What the HELL happened to HELLRAISER VII DEADER!!!

Hellraiser Deader

The funniest thing about this film. Was fans and casual viewers universally agreed this is the worst in the franchise.

At the time. Worst in the franchise at the time.

This is however what we can dub, the signaling of the end of times. For the franchise.

When we left off, the studio fought back against fans and press, they fought against cast and crew openly airing out their grievances with the films, and studios blunt laziness on top of putting every penny in a vice.

Lines were drawn clearly in the sand and people were put in their place. Especially the titular cenobite. That situation was going to grow to a boiling point which eventually would explode. This isn’t figuratively the end of the franchise. This was the breaking point. Now Dimension was intent to stay the course with their shoe horning Pinhead into pre-existing properties. It was cutting time and cost so why change that? They burned their bridges with returning stars and made it very clearly known they would cut cost without hesitation across all departments if it meant getting a finished product out on time and they retained the license. As a reminder they needed to put out a film under a certain timeline in order to hold the franchise rights, otherwise they revert back to Clive Barker. For free.

The direct to video market would allow this seemingly indefinitely, so long as video stores would purchase anything with Hellraiser, and bored gullible gorehounds would chance a rental or worse a purchase.

The difference this time, was they planned to give themselves a break, while upping their inventory.  They would end up pushing to film two Hellraiser films. At the same time.

Two productions sharing the same locations, different cast, same crew.

And they would be filming in Romania.

To be clear, a lot of horror films began shooting in Romania. It was a lot cheaper by far compared to previous locations; Los Angeles and Canada. Dimension would absolutely jump on that plane for this. But there were, other reasons too. Which we will get into as it only added kerosene to a pile of fuel bathed dynamite.

So let’s get into the nightmare and get what they called a story for this out of the way.

The movie follows an investigative journalist for a London tabloid, Amy Klein. We see she will go to any lengths for a story as the movie opens with her in a half way house. Taking photos of junkies, with a large DSLR camera she keeps hidden under her arm in a thin jacket, and a tape recorder that….to be honest would catch her heartbeat and muffles meth heads versus anything worth writing down. I mean Hunter S. Thompson would get high as a fucking kite and arm himself with a handheld recorder. Slurring his way across one location to the next. But you could make sense of it. He brandished the thing like a magic want. These lady has hers shoved up against her. Well it’s close to her so do with that as you may. Any-who.

She’s shown a ‘disturbing’ tape of a cult in Bucharest, the group calls themselves Deaders. Because they die. So that they can come back. And do it all over again. If you’ve seen the original or remake of Flatliners. It’s the same thing, just taken to the extreme. In Flatliners the medical students would induce medically a way of stopping their heart, then bringing themselves back from the brink. These edgy bitches are straight up stabbing and shooting themselves to come back, as was the style at the time.

So Amy is intrigued and flies out to Romania. She wants to investigate a girl from the video who apparently turned up dead for real, real this time and not for play, play. While investigating the dead ladies humble Romanian apartment she happens to find our familiar Lament puzzle box.

The puzzle box need only be touched now to induce freaky whirly swirling visions and apparently a sooooooooouuulll traaaaaaiiin carrying people humping and enjoying life. Now Amy has a clear mission, she wants to investigate the leader of this cult. But the film wants to stretch things out by bringing back the oldy but goldy fan favorite from the previous films. I’m talkin Loops. Dream loops people. They are back! The very gimmick fans were tired of from the last film is right back in our faces because when your story wasn’t meant to stretch that wide, you gotta give it something.

Speaking of thin story. Through these dream weaving loops of fun, she gets a visit from Pinhead who’s only there to let her know he exist, waves, and tells her the same thing the goth girl tells you when you find the Necronomicon at Barnes and Noble, your messing with powers you don’t understand. His words carry the same importance and who gives a fuck as the goth girls words to you. More importantly we learn that the cult leader of the Deaders, is none other than a direct descendant of Philip LeMarchand. Yeah. They brought back the bloodline, from Bloodline. When you burn bridges with legacy stars, you go back and scrape the bottom of the well for other ideas you can rehash. Only the somehow managed to make it worse. They also made the movie, the plot, the whole experience hard to follow as it quickly puts you to sleep. But I will give the best I can for you. The cult leader, the descendant of the toy makers bloodline, from Bloodline. Since he believes he has mastered the art of dying and respawning, he found an exploit that makes him impossible to kill. So he plans to hack hells backdoor. His ancestors would have done this to close the gate and end the cenobites as well as hells career of feasting on souls. This boy wants to hack Hells backdoor, so he can rule Hell. The movie tells you this in an absolutely boring way with no emotion, no cause and no explanation. He just wants to do it, and he’s confident he can rule the school of Hell.

He also has his cult kill Amy and bring her back. But the way the movie is made you’d think it was another vision, dream loop, hallucination. Because it just sort of semi happens, then we see that it did happen, and never comes back up again.

Amy is important to the future ruler of hells backdoor, because he believes she is a broken emo chick which is what the puzzle box needs in order to open. No I’m not fucking kidding. You need to be so edgy your aura could cut grass, and the box will open for you.

So Amy opens the box, Pinhead shows up, no one gives a single fuck and Pinhead exchanges words with Lamarchands blood child. Which would hold weight and relevance if they actually fucking meant something.It doesn’t matter. None of this matters. Pinhead tares the man apart. He looks over the losers club of Romanian goth cucks and bitches, cuts them down. Then to no ones surprise turns to Amy and tells her its now her turn to die. Well she decides to alt F4 and kills herself. Smiling and blissful that she escaped hells wrath. But no one can escape hell. The twist of the movie is the same as the last two fucking films. She is recorded, the video is given to her editor, who found the first video, and he shows it to a new reporter and Amy is shown killing herself, coming back to life. She’s now a deader and apparently forever tormented and blah blah blah fucking end it please god end it.

As a blessing, and a reminder before we cover it after this? The Hellraiser film shooting at the exact same time has no fucking ties to this piece of shit, it is in its own hell, and quiet different. This was the result of getting what you fucking deserve for cutting corners.

As we said before. This was another script that already existed and they forced Hellraisers flaccid virus pocked cock into. Before that though. This film was already being prepared to begin shooting. They had scouted locations, put out casting calls. It was going forward. Dimension was not known for its control over anxiety so much as it was it’s absolutely baffling process and cocaine fueled anxiety. At the time Japanese horror was beginning to find its popularity across the pond to America. In 1998 we had Ringu and by 2001 we had the blockbuster American remake The Ring, This lead to and included of course films like Ju-On and Pulse.

Specifically Pulse. Dimension felt Japanese horror films was a threat to their market. Audiences were seeking out new and original horror, and if any of you have watched Japanese or Korean horror. It was becoming a genuine force to be reckoned with. Once a studio bought the rights to remake Ringu. And that took off like a rocket, other studios jumped the train. Dimension hit the rails at full speed because they loved money more than most and they were going to get on the ground floor with the Americanization of Japanese horror. By making Pulse.

So Dimension stopped Deader in its tracks, forced the director to make Pulse and then. Because this is just par the fucking course. Once he finished Pulse, they told him okay, you can make Deader now. However you need to make it into a Hellraiser film, otherwise we’re closing production and its not getting made.

I had an ex. Who had a way of asking things. Instead of engaging in, Intimacy. She would choose to tell you, at Breakfast, in the car driving, or on the toilet, “I better get dick tonight or I’m gonna be a bitch the whole fucking night” or the calmer “If I don’t get any dick tonight we’re breaking up”. Now. You would think. You could just, as a couple, start with kissing, and caressing. Leading to the highway of pound town. Or you could flat out demand it and offer ultimatums. Dimension agreed. So what was deader before Hellraiser?

An interesting story. Oddly enough.

Originally, Deader was a far different almost darker film. While still sharing the same bed as the other two films before it. In Deader, Amy wasn’t the no nonsense tough investigative reporter. She was an emotionally numb broken woman She covered stories and locations no other reporter would cover because they were scared. She sought out intense, depraved life threatening stories, just to see if it might make her feel something, remind her she could still have an actual emotion. In this story she didn’t have a boss assign her the story. Instead she came across it over the early 2000’s version of the darkest deepest corners of the scary internet. This was a time that sites existed entirely dedicated to showing corpses and videos of dead bodies and people being run over by tanks, cut apart with machetes, and animals set on fire in cages. Yes I saw those sites and honestly it’s the closest you get to an actual puzzle box. You spend enough time on the web, eventually you stumble onto the darker stuff. She discovers the “deaders”, this story is a lot closer to Flatliners, but on a more, psychological level.  Winters, the cult leader, not Lamarchand. Is the group leader who has discovered a psychological loophole that, if you willingly die…BUT maintain complete mental clarity, psychological focus at the exact moment you cross the threshold over to the abyss of death. You can come back and cheat death.

For those unfamiliar, in Flatliners when the med students would induce death and return. They would each experience the afterlife. It became like a drug for them making them want to go under and stay dead for longer. Eventually they began having visions of their past, and hallucinations in the living world.  Haunted by their sins forcing them to atone for these things. This story is a bit similar, but thankfully deeper and its own thing. But bordering just on that nut hair of being recognizable. A deader crossing the line entering the  realm of the dead, didn’t enter heaven or hell. Instead it was treated like being in an altered state of reality. A more perceptual reality that allowed them to have out of body like experiences. Traveling the world like a ghost before returning to their physical bodies.

Much like the hellraiser revised script, Winter becomes aware of Amy and wants to use her. For the exact same purpose. Only this time it actually makes sense. As a deader, a perfect deader would have a mind, soul void of emotion, completely broken and without boundaries, To him she’s the perfect Deader and someone he feels he can control. Deaders when in their crossing over state as ghost. Possess abilities to bend reality, and essentially fuck with the reality of others and their will. So the idea of a broken soul not needing guidance to empty itself and welcome the deader state. She could be an ultimate tool for Winter. So he’d track her down, on the Sooooooooooouuuuulll Traaaaaaaiin. Where he kills her and brings her back as a deader.

Unfortunately for Winter. She is everything he hoped. Absolutely powerful. But her own woman and not about to be controlled by someone. In the films climax the two would have a battle of willpower and the mind. Amy would crush Winter. With Winter dead, the cult checks out, Amy returns to London and oddly. Now being completely mentally torn between the realm of the dead and living, she’s found true happiness and inner peace. She returns home, the ultimate deader, traversing our world and the afterlife.

It’s an interesting story and had I come across it in Blockbuster, I’d dig it, it’s sort of bordering on that weird bit of coolness that you got from films like The Cube or Dark City.

But no, fuck that. Shove Pinheads cock up this scripts ass, or its getting shit canned for good. That’s the deal.

So he was. The film got rewrote into a Hellraiser film. In a big damn hurry and now knowing the original story? They really were getting even lazier with the damn rewrites.

The writer was forced to strip the story of its deep psychological themes of childhood trauma, emotional numbness and abuse. So they could insert the cenobites at the end, and the puzzle box. It’s just sad knowing the intended story and both just how little of Hellraiser they actually fit into it, while losing out so much depth of story that could have made it that much more interesting. Both on its own and as a Hellraiser film.

Well it doesn’t take much to imagine just what the hell happened here. But we do need to remember. This was one of two Hellraiser films going on at the same time, using the same locations. And crews.

Which is were just a part of their problems began.

Dimension would save hundreds of dollars filming in Romania given the value of the American dollar. But they also gained benefits made just for them. Like the fact unions were not a normal thing. That you could exploit your actors and crew by working them unholy extended hours without needing to stop because of regulations. So 14 hour and 16 hour work days were a normal occurrence. They also didn’t have, how can we put it. Safety concerns.

Kary Wuhrer who played Amy, spent a majority of her time in wet, damp clothing. Filming in often below freezing temps. They’d rush her immediately from the scene to a very well heated trailer so she wouldn’t die while filming. Like the last cast she suffered exhaustion and fighting off constant illnesses from the extreme cold and overly long hours.

And also the environment.

No safety regulations wasn’t just confined to working in freezing cold, boiling hot  weather or long days. It also means actively filming in placed covered in black mold, rotted and decaying sets, All the sets were from war torn locations and if you sat on a ledge somewhere, you could end up falling to your death from crumbled buildings finally giving way, or cutting yourself on rusted moldy iron. It wasn’t ideal and no one was going to be told stay away from there or close down production. So Dimension was happy.

I mean they were on cloud 9 with their plans. Sure people were getting sick, their lead actress was freezing her tits off and near exhaustion along side the crew working overhauled hours. But. Shooting in Romania? Not just for Deader but the immediate follow up Hellworld being filmed directly beside it? Oh they were incredibly happy.

The key to their happiness, was translated from the word, Loophole.

Loophole which also through the corporate dictionary defines the word, Technically.

Dimension filming both films in Romania stretched out their budget nearly twice its original budget for both films thanks to the loophole of escaping a large number of cost. Technically, both films shared the same budget, on paper? They had separate budgets. $2 million for Deader, $3 million for Hellworld. 5 million dollars to make two films, stretched nearly double that in Romania.

Thanks to the loophole of escaping unions, and traditional studio business, they could hire background extras and crew on the cheap. Technically…they signed the entire crew to a fixed production. Meaning they got paid the exact same across both films, and would work both productions from October through December.

Since local labor laws were incredibly lax and nearly none existent, they legally could blend the workload across both productions. This extended as well to renting once. Once. All equipment, sets, and extras.

They used this for shipping of equipment and make up effects from the U.S. Usually you have to pay her parcel per production. This way they only paid the once.

Doug Bradly also was used in there loopholes of fun. Thankfully though he did record dialog. Bradly was not paid per word. He was actually paid for time spent in makeup. Which as most can easily imagine took hours to do. Even though they were far ahead with Romanian cash flow, they weren’t going to suddenly be liberal with their spending.

So we had the makeup chair loophole, Doug would be flown down, slapped into the makeup chair. Collect his pay, film his scene for Deader. He would be stopped before returning to his trailer and the set, not all of them but enough to make it funny they actually did it. He’d stay on set. They would swap backgrounds. Bring in the same extras, redress and relight. Begin filming for Hellworld. THEN swap to a new location or green screen. Back to filming Deader. He’d record dialog, in makeup. Be held in place, bring in the next cast and wash rinse repeat.

They did this the entire shoot and paid him for one sitting across multiple scenes for two films. Now Doug was, not happy. He contacted his agent about this immediately because there was no way they would get two films out of him for not even half the price of one.

This began widening the divide between him and the studio given they already slapped him with the gag order and NDA with threats of legal repercussions if he ever spoke out. The two were in a battle during both productions but. Bradley did as instructed. It’s one of those now, it would be funny if it weren’t so sad. But how he explained he and other actors had to talk about the film during interviews or when asked? Is exactly how everyone talked during Disney’s Star Wars sequel trilogy, every marvel film and to be fair anything they shit out now. When the movie steers viciously away from lore and shits on the characters? They would say “The film is going in bold directions” and “It’s like nothing before it. It’s truly amazing”

It wasn’t just extended across both productions mind you. Dimension was just now discovering the playground that is Romania. Full Moon pictures made their bread and butter for years here. But Dimension was the loud tourist taking every advantage. They began multiple productions of other films, not just sharing again the same crews across different productions but also swapping main talent actors. When one would finish with Deader, they’d move to another Dimension film, or be used as an extra for Hellworld. They were going Caligula levels of over indulgence and saw no end to it.

Further more, the biggest hole they looped through, was how all of this gave them a vacation window on their intellectual property clause for Hellraiser. As we said they had to have a hellraiser film in active production to keep the rights. The filming for both these Hellraiser films in the same production window was 9 weeks. The moment the director says action and camera roll? They are fulfilling their needs to hold onto the franchise. If they manage another film say within 2-3 years, that extends the grace period they have before another Hellraiser would be needed in development to retain the rights. Having two, full length films in production(technically) at the same time(absolutely the same time) that gave them a grace period of 9 years they could go without pushing another Hellraiser out their assholes. This ultra cheap production secured them 9 years of not having to worry about Doug Bradley, Forcing another script to be re-written and lying to more directors. They were eating real good.

Speaking of directors, Rock Bota much like Doug Bradly was very far removed from happy. It might be a surprise to hear, but filming two films at the same time can be stressful. Even more so when the second film had a unique issue he had to deal with. I can’t save this for the next film, so I’ll just keep it blissfully short here for now. The reason Hellworld is so different than Deader? And Hellseeker, and Inferno, and every other story they violated shoving Hellraiser into?

Is because Hellworld had no script. The film shot with no script and pages were being delivered to him for Hellworld while filming Deader. The man would coordinate shots for Deader, look over the script, shoot and give direction for the next scene to be setup for shooting. While shifting over to the next production and having no fucking clue what he would be filming until they handed him the pages fresh from the printer.

Adding to this, was his relationship with the films cinematographer, Vivi Dragen. Vivi spoke little to no English. The two men had very. Incredibly different artistic visions. Bota was of the mindset to shoot Deader like its story suggested. Chaotic, erratic framing, unconventional lighting , handcam and the like. Something to fit the frantic psychological story and character in the film. Vivi was a very respected traditional European cinematographer. He disliked most American camera styles ESPECIALLY handcam and wanted to lean more on dolly tracks, elegent lighting and framing.

So the two would argue.

Through translators.

Like Harry Potter made fun of and children did to handle disputes. You send someone with a message for the person you aren’t talking too. They deliver the message, and you send them back with one of your own. Running back and forth having full conversations. Or in this case arguments.

It got to a point that sometimes, translators weren’t found, and the end result would be one person filming how they wanted and the other having to deal with it. Both men did this which only added to the weird look and feel of Deader.

Arguing on set is no new thing, for sure. But having to do so through a translator. When you have 12-16 hour shoots…and you spent a majority of that fighting with your cinematographer about lighting and camera setup. Trying to explain your reasoning. Having to wait for it to translate from one end to the other. It’s almost like arguing online, your anger turning more to frustration waiting for replies to post , responding to one only to see two more things pop up now having to address that. It was taxing on both of them and the production. Add to this the fact it was freezing outside, the sets being decayed buildings meant none of them had heating. It was a wonderful time for one and all.

Now, if the movie sounded bad. It’s not because it was straight to video. For the most part unless its purposely shot as shitty as possible, most sound just fine. This film, not so much. The pluss of shooting on decayed war torn locations and buildings is that it looks lived in, has history and adds production value. The minus is the fact you need to do massive soundproofing if you want any hope of recording something decent. For example, a friend of my sister was told I did some video editing and asked if I could edit the sound on a recording she’d done with her dad atop a mountain. It was done in honor of their grandmothers passing and he made a small speech while sitting atop the mountain. The entire video looks beautiful, the audio is part dialog and a majority of wind from every direction all at once in every direction. It was, a nightmare. Film students at the Art Institute also bitched about sound because they’d finally get their hands on a camera, go out, setup their art school scene of a man on a bench over looking the water thinking about his life. And all the audio is a wave of roaring wind, and traffic. Sound needs respect and these sets needed soundproofing to capture that thing which helps make your movie, called dialogue.

Unfortunately, the studio while abusing every loophole to save money. Was not going to spend money soundproofing sets. The name of the game remains the same and that game is shoot it, print it, move on.

So that meant echo chambers, low quality recording. An editors worst nightmare. Remembering they needed heaters to keep people from freezing, and those were rare. They and the equipment, lights and all ran off generators. Generators are a noise you cannot kill off without  a lot of help. That understandably drove the sound department insane, the director and actors on top of it. So that means. ADR to the rescue. ADR or Automated Dialogue Replacement means an actor standing in a sound studio recording their lines to redub scenes.

ADR is usually used for additional dialogue or if you have say a man delivering a speech on top of a mountain honoring a family member who’s passed. You get them to reread their speech and use that audio while lowering the natural audio or completely removing it.

Nearly 80% of the films audio was absolutely filled with generator noise and interference. Echo and roads. A Hollywood production team filming a Polonia bothers film. Having to call back all of your main cast to rerecord their lines. Yeah that cost their purposely cut down budget.

I don’t know why this is funny to me. It was funny watching and then realizing it was on purpose, well this is even funnier but. The costumes.

In short, there were no costumes. Even on low budget direct-to-video sets you will usually end up with several. We’ll be generous. Several of the same costume for actors to wear repeatedly. It’s kind of neat when you get into film tricks and effects work, you learn how they simulate sweat, grime. Making someone look like they stink to high hell and came crawling out of a sewer while smelling in reality of irish spring. One such trick is liquid glycerin. They spray this on actors and wham. You look like you’ve been dancing in a strip club for hours in the middle of a heat wave and the ac broke down. But it never runs, it doesn’t dry out. It stays right the fuck where it is and looks fresh as ever.

They couldn’t have this, or several of any clothing.

They would hose down actors and extras with cold water, mineral spirits to darken and dirty their clothing, and grab dirt right from the ground at their feet to give them the uncared unwashed look the director envisioned for his underground deader punks.

Because they had no budget for any of the films departments. This meant costumes were. Well. A mix of bring your own outfit and the time honored true goth tradition of second hand store raiding.

This film is the closest to what it was like filming Carnival of the Damned as a zombie for my sister’s now ex boyfriends passion project with his best friend. You showed up in your clothes from work or home, get makeup slapped on you, stand around for hours until they need you and go home after.

Except this was done for a Hollywood studio. I love it. But fuck its sad. The costume department ran all over Romania looking for goth like and punk attire in second hand stores. Casting calls would translate for actors to try. Try to arrive dressed in character. To make things even funner for them? Background extras hired for pennies were all hired the day before shooting. You had no idea who would show up let alone their size. So saying they grabbed any and everything off a  clothing rack without checking sizing. Well yeah. Do what you gotta do and make it work.

I mean, you can argue it gives everyone you see a distinct look and a lived in look. But good god that is a shit show. And it shows in the film.

What would a shit show production be. Without its effects group suffering along side them. It wasn’t that long ago we had an entire effects group work for free while being lied too about a theatrical release. This time no one was lying to them. They were just on a forced zero budget.

Not just zero as in none existent. But Zero as in zero waste, zero time, zero second chances.

They pushed hard on everyone to shoot, print, and move on. That’s never changed. So the effects group faced the same challenge only under tighter and somehow worse constraints. As Freddy and his crew suffered, so did Hellraiser with the strict rule of, make it work, you got one shot, don’t fuck it up. That’s nothing new but still a bitch to work with. What made this worse. Was the fact it was in the dead of a freezing winter. The only heaters on set were guarded and every department worked in a bare bones shack with four walls and a roof. Liquid latex, foam latex. All forms of latex which practical effects work with for, everything. Freezes. It  congeals, turns mushy when not fully cured, and can actually shatter if cold enough. The few times I’ve worked with it making mask, it can be a bitch when you live outside of the land the sun forgot. Kind of like resin 3D printing. You need that stuff at least around 27-29c for it to work right. If it gets too cold, it gums up, it causes misprints and a host of issues.

On a horror movie set which relies on special effects and latex. Well. That presents a problem. Latex appliances were shattering in the cold, blood would congeal and jam up the pumps meant to sent it spraying into the air and out throat gashes. The fact you had several cenobites who needed extensive facial applications, including your star cenobite himself. That was going to be an even bigger bitch. You’d figure the studio might do something to ensure the guy they put on the fucking posters would LOOK like he’s supposed to. But no. They could not give a shit. Get it done and get it in the can.

Just as the costume department had to salvage their outfits from second hand stores. So to it the effects department scavenged every space heater across the land. They drapped everything in sheet plastic, created a makeshift heat tent and managed to make prosthetics. Which would mostly reach full cure, were workable and could stand several hours before freezing.

However once applied, and the cold sweats kick in. That’s a different story.

Doug Bradley as shared, and the effects department head as well. They would have to constantly work on, re-apply, and keep adding bottles of spirit gum to Doug’s face to keep his pinhead makeup for sliding off his face. The fight to keep warm and keep your makeup in place moving from the beautiful delicious heat out into ball shriveling cold. It’s an experience. The idea of them managing all this on set moments before shooting, and immediately rushing in between cuts to fix the latex. All this work for a shit film. Bradely talked about his the constant gluing, the work arounds they used fixing a bald cap, the latex, with actual metal pins in it. It all tightened his face into a near cenobite like experience.

Every single department suffered. So the studio could shave cost on producing two films, driving cast and crew to physical and emotional exhaustion, and again. For what?

A film they didn’t care about, and were making just to keep Clive Barker from retaining.

My cousin, years back broke up with an obese man child who controlled her. They were staying in a carriage house on my parents land. When they broke up and he moved out. Leaving her and their infant son to live there. He decided he was taking 3 microwaves from the house, 2 baby car seats, diapers, her pillow, blanket and her office chair. Because he claimed those were his. That man was a run of the mill jabba the fuck. This was a movie studio butt fucking the dried prune hole of a corpse just to spite its creator. Wasting actual money to do so.

Anyway, back to this dead rotting thing. Because like always. We still have the goddamn editing.

I am not the only one to fall asleep trying to watch this movie. And that’s what they released to video. That was the best the editors could put together.

Every problem the production faced and was forced into. Showed up in every recorded frame. There was no climax to the film, there was no narrative or transitional shots for the film. Kill shots were quickly. Quickly shot by the director, because lingering for longer than all of a full second meant seeing blood tubes, uncured latex and applied latex peeling off actors faces.

The editor had piles of film with barely any cohesive story and no actual climax. Like the other departments, the editor would have to use every tool under their belt and stitch together something resembling a film. The editor has said the entire climax of the film was doing by reusing reaction shots of Doug and Kari Wuhrer. They’re never in the same room, and through the entire shot you see her crying, screaming. Flashes and occasionally what was filmed of her sacrifice. Pinheads lines from other scenes were added in on top of that. Extending what limited time he had been filmed. To hide the physical blunders they relied on 90’s quick cuts and micro edits. Scenes jumped in half a second one to the other making scenes frantic and action unreadable. It made the film hard for people to follow but it used everything filmed to try. Try to make it make sense. The forced ADR made scenes and actors feel entirely dubbed as not all their mouths lined up and the only way to cover that up was stretching film, more quick cuts or again. Move on and let god take the wheel.

Now imagine. You just got down spending 9 weeks in a freezing foreign town, with no  help. No one but yourself to rely on. Everyone around you exhausted and ready to walk out. You piece together something you’d rather remove your name from entirely. PRAYING you could Allan Smithee yourself out. Only to turn in your finished product, and have the studio shelve it.

Dimension films locked this film and its immediate sequel in a vault.

Not because it was horrible, incoherent and a disaster. But because Bob and Harvey Weinstein decided they wanted to part from Disney and make their fortune alone as the Weinstein Co.

So people. I can’t say fans because it hurts. But fuck I did rent it. I hate seeing what they did to my boy, but I still had to see. We few had to wait 3 years until this film would see the light of day.

A few months later Hellworld would follow. They didn’t bother waiting. They just pinched off one loaf and let the shit river follow.

In short. No one hated the film. Even critics didn’t hate it. What’s the point in hating something you just can’t even bring yourself the energy to hate? It was boring, it made no sense, and watching the movie. You could immediately see what they moderately tried in the previous films to hide, that the film was a stand alone film with Pinhead thrown in at the end. It wasn’t even a film, let alone a Hellraiser film. It wasn’t a tax right off. It was just a way to hold onto the rights.

Failing at a film is one thing. But when you make one that your entire audience just can’t be bothered with, and knows exactly why you made it. It’s how it felt when you lost your connection to Star Wars and realized the new hands holding it were going to milk it for its name only and every new announced show just has less and less effect on you because you just.

You just don’t care.

And they still had one more to release on the world. It would be the last of the Doug Bradly Pinhead films. It would also be the first one to feature a former big name actor, and introduce a future big name actor. This has to be said. Just to put you in the head space of anyone that gave and used to enjoy giving a shit about this series. The fact you lose Doug Bradley. Pinhead himself. You would think that means the series has finally been laid to rest after Hellworld.

They made 2 more fucking movies after Hellworld. 2. Because fuck Barker apparently.