'Hellraiser' (2012) remake aiming for PG-13 crowd

[Nerdius Maximus]

Boring. I see no point in this whatsoever.

Money.

That is both the necessary and the sufficient cause.

I doubt it'll make much, at least initially. It's going to come and go from theaters unnoticed in a couple of weeks, just like the new Nightmare on Elm Street. And if it's the big-budget affair that I assume it's going to be, they'll probably end up praying to break even with dvd/blu-ray sales. It's not like Hellraiser was ever that big of a hit in the first place, at least not on the level of Nightmare or Friday. I don't know, though, I could be wrong. Seems like they're taking a pretty big chance, though.

 

[Pingfah]

^ It didn't make anywhere near as much as Friday the 13th (1980), but is on a par with Elm Street, it made back 20 times its $1 million budget just in theatres, so I imagine its been a good money spinner over the years since.

 

[Aragorn]

I think a dance-off at prom between the heroine and Pinhead to determine the fate of mankind would rock!

But since the Weinsteins are making it, none of you will have anything to fear. They'll spend a ton of money making it, then decide they don't know how to market it and it'll just sit on the shelf collecting dust for a few years before being unceremoniously dumped straight onto DVD, resulting in massive losses.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

I think a dance-off at prom between the heroine and Pinhead to determine the fate of mankind would rock!

Well we know Pinhead already has a dress.

 

[Nerdius Maximus]

^ It didn't make anywhere near as much as Friday the 13th (1980), but is on a par with Elm Street, it made back 20 times its $1 million budget just in theatres, so I imagine its been a good money spinner over the years since.

Wow. Guess I was wrong. I don't know how I got the impression that it didn't do that well. Maybe because the franchise kind of fizzled out faster than the others. Certainly I thought Nightmare was far more popular. Of course, I was in elementary through Jr. High in the '80s, and Freddy was huge with that age group for like, 8 years, so my recollection is probably skewed a little. I knew a kid that made a Freddy costume for halloween using pencils wrapped in foil as the claws. Everybody thought it was awesome.

 

[Goliath]

I think a dance-off at prom between the heroine and Pinhead to determine the fate of mankind would rock!

Well we know Pinhead already has a dress.

"Hell is the word--the word is hell!"

 

[Aragorn]

It's been announced that the people actually helming the Hellraise reboot are the Drive Angry team of writer Todd Farmer (The Messengers, Jason X) and director Patrick Lussier (Dracula 2000, My Bloody Valentine), who are most definitely of the R-rated horror approach.

 

[Pingfah]

^ It didn't make anywhere near as much as Friday the 13th (1980), but is on a par with Elm Street, it made back 20 times its $1 million budget just in theatres, so I imagine its been a good money spinner over the years since.

Wow. Guess I was wrong. I don't know how I got the impression that it didn't do that well. Maybe because the franchise kind of fizzled out faster than the others. Certainly I thought Nightmare was far more popular. Of course, I was in elementary through Jr. High in the '80s, and Freddy was huge with that age group for like, 8 years, so my recollection is probably skewed a little. I knew a kid that made a Freddy costume for halloween using pencils wrapped in foil as the claws. Everybody thought it was awesome.

The Elm Street series had 2 big hits for a franchise with part 3 & 4, at a time when the Friday movies box office returns had severely dwindled. In the late 80s when I guess you and me were both kids ( I was 10 when Elm Street 3 came out) it was a lot more popular.

Plus, I think Freddy has entered into the public conscience to a greater degree because he is an actual wise-cracking sadistic character rather than a silent slasher guy in a mask, and the films are much more entertaining, in my opinion. They at least try to change things around, approach from a new angle, unlike the Friday films which are mostly exactly the same apart from the occasional shifting location.

I made a Freddy glove out of Mechano. It was truly awesome, had jointed fingers with hinges, the metal backplate, everything.

 

[Starkers]

A PG13 Hellraiser? What a curious idea given it's all about sadomasochism and pain as pleasure etc.

Coming soon, a PG13 Saw reboot?

I was never a great fan of the original Hellraiser (was it supposed to be set in London, was it supposed to be set in New York who can tell!), but I liked Hellraiser 2 a lot, skinless Julia was surprisingly erotic!

Someone has mentioned the fact that Andy Robinson was in the original, but worth noting as well that Terry Farrell was the lead in Hellraiser 3!

 

[Pingfah]

Hellraiser 3 is pretty crap though.

The nightclub slaughter scene was good, and it has lots of good FX and makeup, but plotwise it was really heading into crappy franchise territory by then.

 

[Starkers]

Been a long while since I saw 3, is that the one that gave Pinhead his WW1 backstory?

 

[Pingfah]

^ Yep, that's the one, and brought the Cenobites to Earth.

 

[Starkers]

Thought so, the one where he essentially gets redeemed (until HR4 and beyond...)

 

[Pingfah]

Hellraiser 4 Run out of ideas? Set it in space, everything's better in space!

The only thing they got right were the effects which were pretty good. But with Kevin Yagher behind the camera that is no surprise, his work on the Chucky doll was genius.

 

[Othello]

Umm not only no.. but hell no..

I'll never forget the "We'll tear your soul apart" line.. great stuff...

 

[Servo]

It's been announced that the people actually helming the Hellraise reboot are the Drive Angry team of writer Todd Farmer (The Messengers, Jason X) and director Patrick Lussier (Dracula 2000, My Bloody Valentine), who are most definitely of the R-rated horror approach.

The problem with that, however, is all four of those films are shite.

 

[Pingfah]

I've got a soft spot for Jason X actually, that's into "so bad it's great" territory, but I don't want anyone involved with it to be part of a Hellraiser remake.

 

[Servo]

Jason X was an interesting idea, and there were a few fun bits in it (Rommie & Becca effectively switching places, the holo-bimbos in the sleeping bag), but other than that, it was crap. My opinion, of course.

 

[DevilEyes]

It's not a romantic, light-hearted, rom-com is it?

I mean, it is horror, right? I've seen it listed as a horror movie.

(The slasher bit I'll admit to maybe being wrong on.)

Well of course it is a horror. Had you called it a horror movie I would not have disagreed, but you didn't, did you.

I'd hesitate to call Pinhead even a principle character in the first film, it's a grim tale of love, lust, greed and betrayal. Pinhead has all of a few minutes of screen time and is not essential to the underlying plot. They didn't adopt any slasher film elements until the 3rd film and did so as a result of sheer money-grabbing laziness. The rest of the films are not even worth mentioning in the same sentence as the first two.

You shouldn't let your dislike of the slasher genre stop you watching the first Hellraiser movie, it's a great film and a classic of the Horror genre as a whole.

ITA.

I always loved the first Hellraiser (although I thought that shifting from Julia to Kirsty as the lead in the last third hurt the film, due to Ashley Lawrence's awful acting, in contrast to Clare Higgins' sublime performance) and the second one was almost as good, or maybe I should say, as good, if you ignore some dodgy effects. Hellraiser is the true definition of 'horror' to me (as opposed to 'terror', which is the word I'd rather use for Halloween, for instance) - the first time I watched it, I literally had to avert my eyes during some of the scenes - like Monster Frank's first appearance to Julia ("Don't look at me"): it was horrifying and creepy, and at the same time, so moving and emotional.

I can see how a remake might improve some things (like, cast a better Kirsty, and make her into a more interesting character). But remaking it as PG-13? Now that's something that horrifies me in an entirely different way.

 

[Roshi]

Jason X was an interesting idea, and there were a few fun bits in it (Rommie & Becca effectively switching places, the holo-bimbos in the sleeping bag), but other than that, it was crap. My opinion, of course.

I was laughing so hard that I had to stop the film!