Feel the pain and the pleasure of the new Hellraiser teaser
Here’s our first look at the new Pinhead as seen through a Virtual Boy.
Alright, Cenobites, here it is, the teaser for the Hellraiser “reimagining.” Now, the trailer won’t tear your soul apart. It’s more or less a throwback style teaser, reminiscent of side-scrolling text made famous by the opening credits of The Terminator and made famous again by the opening credits of Stranger Things. There are no puzzle boxes, Chatterers, or Butterballs. But there is a Pinhead.
As reported last October, Jamie Clayton from Sense8 is stepping in for Doug Bradley. She isn’t the first to do so. The previous two entries in the series saw new acupuncture enthusiasts in the role. 2011’s contractual obligation, Hellraiser: Revelations, required two actors, Stephan Smith Collins as the body and Fred Tatsciore as the voice, to bring Pinhead to life. More successfully, Paul T. Taylor got nailed in the face for Hellraiser: Judgment.
Hellraiser comes to us from director David Bruckner, who made the buzzy creeper The Night House last year, offering us yet another incredible Rebecca Hall performance—not that we’re complaining! Previously, Bruckner said the film is a “small reimagining.”
“All I’ll say is that we are aiming to be as true as we can to the original material,” Bruckner told Gamesradar last year. “The Hellbound Heart is also a primary source of inspiration, as well as the original film.”
David S. Goyer, who seemingly has all the time in the world to write scripts featuring beloved characters, wrote the screenplay. Depending on how you feel about Goyer, that can mean anything. The man has had his name on many great movies and just as many not-so-great ones. However, this is the first proper horror movie in some time. Before becoming the king of DC comics adaptations, Goyer wrote scripts for evil toy movies, like Demonic Toys and The Puppet Masters, and, of course, he launched to genre stardom by writing the scripts for the Blade movies and directing the third one.
We’ll be able to taste the movie’s pleasures when Hulu’s puzzle box opens, and Hellraiser hits streaming on October 7.