A new take on Hellraiser is currently in production, with this adaptation of the material earning some strong praise from producer David S. Goyer, who says the new movie is looking “amazing” and “terrifying.” The original 1987 Hellraiser was inspired by the Clive Barker short story “The Hellbound Heart,” which laid the foundation of the mythology. Goyer also noted that, as director David Bruckner has previously explained, this new take on the material aims to honor that source material more than merely being a replication of the events we’ve seen in previous entries. The new Hellraiser doesn’t yet have a release date.
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“I will say that we went back to the original novella for the source material, we’re really honoring Clive’s work,” Goyer explained to Collider. “I can say that David Bruckner is a genius. It’s filming right now. The footage is terrifying and amazing, and the Cenobites are jaw-dropping.”
While the original film’s “Pinhead,” a demonic creature whose entire skull was embedded with nails, would go on to become an iconic villain along the likes of Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees, or Michael Myers, his background was far more fantastical in nature. Rather than merely stalking his victims to pick them off one by one, Pinhead and his fellow Cenobites came from a Hellish dimension, with Pinhead himself noting they were “demons to some, angels to others.”
Also unlike other straightforward horror franchises, the fantastical and demonic nature of the Hellraiser series has allowed it to evolve and morph to take on various forms and explore a number of different adventures over the years. A majority of the entries in the series went straight to video, the most recent of which being Hellraiser: Judgement back in 2018.
Bruckner explained earlier this year how this new take on the material will surely deviate from what audiences might be expecting.
“We can’t say anything about it yet,” Bruckner shared with SFX Magazine. “But it is something that we are actively working towards, and it is a joy and a dream for a filmmaker like myself to dive into that world. All I’ll say is that we are aiming to be as true as we can to the original material. [Clive Barker’s original story] ‘The Hellbound Heart’ is also a primary source of inspiration, as well as the original film. But then it is something of a small reimagining and we are currently working on it.” ย
Stay tuned for details on the newย Hellraiserย reboot from director David Bruckner and writers Ben Collins and Luke Piotrowski.
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