Hellraiser Resurrected
Talk about a remake for the Hell of it.
Pinhead, arguably the world's most popular demon, is coming back to the big screen, as master of the macabre Clive Barker has revealed plans to redo his 1987 horror classic, Hellraiser, introducing the iconic villain to a new generation of fright fans.
The acclaimed British novelist announced the Hell-ish news on his official Website, stating he has cinched a deal to pen a script for a new big-budget version of Hellraiser for Dimension Films, the genre division owned by the Weinstein Company, the new entity launched by former Miramax overlords Harvey and Bob Weinstein.
"They're going to remake Hellraiser One with a lot more money and they've invited me to write it," Barker wrote in his post. "The invitation came from Bob Weinstein—which I am going to do, on the basis that if I don't do it, it will be done in some way that I probably won't like!"
The original Hellraiser was based on Barker's novella, The Hellbound Heart, and focused on the moral dilemma of an unfaithful wife who meets her zombified dead lover and is persuaded to commit murder to help him escape a horrible realm in which he's tortured for eternity by sadomasochistic demons called Cenobites.
Their leader—dubbed Pinhead by fans because of the many pins drilled into his skull—is prone to pleasantries such as, "No tears, please, it's a waste of good suffering," and "We will tear your soul apart." Predictably, he's not keen on losing any of his minions.
The movie cost $900,000, a paltry sum by even today's Hollywood standards. It ended up grossing $14 million at the box office and spawned several sequels and direct-to-DVD flicks, most of which Barker has since distanced himself from, as they were made by others.
The 54-year-old scribe, who wrote and directed the first installment, added that he had no interest in taking the directorial reins for this latest go-around, which will be made for a much bigger budget than any of the Hellraisers that came before it.
"I wouldn't want to revisit something that I did as a director, something I made all those years ago; that would be too, in a way, painful—not painful but weird, difficult, strange," added Barker. "[But] I am very happy at the idea of having some more money for the cool stuff."
The Hellraiser remake, which will be produced by Anthony Diblasi and Joe Daley along with Richard Saperstein and Matthew Stein for Dimension, isn't the only seminal splatterfest being remade these days.
As part of the current renaissance in Hollywood horror, other gory remakes in the last several years include 2005's House of Wax and a handful produced by Michael Bay's Platinum Dunes production banner, including 2003's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, 2005's The Amityville Horror, as well as upcoming retreads of 1986's The Hitcher and Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds.





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