What the HELL happened to HELLRAISER VI HELLSEEKER!!!

Hellraiser Hellseeker

Since Dimension discovered an easy way to make Hellraiser films by cutting out the guess work and waiting on a good story. They quickly made this their go to moving forward. It reminds me back in the Art Institute when we had a teacher telling us every written assignment, “Do not copy and paste Wikipedia and pass it off as your work, I’ll know. Everyone knows”, which they were right of course. There were two people specifically that did this repeatedly. They would stand before the class, do their presentation, and their report would sound so clinically by the numbers that you knew this wasn’t something someone wrote so much as, well. A descriptive lifeless text. It put the class to sleep and they got called out each time. Wikipedia is a tool that you can look at, get the information you need, then you write your take on it.

Much the same today with A.I. and people in school using ChatGPT to do their homework. As a tool, it can be useful, I’ll admit. I don’t like using A.I. but there have been a few times I had to use it because it helped me track down where to go and look for items and information I needed. It’s a vast field of slop nowadays google searching. So yes, as a tool to help you in your research? Absolutely helpful. If you have it write out and do the work for you? You’re not learning anything and you didn’t do any of the work but expect the rewards.

Dimension knowing they didn’t have to do the work, and especially commission a new script meant they could just shove Hellraiser into anything and move along at their comfortable shoot it print it speed.

Hellseeker was released a year after Inferno. Inferno as we covered was not a great film. It was hated and dragged through the coals, but it did have its fans who appreciated the new direction of the last film. Dimension as usual wanted to hit the anvil again and move forward, only this time they wanted to try something different. Realizing people didn’t out right burn copies of the film and would tolerate the new direct to video angle. They thought maybe giving a little more carrot to the audience would help. That carrot would be trying to make a near movie. What’s a near movie? It’s when you actually put in effort to make a direct to video movie bigger than it is and hope word of mouth catches on enough, that sales go up, reviews pop up and people begin putting out a demand for more of this please.

So the budget was increased from the previous $2 million up to $3 million. To round this out, they decided the movie would need a hook to drag people in, but not a gimmick. This had to be something the fans they fucked over would see and be willing to give a chance. That would be nostalgia bait.

This thought would also be the films downfall.

It might be hard to imagine, but studio execs realized, while fans tolerated Inferno, and the rest they dismissed gave it a chance only to realize they hated everything it was. Perhaps the fans might react more positively if the film brought back some of its classic mythology. Some of its original concepts. The idea was hatched that they would return to the well they had shit in and they would make a sequel bringing back Ashley Laurence as Kirsty Cotton.

Only good things could come from this. So let’s see what we got in the end shall we?

Story

Shockingly the film actually does open with Kirsty! She’s married now to an inmate of the Oswald State Correctional Facility, nicknamed Oz by the inmates. Yes Dean Winters who most would remember for having seen his dangling dong from the hit HBO series OZ is Kirsty’s husband in this.

The two are having a lovely drive, being the happiest couple you can imagine. Until they crash suddenly and Trevor(Dean) watches his car sink with his wife still trapped inside.  Trevor wakes in the hospital and soon realizes his life may not be his own. He’s suffering memory loss. Yes it’s going to be one of those movies.

As he struggles to understand what happened and who he is. Things are not going well around him. He’s told his wife has died and he needs to take it easy as his body is swimming with morphine. He begins suffering blurred lines of reality and dream. Flashes to the life he can’t fully recall.

If it sounds a little like the last film? Don’t worry that’s normal from here on out.

Through these visions, flashbacks and encounters we learn that Trevor is a not so very nice man. He cheated on his wife with anything crawling. Well their lust for his body is confusing him and he tends not to let history repeat. He is a man mourning his wife after all.

Thankfully in these odd visions we get glimpses of grunge rock Doug Bradley as a shop keeper of solving puzzles, and Pinhead. They learned from the last movie Doug doesn’t like being in makeup if your just going to barely let him fart on set in full makeup. Don’t get too excited though he still only pops up here and there.

Aside learning Trevor was kind of a shit husband and a dick, we learn he did try to be a good man to his wife Kirsty. He watches a video from their anniversary where we see he got her a nice gift. Only a sweet man would do that for his lady. Only a good man listens to his lady and gets her what he know’s she’d like as a gift. He listened to his wife talk about work, spill the tea about coworkers, he also listened to her deep family trauma. The man got her the lament configuration as an anniversary gift.

Yes. The man got Kirsty Cotton the box that destroyed her family, sent her to an institution and made her the well adjusted woman she is today.

We may not always get it right, but we try. The man tried.

Well let us not forget he is still a dick, as Kirsty reminds him of her trauma and how he would have been better off getting her a vacuum or waffle iron vs the box.

He doesn’t care to hear it though and orders her to solve the damn thing already. Which again is the fault of men. I haven’t given a life dating lesson in ages so allow me this moment. If you are sort of a dick, and semi regularly might upset your partner? Or cheat on them, or you give them a puzzle box known to summon demons. Literal demons from an actual factual hell. You should consider your life choices up to that moment and reconsider giving a summoning box to the woman you wronged, and just made the worst impression on by gifting her the box responsible for murdering her father and nearly killing her twice. It will not end well for you.

As more of his past unravels and pinhead teases the man, we rush along to our films conclusion. Believe me it’s not me, its this film it is rushing like mad to get over itself. As the last film had a twist ending, this one needs one as well. And so the twist is revealed to us once Trevor is met once more by Pinhead in the morgue. We learn that yes, in fact Kirsty did open the puzzle box as he asked her too. Pinhead actually baited her. He had been searching for Kirsty and used her husband to give her the box and bring her to him. Once in his presence Kirsty falls back on familiar tricks. Offering him another deal in exchange for her life. 5 souls to replace hers. For some reason Pinhead accepts this exchange and the film thus reveals to us what it already laid out. Trevor was a murderous plotting man who stuck his dick in everything, his wife knew about the and would visit each of the women he banged and his conspirator friends. Before finally giving him to Pinhead as the 5th and final soul owed.  The film ends with a smirky Kirsty carrying the puzzle box. Once more victorious and now back to never trusting a man to listen again.

So that was Hellseeker. A blink and you miss it film with an underwhelming amount going on in it. Retreading over familiar territory as we once more delve into reality and visions intersecting and out main protagonist questioning everything around them. Which, when you shovel Hellraiser into the same type of scripts over and over, well yeah. It’ going to happen.

Now we get to ask ourselves, so they made a sequel and brought Kirsty back, was it a success? God no. So, what the hell happened?

Well funny enough, a lot, a dash of the same, a dash of the studio being greedy and just plain ol’ stupidity.

Firstly there was the story. This, actually was going to be a much better film than intended. And there is a very specific see if you can catch it reason why, we didn’t get that.

For this, we need to travel all the way back to when Dimension was trying to pen the idea for Hellraiser Inferno. Before they kicked out and blacklisted Clive Barker.

They had a script which was already turned in and given for their consideration to inject Hellraiser into. Like someone happily submitted this as a potential for the series. The script was written by Michael Lent. He pitched a film called, well. Hellseeker.

The story was a cyberspace hacking plot. There’s a mysterious fire at an isolated radio station, which turns out to be an underground hacking lab. A super IQ game designer(Blink) is using the facility to hack into a cyberspace portal. The story would follow a man given the name of Rix. Rix isn’t their real name though, see they were the survivor of the explosion that set fire to the station and much like Hellseeker, he would spend the movie as an amnesiac trying to uncover who he is, what happened and why. Through his journey of remembrance he would encounter more and more darker, elaborate illusions and body horror. Eventually Rix and Blink find one another and it is revealed to Rix that the cyberspace portal his group of hackers had been hacking into, was a portal to hell. Now out of his mind and enjoying it, Blink wants to release the portal onto the world, bringing hell to one and all.

They sent the script to Clive and he immediately gave his thumbs up, declaring this was the one. This would fit Hellraiser, it had body horror and tones that matched the franchise. It would easily work and he enjoyed the tech idea. The film had people tied to work on it, and produce it. So why didn’t they?

Firstly, this was right after Bloodline when Dimension was looking to shelve Hellraiser to direct-to-video. It was just before the purge of the studio. Where everyone who greenlit Bloodline was axed from the company. So to it the ones who were signed on to executive produced Hellseeker were also fired. And soon after that Clive Barker was blacklisted from the studio. Instead of this script they went with Scott Derrickson and his cop drama.

Then came time for the sequel to follow Inferno. The studio dug out this script from their literal vault. Where it had been shelved. Waiting. The studio liked the script and decided this was the one. It just needed some. Tinkering.

That tinkering was first and foremost the removal of every single element of the script that had Clive Barkers approval. No, I’m not joking. They stripped any and every element from the script the man had said he liked and met with his approval. This also included additions Lint wrote in that tired Hellraiser lore to the script. The simple fact was, as they saw it. They didn’t want a creator like Barker’s notes, artsy fartsy operatic themes or any of his bullshit to resurrect the brand. They wanted their profitable direct-to-video slashers.

They also cut out the hacking elements and cyber cenobites. The explosion at the radio station was changed to a car crash and the amnesiac angle became the focus. They handed the concept to new writers and told them fuck the narrative structure. They wrote an authorized copycat of Inferno. Hell loop, amnesia and all.

As I said, if this film seemed at all familiar. There’s a reason.

On top of that they ended up recycling a majority of the same sets and locations too. They were min maxing the production. Which at the time, did not have the $3 million dollar budget. That came from the director.

Having gone over the script, the director pointed out that the wife in the script was largely absent. She had no name and existed in the script only to vanish at the beginning and then she’s gone.  The director thought they should do something more with that. Make her the anchor to discover who he is. So he pitched to the studio the idea, hey. Lets make her Kirsty Cotton.

The studio loved the idea. Shock I know. How could the studio love the idea of bringing a character, a legacy character that fans adored back to the franchise they did not give a fuck about and did all they could to remove the creator from? It was simple, and hellishly dark. If they brought her back, they could put her name and face on the cover, beside Pinhead. This would trick fans into renting their copycat trash. Brilliant! Let’s do it! So the studio needed extra money assuming Heather wouldn’t return to the franchise for the film. So the budget got a huge bump to bring her back.

Well you would imagine with a larger budget  this might get a lot more love. That would make sense and usually might be the case. But the studio is not known for its generosity so far. The fact they allow it to live in the dark is gift enough for them. From them. While yes, on paper the film had a larger budget, it would of course, as we log into our account to check the balance-greatly change from what was there versus actually there. Once they paid off locations, key cast(excluding Heather) and production was ready. They were much closer to the previous films budget.

They did eventually pay for the return of Kirsty. Thanks to Doug Bradly. When he heard they would try to bring her on board but were unsure if she’d even want to do it. He told them she was a good friend of his, so he called her up told her about the film and she was 100% onboard ready to sign.

The idea of a grown up Kirsty squaring off against Pinhead was a good one to her, she and Bradley already began talking over scenes they could try and dabble into.

So the press was released. Heather would return and fans rejoiced.

The problem though. Was the script. They script had not been changed. The wife only shows herself in the beginning before and during the crash. Obviously this means rewrites.

The studio already approved production, and they denied rewrites. Again the name of the game is get it done, get it done fast. They paid Heather her key cast paycheck. So she got that. But she had literally nothing to do in the film. All the ideas and scenes between her and Pinhead would simply never be.

The budget played into a lot of things. Because Inferno cost so much with locations and administrative cost. They made cuts all around. As I mentioned they reused a lot of locations from Inferno. They also used sets from another horror film of theirs Children of the Corn Revelation. After all this? The art department had nothing. Hence why so much got reused from the last film and other productions. Funny enough over at Lionsgate, their SAW director was doing similar, reusing body parts and props between films, and eventually on his passion project Repo the Genetic Opera.

However what he did was for a dream and passion. This was done to save a buck and once again pushing, forcing departments to deliver with no benefits.

The director was also put on an unintentional leash. The production took place in Vancouver though you’d honestly never know given the places they filmed. Not because the weather mind you. The absence of Canadas beauty was because. They didn’t go there to film it. They went to Canada abusing their tax loopholes. Similar to why people here in Washington shop down in Oregon. Taxes. Its silly but, they do it.

It’s funny and worth mentioning that while filming did save them money, an incident with a background extra in the office building cost the studio $10,000. In Canada they rather, strict and different laws when it comes to filming. One such law, as they discovered. Concerned interactions with Background extras, and Principal cast. A director can give direction and notes to Principal cast as they are meant to speak, act and hit their marks. But a background non speaking extra is just meant to be in the background. The moment the director talked to him? Their base pay skyrocketed and Dimension had to now pay them a penalty for breaking that law and that background extra now becomes a principal actor. You can see the scene in the film. Trevor is having a conversation with his boss at the water cooler, a nameless man wonders in and disrupts the conversation. That was the extra. The director didn’t like how he was acting and how the scene came off. Instead of waiting for the assistant director to talk with the extra. He talked with him directly. So keep that in mind, if you want a great paycheck as an extra. Mildly upset the director.

That is one thing I can credit the film with. There was no drama with their choice in director. He never once gave them an issue. Rick Bota was a cinematographer. A good one. This was his first acting job, much like Derrickson. He wasn’t hired because he could be pushed around and lied too about theatrical hopes and dreams. He knew the reality of his situation. No, he was hired because he was compliant and a studio yes man. So he offered no resistance. The studio says film something, he films it. For once they had a director who wouldn’t fight them over creative vision and attempting to change the tone.

Funny enough the director admits he knew nothing about Hellraiser, Pinhead or Barker. He didn’t understand how Pinhead works and that’s what the studio loved. It meant they could continue to have and shape him into their slasher. Which Doug Bradley hated, and leads into those that suffered for this film. Some literally.

Doug Bradly wasn’t showing up for a paycheck. Which albeit was pretty good pay, I mean it is a job at the end of the day, but he still liked the character and wanted to play them as best he could while keeping their integrity. However he began noticing very quickly he was the only one who cared about the character. He was now as Pinhead said of Rory Cotton, in his own hell, and quite unreachable.

He was forced to watch The Hell priest Pinhead, the pope of hell and celebrity of cenobites be turned into a generic slasher villain who would pop up to taunt, vanish then show up at the end like Columbo to reveal the twist. He hated it but couldn’t do much about it. Especially when a director was compliant with the needs of the studio over anyone else.

It’s sad honestly. People, fans began to notice from Inferno and this film that his tone. His voice had softened. This wasn’t him being disheartened. It was the studio not giving a shit. The booming deep bass and echo of his voice were removed. They wouldn’t pay for that kind of small thing, let alone soundtracks. The films were stripped down to the barest of minimums and that affected the main villain who they sold the sequels on by plastering his face on every fucking poster.

Heather as you can imagine was upset. She only came on to the project as a personal favor of Doug’s. She loved the fans and was proud of the work she’d done and her cameo in the 3rd. Had they gotten Julia back into the series like they deeply wanted, Heather would have returned without question as Kirsty. This film was meant and sold to her as Kirsty Cottons home coming. Bringing a true fan favorite back. Only to discover within 2-3 days she was done filming and sent packing. Top that off with a cast that knows and cares next to nothing for your legacy character and franchise. She admitted later that she expected something on set, smiles and a feeling of the franchise going back to its roots. But there was nothing. The studio made it clear they had no intention of honoring or acknowledging the few fans left. They just wanted to bait them and get their money. It’s fucked up man.

As for literal suffering of actors? That goes to our main character and overall dick, Trevor. Dean Winters was by far the most unhappy with the entire experience. Whenever a television actor comes across a film part, especially a lead. It’s a big deal and their chance to break out into something big, possibly bigger. The man was making his own way, as I said I knew him mostly from watching OZ on HBO, but like most that cast as well you also saw them over on Law and Order. The guy is a good actor, I really dig his work and face. Much like Bradley he too hated the script. What he thought would be a meaty protagonist role to show off his acting ability, turned out to be a series of repetitive shots where his directions were; Look confused, hallucinate, look confused, hallucinate. Now scream. To top it off he came down with the flu in Vancouver. No one has time for sickness let alone healing. The show must go on and he absolutely did. He got so sick he would need breaks to breathe, stop shivering, and he was constantly vomiting between cuts. The man was pretty close to actual hallucinations between his insane high fever and insane shooting demands from the schedule.

Now you would think, as most productions would. That having a core actor come down with that severe of a flu, that they would hear something from the studio. Shoot around them and continue production while giving what time could be allowed for them to recover. Hell Disney did that when Harrison Ford crash landed his plane and when he broke his foot. The key difference isn’t that this was straight to video. Though it did play a large part. It was mostly in part to the fact the studio not only didn’t care. But the fact they weren’t even there. The moment cameras rolled and the lights went on once everyone was paid? They were gone. Everything would be by the numbers with their compliant crews. Hellseeker wasn’t a film they cared about. It was an insurance policy to keep the franchise right where it was. And keep the sequels pumping.

With everyone involved thankful the filming had ended. The movie was ready for its finishing touches.

The editing room was the next chamber of hell.

When you film on the cheap, and you use generic locations. No stand out finale or even moderately interesting set. Your film is going to reflect that. Surprising I know. But it did happen. After all was shot and sent off. They realized very quickly. This movie was garbage. To give you an easy test. Think back to two Inferno. What scene would pop into your head. I mentioned for me I didn’t remember much of anything from the film. I remembered the crime scene though. It was bloody, interesting and had a look to it. It might just be a generic room but the set department worked on it, the art department even though sacked and replaced. They did something with it.

A better example, Jaws. Everyone remembers the ORCA, the scene where Quint gives his Minneapolis speech. It looked lived in, between disrepair and breaking down. It had character. It was a character. Hellraiser 3, the boiler room. Everyone remembers the slaughter in the place. The barbed wire plastic dolls and set pieces within it.

This film had nothing. A story, the script. Can only carry your film so far. The actors do their part. But if you shoot generic. It doesn’t matter. It looks flat, uninteresting and blended together. Add to that it all was filmed and looked cheap well. Welcome to direct-to-video.

Having this nightmare now to deal with the editors were in a state of panic. They had to deliver the product to the studio. They were not shy from cutting off heads and entire departments. So they did what they felt made sense.  They turned the film into another non-linear hellscape. They aggressively  chopped the film apart and deliberately fucked with the films timeline, its continuity to trick audiences into thinking they were watching a much deeper psychological thriller versus a Hellraiser film. These guys were just trying to hide the lack of plot, the repetitive scenes and make it all make sense and not one boring waste of film.

Which for some of us, it still was, but we digress.

Among that which was removed from the film. Other scenes were cut out as well. Including one that fans would have actually enjoyed. In the film Kirsty is forced by her dickhead man to solve the puzzlebox. She meets Pinhead and quickly tells her this was all part of his plan to get her and now that he had her he would finally kill her. As we went over she instead offers him 5 souls and he quickly agrees to this.

Originally, and as Alfred Packer famously said, That’s not the way it happened.

In the original scene as it was. Pinhead and Kirsty have a much longer drawn out conversation. Pinhead takes great pleasure in having caught Kirsty and having her once more in hell with him.

Pinhead gets straight up diabolical in this meetup and Kirsty fires back as well. Both actors said this was their own moment they felt made it all worth it because it acknowledge everything. It showed her growth from scared girl to a strong adversary. She could and did stand against Pinhead. Just like their first meeting in part 1, Pinhead has a crew with him. They made and shot new cenobites including the return of the chatterer. Then she strikes the deal with him, he considers it and taunts again killing her. But she entices him with the deal and he enjoys the idea of her bringing him the very man who had her solve the box, and every soul he corrupted and destroyed her life through. It played a lot better versus him simply deciding to let the person he planned all of this for from the beginning go simply because she offered another deal with no question like they did in the original.

Two reasons the editors and studio had for its removal, and one you likely already have guessed.

First was the pacing. They worried that, if you can imagine. Dialogue would scare awayviewers and be seen as boring. They wanted hacky slashy chain shot kill kill. Not pin man talky. So it was cut out for ‘pacing’ and saving their target audience from hearing people speak.

The…other reason. Clive Barker and the fans. Yes. Wrap your head around this. You coax the fans, and Barkers fans to see your film by bringing back an established character and hero from the franchise. You then cut her one and only large dialogue and confrontation with Pinhead out. Why? Because it would require all the viewers to be aware of Clive Barkers original, and its sequel. The film would require the fans, and the direct-to-video audience. To have seen the other Hellraiser films and know who Kirsty Cotton is. How she knew Pinhead.

Again, why the holy fuck bring back Kirsty, if you believe no one will know who the hell she is?

Naturally deleting the scene stripped out any heart and emotional weight in Kirsty’s decision. It was again all about the twist. He was a dick, he cheated on her, was a bad man who made her open the box she has SOME history with given her terrified reaction, and she decides because you were a dick, she’s going to send you to hell in her place. And the demon is going to just go along with that because she seems like a pretty okay person.

Get fucked.

It’s just so depressing to know this was their logic, when in reality it all goes directly back to their absolute distain for Barker and his work. They actively did all they could to make Hellraiser NOT look or feel like Hellraiser, they stripped out the lore entirely and reduced the box simply into an item that brings Pinhead so he can kill everyone. It is as it way. They made it as generic as humanly possible in every fathomable way they could.

And again why. Why, why, why!

As shitty as The Exorcist films all were after Legion(part 3) at least those had continuity and story. Sure it was shit. But it didn’t face fuck the fans by turning Pazuzu into Jason.

And Exorcist Believer was is and forever will be the worst piece of burn your intestines as it stretches and bleeds your asshole shit to ever be forced out. But goddamn at least it acknowledged the fans while it face fucked them.

One final tidbit too add on the pile of jesus why did they hate the man.  The director snuck a cut of the film out to let Barker see. Which yes he loathed and was bored to tears with. He told the director the film was missing the horror. It was missing visceral horror. It needed something other than nothing. He was right. The director actually took Clives advice. He really went back and filmed more horror for the horror film. He made bloodier scenes, knowing the MPAA wouldn’t stop them upon release. The fact alone the director felt the need to take the film in secret to show he who shall not be named to try and save it. That says a hell of a lot.

But all of it was tossed. The studio editors disregarded it. Because the studio mandate of this being a non-linear sanitized pscyho-thriller edit was more important than something that would directly please the fans and the horror fans you were attempting, supposedly one would think to make this for.

Even though you don’t need to ask it, and no one would blame you for not caring. No. No audiences did not care for this.

Fans, the few fans of the original who saw this because they enjoyed Inferno, and the fans who gave it a chance because of Kirsty returning? They all hated it, with a visceral passion.

Fans hated they were lied too about Kirsty returning.

They hated that you took the one established good, pure character who showed hope could win against the evil of the box, and turned them into a murderer willing to sacrifice other lives to save her own. No one liked that or bought it.

And believe me, I’ve had conversations with sane and far removed from sanity women who all have the same core principal. If you cheat on them? Yeah they’ll hate the bitch you fucked. But they aren’t gonna kill them, or beat them. It wasn’t their fault you were a cheating dickbag who’s about to experience pain at their hands.

Add to this the one jarring you would never guess it shared consensus. That fans found it boring, unscary, repetitive, and felt like they were just rewatching the first one, only more boring and less interesting to watch.

When even your new found audience, and the mindless slop swallowing mindless drones who rent anything for the sake of something to watch. All call your film boring. You know, or should know. You fucked up.

 Doug Bradley sited this film as the start of his spiral into misery. He had always protected Pinhead and felt like Robert Englund, when you are that character and no one else could fill your shoes. You have some say in how they are portrayed and treated. You want to deliver something you can be proud of. He was not. At all, and this film signaled much like for the main character in the film, that this was now his hell, his burden. No one would listen, and he was just a name behind the face on the poster.

Clive Barker may have been blacklisted but the man never once stayed silent on his disavowment of the franchise under Dimension. He called them out publicly multiple times for their studio strategy to pump out soulless gutted sequels, squeezing out any and all creativity from the franchise all for the sake of retaining the title and characters, Spending less to make a few bucks on retail sale.

Things got so bad from this production, and so many voices were beginning to join Doug and Clive, and Heather. That the studio had to finally step in. Their response?

The paranoia among the studio execs over the cheap scripts the actors and crew were now actively calling them out on for having shoe horned their franchise into, and their firing of departments. All of their sins being laid out. Their response was swift and simple. Dimension began forcing actors and crew to sign incredibly restrictive NDAs. Non Disclosure agreements. All of them Bradly included would face a $1 million dollar and up lawsuit if they broke NDA. Bradley years later talked about it. That he was faxed the most insane gagging orders that legally prohibited him from talking out about the films, the scripts, the production. Any of it.

Dimension was silencing everyone, and nothing was stopping them. The studio that wanted their house of horror, had created a literal actual bleeding house that became the house horror comes to die.

And they weren’t done. They were upping their game. This time? They were going to film two sequels. Back to back. It only gets worse from here.  They were leaving the land of Maple Syrup and hockey, and going to the latest cheapest home of horror. Welcome to Romania.