The Hellraiser Films and Their Legacy (22 page)

Nor does Leviathan need to lie and cheat to get what it wants: the souls of the damned are there for the taking. If anything, it is the truth that this god deals in, penetrating the outer layers of human camouflage with its black light and seeing right into the very heart of a person, revealing who they truly are.

The Devil’s Own

We’ve examined the demons that inhabit this Hell in chapter 3, but how do these differ from more traditional demonic interpretations? Greek Diamons were merely intermediary spirits that existed somewhere between humans and gods. But in Western religion and occult lore, demons have been classified into many elaborate systems connected with Hell. The most intricate of these was devised by Johann Weyer, who estimated there to be 7,405,926 demons at the command of seventy-two princes.
⁸
In the Christian religion, they have come to be associated with the angels that fell from Heaven with Lucifer. When the word is mentioned it immediately conjures up images of small, leathery creatures with pointed teeth and tails that populate Hell and torment humans on earth, exactly like The Yattering in Barker’s short story from the
Books of Blood
.

The Cenobites are nothing like this. Sadomasochistic individuals with open wounds and butcher’s implements hanging from their black garb, it is finally revealed in
Hellbound
that they were once human. In the first scene of the movie we are shown Pinhead’s transformation process. The camera pans along a table of objects, a jacket, fly-brush, gun in a holster and safari hat—all of which pinpoint an occupation, as well as a rough date. It is clear from this that the person who was once Pinhead served in the army in India in the 1920s, when the English were in residence. (The additional bartering scene would have elucidated this.) We then see Doug Bradley sitting crossed-legged in long shot, solving the puzzle just as Frank did in the previous movie. His reward is a little different, for he is selected to become a Cenobite and we are witness to his bloody conversion, where the grooves are cut into his head and the nails are banged into it.

Later on in the film—after their deaths at the hands of Channard—we see who all the Cenobites were before their metamorphoses. The Female Cenobite was a beautiful woman with long, blonde hair. Butterball was an overweight man in his forties, and Chatterer was a young boy. Nicholas Vince later wrote a first person short story called “Look See” in which he redefined his character’s back story as that of a more apposite stand-up comedian from New York in the 1930s: “Of course, now they’ve made movies of some of the Box’s stories. They’re quite good. They’ve got a lot of things right and most of them wrong. I mean, they’ve tried to say I was a kid when I opened the box—nice try, but no Kewpie Doll. But what can you expect from movie people?”
⁹

To some extent, this revelation takes away from the menace that the Cenobites exuded in the original film. Their air of mystery had the dual purpose of keeping us intrigued and terrified. By providing an answer to our—admittedly inevitable—question about the origins of Pinhead and his colleagues, it decreased their ability to scare us. If we can relate to the Cenobites because they were once human, we can empathize with them; they are doing these things because they have been indoctrinated into Hell’s legions by Leviathan. Granted, their worst character traits may have simply been given an outlet by the god, just like Channard; nevertheless it is hard not to feel some pity.

On the other hand, this does give the Cenobites another dimension. Bradley has said that in conversations with Barker before the filming of
Hellraiser
he not only told him to think of the character as, “some lowly clerk in a corporation,”
¹⁰
he also told him that Pinhead had once been a man. This knowledge hugely affected him when he initially put on the make-up and looked at himself in the mirror. “The first feeling I got was a deep sense of melancholia in the face, powerful and unsettling,” said Bradley. “The layout of the nails being symmetrical helps. It was clearly something that was done to him. The melancholy showed me he was human, once. He was, in a way he could not express, mourning the loss of his humanity.”
¹¹
It allowed Bradley to foreshadow what would happen in
Hellbound
and also give his character that sense of sadness which set him apart from other villains and demons. Fundamentally, what was lost was a part of the monster, but what was gained was a deeper texture to the character itself. This was a dichotomy that would be more fully explored in the next film.

10

THE SWEET SUFFERING

There are no two ways about it,
Hellbound
divided critics and fans alike. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the first reviews from the Leeds International Film Festival (13–29 October 1988) where the movie received its UK Premiere, alongside Wes Craven’s
The Serpent and the Rainbow
and Ken Johnson’s
Short Circuit
. Peter Atkins was on hand to introduce the film and answer questions, but opinion was so divided that the magazine
Samhain
decided to print a “Case For” and “Case Against” feature.

In the more positive review, John Martin draws comparisons with
Aliens
because of the presence of Hope and the Kirsty/Tiffany storyline, but claims categorically that “
Hellbound
is far superior” not only to that film but to any other sequel in living memory
¹
. He goes on to state that steps have been taken “to ensure that the poetry is not sacrificed on the altar of populism” but that it also “goes straight for the jugular,” boasting an efficient screenplay by Atkins. Martin’s only criticisms involve Randel’s “attempts to convey the subjective nature of Hell via irritating optical effects,” such as the scene where Pinhead confronts Kirsty again. “At one point ... he starts spinning around as though declaiming from inside a tumble dryer.”
²
Martin ends with this meditation: “In an ideal world sequels wouldn’t be made. It isn’t, they are, they have to be judged on their merits and they don’t come any better than
Hellbound
.”
³

Jeremy Clarke offered his views for the prosecution and didn’t pull any punches. “
Hellbound: Hellraiser II
lacks all the elements that made its predecessor work so well whilst simultaneously incorporating and enlarging upon the one major flaw of the original.”
⁴
He refers to the Americanization of the material, or, more accurately, the confusing mix of the British and American. “The sequel exacerbates this transatlanticity to an even more ludicrous degree. The first few minutes see a ‘homicide detective’ and a cop in an American uniform arrive on the scene of Frank’s demise: later scenes show an insane asylum run by Channard, who has an unmistakably British accent.”

Clarke’s attack concentrates on the idea that if you don’t start off the film knowing exactly where you are, or which country you’re in, it makes it more difficult to suspend belief later. “No one in their right mind would buy the world of
Hellbound: Hellraiser II
. Not for one minute,” he continues. “Any sense of reality, character or plot have been pared away from the original.” In their defense, Atkins and Randel have always argued that the setting of
Hellbound
gives it a strange otherworldly quality that you can’t pin down. “It takes place in the country of the imagination,” claims Atkins
⁵
while at the same time admitting the more pragmatic reason was that a U.S. company was footing the bill and they wanted it to appeal to American audiences.

The movie was greeted with a similar mixed response from other magazines and newspapers. Martin Sutton’s review in
Films and Filming
hinted that Barker took more of a backseat this time because he knew nobody could pull off a sequel to his movie, and centers on the two main female leads: “The sequel is particularly poorer for pushing aside the raunchy, forceful character of step-mother Julia, in favour of a far less charismatic actress.... Both her blandness and stateside turn of phrase ring quite false in the context.”
⁶
Marc Shapiro’s review from
Gorezone
was more of a cause for celebration for the cast and crew. “From the opening nightmarish flashbacks through to the slick/smart sequel-in-mind ending,
Hellbound: Hellraiser II
plays like the movie equivalent of a slaughterhouse tour.”
⁷

The Phantom of the Movies also sang its praises: “
Hellbound: Hellraiser II
represents one of those rare cases when a scare sequel actually surpasses the original....
Hellbound
may be a mite strong for fainter-hearted viewers, but hard-core horror buffs won’t want to miss what ranks as the best over-the-top terrorfest of 1988.”
⁸
This was balanced out by Roger Ebert’s predictably negative response: “It is simply a series of ugly and bloody episodes, strung together one after another like a demo tape by a perverted special effects man....”
⁹

Variety
, as well, was quick to judge it this way, “With marginal action and scattershot storytelling technique, helmer Tony Randel returns to the off-the-wall tale of a psychotic psychiatrist’s long struggle to get the better of something called the Lament Configuration....
Hellraiser II
is a maggoty carnival of mayhem, mutation and dismemberment, awash in blood and recommended only for those who thrive on such junk,”
¹⁰
while
Monthly Film Bulletin
drew comparisons with the original, complaining that before it can start its own story the sequel required two sets of flashbacks. But the
Film Bulletin
did have some good things to say: “Director Tony Randel and screenwriter Peter Atkins, working from a story by Clive Barker ... manage in the first half-hour to re-establish the boundaries of the story and the distinctive visual and aural style.... The best sequences appear early, as when the raw and skinless Julia flirts with the drawn and prissy Channard.”
¹¹

Strangely enough, none of the reviews mention the quite blatant nods towards Hitchcock in the movie, which Randel—a massive fan—included. The first comes with the close-up on Kirsty’s eye at the start, which is a tribute to Janet Leigh’s death scene in
Psycho
. The scene where Julia rises from the mattress and wrestles with Browning was inspired by
Torn Curtain
(1966), where Paul Newman has to kill someone and it takes an agonizingly long time. The numbers on the cranes in the scene where Tiffany approaches the carnival exactly match those in a parallel scene in
Vertigo
(1958), and, of course, who could miss the reference to that same film when Tiffany falls off the edge of the walkway at the climax of
Hellbound
; the only difference is that Kirsty is able to pull her up, and Jimmy Stewart doesn’t have the same luck with that fated policeman.

As for Barker’s reactions, speaking in an interview for
Skeleton Crew
he said, “Tony has a very different take on this movie to me.... There are certain things that Tony has done with
II
that I as a director wouldn’t have done. But they are his, and it’s very important that people see Tony’s vision through Pete’s vision and my own. I’m very proud of
II
. I think it works.”
¹²

For Atkins, the main line of assault was the fight between the Cenobites. He actually received hate mail because Channard was so easily able to defeat Pinhead and the other Cenobites. Here was the new kid on the block suddenly picking on and beating up the established gang. The writer’s rejoinder has always been that a more elaborate fight was written, but again because of money it couldn’t be filmed. He also pointed out that because the Cenobites have just recalled who they really are, they are in a vulnerable position and, consequently, at the mercy of Channard, a person who embraced his Cenobite transformation. Atkins also maintains that, at his full powers, Pinhead would definitely trounce Channard in any brawl.

Speaking about the film in its entirety, Atkins has said, “A lot of hard-core fans of the first movie weren’t too happy but I’ve met as many people at conventions, festivals and signings who prefer the second picture as I’ve met who dislike it. The critics, too, were split in their opinions.... But the real voters are the paying customers, and
Hellbound
did as well financially as the first movie, which is very unusual for sequels.”
¹³
Which was a good thing, as a second sequel was already being discussed even as
Hellbound
was about to hit cinemas. Yet, in spite of the fact audiences had only had to wait a year to go to Hell, they would have to wait much longer before Hell would return to Earth.

11

EARTHBOUND

Like its predecessor, preparations for the making of
Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth
were being made even before the current film had been released. In the summer of 1988, Tony Randel and Pete Atkins flew over to L.A. to have meetings with New World executives, while the finishing touches were still being put to
Hellbound
. The movie was again due to be a co-production between Film Futures (Barker and Chris Figg’s company) and New World. Unfortunately, things didn’t quite go to plan. A host of Film Futures projects were in the planning stages, while at the same time Barker was undertaking his first big budget director’s job transferring his novel
Cabal
to film—with Morgan Creek financing it to the tune of $11 million.
Nightbreed
would reunite many members of the
Hellraiser
family, including Doug Bradley (now playing a prophet called Lylesberg), Nick Vince (as Kinski), Simon Bamford (as Ohnaka), Oliver Parker (as Peloquin), Catherine Chevalier (with a bigger part now as Rachel) and, of course, Bob Keen’s effects crew. It would also headline Craig Sheffer as hero Boone, who would later return to star in
Hellraiser: Inferno
, Anne Bobby as his girlfriend Lori, and acclaimed horror movie director David Cronenberg as a deranged psychiatrist named Decker.