Hellraiser: Bloodline, 1996 - DVD

You can read some of the Hellraiser screenplays here!

I remember exactly where and when I saw this film in the theaters. Back in 1996, I had just gotten out of the School of Visual Arts, with a degree in Illustration. I wanted to be a comic book artist. Prior to getting into college, Epic Comics (a division of Marvel) had just started a series of Hellraiser books, in a prestige format (meaning, it had a hard bound cover, not just a plain paper cover). This Hellraiser comic became a platform for the majority of the painters that were trying to get into mainstream comics.

Kent Williams, Jon J. Muth, George Pratt, Scott Hampton, Bill Koeb, Dave Mckean, Ted McKeever, Alex Ross, Dave Dorman... these guys were making some of the most incredible pieces imaginable in this book. Now, I was a huge Hellraiser fan. I mean, after I saw the first film, I wanted to become a Cenobite, for god sake! The second film was about the bloodiest thing I'd seen... and a Hellraiser story was the first thing I ever wrote in my life.

So, the Hellraiser franchise was alive and well, in more than just the movies.

The third film was strange... Hellraiser: Hell on Earth. It was a bridge film to get Pinhead back, even though, after the second film, he should have been destroyed. I have no real problem with the third film, except for the designs of the new Cenobites. They're just awful.

Bloodline was yet another take on the film. I suppose, since part 3 did so badly, they decided to take the Hellraiser franchise into the future, where the present universe of the Hellraiser characters wouldn't be around to screw it up.

This was very clever, since the tale deals with not only the future, but also deals with the creator of the puzzle box, Phillip L'Merchant. We get to find out why the box was created, who it was created for, and how it ended up bringing hell to Earth.

Now, you'll notice that the film is directed by Alan Smithee. Alan Smithee is a psuedonym for directors who, for their own reasons, have disowned their projects and do not want their names on it. Sometimes, this is a kiss of death for a film that is being released in the theaters. I remember people laughing when the name of the director came up... but I was young and didn't know who or what an Alan Smithee was.

As a side note, David Lynch asked for the same thing when the TV version of Dune came out. He did not approve of the cut that was made, and he asked for his name to be removed from the film. The original film still has his name on it.

Back in 1996, I was at a Kinko's, making color copies of some of my comic work. There was a convention coming up, and I wanted to drop off pieces of my work to editors who might be looking for new talent.

Well, a woman works on the machine next to me and sees my work. We begin talking, and she tells me that she is Bess Cutler. Now, back in the day, the Bess Cutler Gallery was a pretty cool place. They represented some pretty interesting artists, including Robert Crumb, Robert Williams, Charles Shultz and Clive Barker.

Now, I had started hanging out down there, got to meet Clive a few times, and the Gallery actually got me some work, which got published in Guitar World Magazine. I even won some awards for that work... but that was a long time ago.

At the time, I was asked to write a prospective screenplay based on one of Barker's characters, The Arsonist. I worked my ass off, and came up with a pretty lengthy novella, which I gave to the gallery. Fast forward a few months, maybe a year later and the gallery went under. I never heard from them again. But, I did see Mr. Barker at a signing, and talked to him about the project. He took a copy of the manuscript, and I haven't heard from him either. His office no longer accepts my submissions, and I received a letter from them, stating that...

Shit, ok. I'm off, off topic. Suffice it to say, Barker isn't in my good graces at the moment. But hey, that's ok.

But, one evening when we were talking, after a signing he did, I went to see the new movie. That's the round-about way of me getting back to the review.

There are some major problems with the story, and one of the reasons director Yagher decided to divorce himself from the picture was that the producers made their own cut of the film. Yagher had scenes he'd wanted to shoot which would have explained some of the plot holes, but the producers said no. So, he said adios.

The movie isn't bad, but it has nothing to do with the Hellraiser universe... save the history about the Box. That's about it. You can't really say that the film is a sequel, or a super-sequel to any of the other Hellraiser films, just like you can't say that Jason X has anything to do with the preceeding films. This movie was made to take the characters out of their element, and into something fun.

It succeeded on some levels, for certain... but once you lose the director, who has a vision, and then the producers have a vision of money and not entertainment, well, that's not a good combination. The audience is left with a messy piece of filmmaking, and that's it.

I think Peter Atkins is quite a good writer, and would love to read his original script some time. He wrote the second Hellraiser film, which is just incredible. He did write the third film, which had some very good moments in it, and he also wrote the first Wishmaster. Not bad. I think he's got an eye for horror, especially this type of horror, and I hope he comes out with some more produced material soon.

All in all, not great, not bad... more like a distant cousin to the Hellraiser films. That's about it. Just like you can't go from Hell on Earth to part 5 of the Hellraiser series, Inferno... the films are disassociating themselves from one another. The first two films work well togther. The remainder are for the sole purpose of bringing back one of the best created horror characters ever. Pinhead.