhead. Online fans said even the shittiest fan films looked better than this and told a better story. Which they unfortunately were right about from the examples shown online.

This film was also the one that gave us the opening line I used from Clive Barker himself. His tweet about the film declaring “I want to put on record that the flic out there using the word Hellraiser IS NO FUCKING CHILD OF MINE! I have NOTHING to do with the fuckin’ thing. If they claim its from the mind of Clive Barker, it’s a lie. It’s not even from my butt-hole.”

The truly sad irony of all of this, in the end? Was that critics, and fans. All of them agreed on one thing. The plot for the first time in 4 films was the closest Dimension had ever gotten to producing an actual Hellraiser film. Until they demonstrated it was made as a tax right off to keep the franchise from its creator. Everyone was tired of asking the same question I keep posing here as well. Why do this? For what purpose? How would it retain any value when you just openly keep shitting on it and its fans? Why hold onto it when all you do is burn it down and by pure actual magic find new ways to make it worse and more disowned.

Fuck you is why.

We are on the edge right now as I write this, of passing 100 pages. I have written 100 pages on Hellraiser and we have one more film to go into. This is insane but I am here for it and I also want to be free of this. Because I know what is next, and it’s not worth it. At all. Even for the sake of reviewing it’s just not worth it and this is like revisiting old war memories. I’m remembering the PTSD as a fan, watching these knowing they would be shit but wanting to see just how shit. But not imagining it could ever be that boldly terrible and hollow. The worst is finally here and we will go through it. For the last and final time I’m going to watch Hellraiser Judgement and then I will return to a world where it does not matter or exist in any way.

Let’s fucking go