‘Hellraiser’ Cast and Crew Discuss New Cenobites, The Extremely Graphic Content and More

“You opened it, we came!”

Mike Vaughn here, your fearless horror fan and reporter. I just managed to escape a literal hell, and I can now present the facts. I was trapped with a colorful cast of actors, a director and producer. It seems I was invited to revel in a wickedly delightful press conference for Hellraiser, premiering on Hulu October 7th. Now that I seem to be safe from the carnage, I can now break down what I witnessed. Before the conference started, attendees were treated to a screening of the latest trailer. This certainly set a great mood in Hell, and all the demons were well primed for the special guests.

Attending:

• Jamie Clayton (“Pinhead”)
• Goran Visnjic (Voight”)
• Brandon Flynn (“Matt”)
• Odessa A’zion (“Riley”)
• Drew Starkey (“Trevor”)
• Adam Faison (“Colin”)
• Hiam Abbass (“Menaker”)
• David Bruckner (Director)
• Keith Levine (Producer)
• Moderator: Angel Melanson / Fangoria

Director David Bruckner was asked about his version of the iconic horror film and franchise saying: “Yeah. This is a new Hellraiser story. It’s not a remake of the original films, necessarily. It does harken back to them quite a bit, but it is the tale of Riley played by Odessa here who discovers the box and opens it. And all hell breaks loose.”

Of course, everyone is excited “as hell” over the new Pinhead aka The Priest played to perfection by Jamie Clayton. In talking about her performance saying:  “I mean, The Priest is everything that I am and everything that I’m not. And she’s amazing, and she’s gonna tear your souls apart.” When asked how her performance compares to Doug Bradley’s she stated:

“I really tried to do something uniquely my own. David and I had so many Zooms and discussions about this sort of, how the body would look and how the head would be. And, the sort of stillness that was incorporated. And it was all of those conversations with David, about his idea of what it would be when he took on this project, and then me bringing my bits and bobs to it and then the meshing of those things. And I’m hoping that it’s something really unique. I mean, Doug is incredible. But I didn’t want to be sort of compared, or have people be like, “Oh, you know, she nicked that from him. You know, she’s doing that thing that he did,” which is another reason why I think they wanted a woman to play the role because it takes the burden off the audience of that comparison. It’s a whole new thing. So just, you know, Doug is amazing. No one could ever, ever, ever, ever, [LAUGH], do what he did. Love you, Doug.”

David also added: “This is my first time ever working with sacred IP. And feeling a responsibility to what has come before us. And also, really, just being so blown away. Hellraiser is pretty hard, you know. I was joking it could be a person with a mask on and a knife. But it’s not. They’re interdimensional BDSM demons that throw chains at you from a labyrinth. It’s complicated stuff to get right. And so, actually making one of these films, my admiration goes to all the filmmakers that have come before us on it.”

The cast and crew had a great time recounting their first times seeing the film series.

Goran: When I was a teenager, in our local video store, there were VHS tapes of the first four Hellraisers. The first one, I hadn’t seen it in the theater, so in a few nights, my friend and I saw all of them. And number four was always my favorite, because I’m a sci-fi fan, and this one is happening in space station. An operatic Hellraiser. It was the time of Star Wars: Empire Strikes Back. So with that Hellraiser, I felt a really huge impact of that one. So when this script came by – thank you Mr. Bruckner – I was like, “Okay, this is really interesting,” you know. So yeah, big fan.

Hiam: I’m really sorry, I’m going to disappoint you. I didn’t know anything. In fact, any horror movie would have never gone my way, because I grew up in a place where everything was frightening anyway. If I was to escape in movies, I would choose something much easier on my psychology somehow. So I’m really sorry for that. But I discovered through this movie that I was wrong, basically, you know? But as an actor, I really wanted badly to do one (horror film). And just a month before this came my way, I just was telling my agent, “I really want to just do a horror movie.” A month later, I just get the offer. And I say, “This is crazy. It means, it meant to be, right?”

Odessa: Yeah, I mean, I was always familiar with Hellraiser, but I didn’t grow up watching them. And, well, then I started watching them, and then when I booked this, then I started really watching them. If we’re talking about favorites, I’d say that my favorite might be the second one. I just rewatched that one last night ’cause I want to re-prep myself. You know, get ready for all this. And I think that one’s my favorite. Yeah, it’s really crazy. ‘Cause there are a lot of differences in our movie, but there are also, a lot of similarities. And I feel like the second one, you could see that a lot.

Brandon: But the first one is so iconic. I always grew up watching horror movies, ’cause I think at nine years old, I was just sadistic and wanted to be scared.

Angel: Are you telling me you watched Hellraiser when you were nine?

Brandon: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Silence of the Lambs, Hellraiser. Yeah. I had no idea what I was watching when I was that age. So when I got this script and got to watch it with, fresh adult eyes, it took on a whole meaning, especially knowing Clive Barker, sort of why he wrote the novel in the first place.

Angel: I’m just now picturing a nine-year-old Brandon on the playground saying, “I have such sights to show you,” and the kids are like, “Ah, okay.”

Brandon: It was more like, “Come to Daddy” all the time. [LAUGH]

Angel: Adam, were you also running around the playground quoting Hellraiser? You know, at way too young of an age?

Adam: Mine might have been more Halloween, but I very much,  I guess commiserate with Brandon on feeling like a little dark soul. I loved horror movies. AMC Horror Fest I think is where I maybe saw Hellraiser for the first time. AMC would do these reruns back-to-back of movies from the franchises. So I think that’s probably the first time that I ever had seen the Hellraiser movies. And then David Bruckner actually got me on to The Hellbound Heart, the novella, which is the base for most of this. It was cool getting to hear. Clive Barker does a narrated audio book. And it’s super-wild ’cause his voice is very flat and monotone. The way he says it it seems like unfazed by all the crazy shit you could say, which is really fun. So yeah, I was listening to that before we started filming, and I thought it was really fun to listen. If you guys haven’t listened to that too, it’s very fun.

Drew: I mean, Brandon, I think I was traumatized at an early age. I’d say about eight or nine as well. My parents were big movie buffs. My mom worked in a video store through high school through the mid-’80s through, like, the early ’90s. So, she was a big horror fan. But Hellraiser was always one, kind of the one film that she was like, “Stay away from that.” You know, “Don’t go near there.” So as an act of rebellion, my brother and I, I think, watched it when we were too young.

But the imagery, the imagery always kinda stayed with me my entire life. I always kinda thought about it around Halloween. But then it’s so, you know, it’s so ingrained into pop culture, and, you know, our own experiences the images and the characters have always kind of popped up through a lot of different times in my life. So yeah, because, you know, because of Bruckner here, I think we all had a chance to revisit and really dive into it. It was a lot of fun.

Angel asked produce Keith Levine: Was this something that was prevalent for you? Is that part of the reason that you were like, “You know what, we need to do a reimagining of Hellraiser?”

Keith: Yeah, for sure. I think I have everybody beat. I probably saw it when I was five or six.

[Everyone was stunned]

Yeah, I have four other brothers, so whenever my parents would go out, we’d watch VHSs of horror films. And I remember vividly seeing Hellraiser for the first time. In fact, you know, even just this morning when the trailer comes out, I still text it to them and send them the poster. So it’s very much like… you know, something as my childhood, and, you know, very much honored to be a part of. And it was a long road to get here. So just, it’s surreal to be even here with all these faces and just doing any of this. So for sure, it’s always been a big part of my life, and hopefully we’ll get to do more and it’ll continue to be a big part of my life.

Angel: You guys got to at least take it to space!

Keith: I don’t know if we’re ready for that. But maybe, you know. We’ll have to bring Goran back for that though for sure.

Angel then asked Jamie if she saw it early on as well.

Jamie: No, I was a big scaredy-cat when I was a kid. And I was very, Cyndi Lauper, Janet Jackson. I got into horror, like, in my 20s and there was a moment I had where I was really into horror.  But I actually hadn’t seen Hellraiser. I watched it the night before I auditioned. Just to get a feeling. Yeah, so I watched it the night before I auditioned. And I was like, “Oh. Why haven’t I seen this sooner?”  I get it. Like, it’s, oh my god, this is so beyond, like, a horror film. There are so many layers and, like, nuances to the story and so much is implied. And there’s a lot of glamour. It’s very sexy. So I was like, “Oh, I’m very into this. I like this.” [LAUGH]

David: Well, honestly, the thing is, I can’t compete with these folks here. If I had seen Hellraiser before the age of 10, it would have traumatized me completely. There’s no way I could have handled that. No, I had a friend in high school that was kind of my gateway drug to horror. I just couldn’t handle those movies. He would just force me to watch things. And even then, Hellraiser was just inaccessible to me. It was too much. You know, and it wasn’t just the gore. It was the atmosphere, and maybe it was the themes underneath. But just, the idea that there was a fate worse than death that you would just go and suffer for an eternity. Like, that would send me home thinking for the entire night, I wouldn’t be able to sleep. I would get stuck in a thought loop.

It was actually towards the end of high school, going into college, that I think I really dug into it a bit. And Hellraiser was something that was so complex to me. It was different every time I saw it. And so, whether I was like watching some of the later movies or going back to the original, it was something that, I think every few years, I go back and watch again and just get something else from it.  So over time, it became this totally revered, inaccessible, you know, icon in the horror genre that I think, like a lot of fans, you were like, you know, you really have to understand this. There’s a lot of special stuff going on here. Honestly, it was an honor and a privilege to be a part of the team, bringing it back to life. Just getting to make a Hellraiser movie is something that I never thought I’d get to do. So, really, really happy to be here.

When discussing the Cenobites, the cast weighed in:

Odessa: We have… You know, because Cenobites, they’re always… You got the main ones, but you also have… you know, they’re people, so there’s always going to be new Cenobites. So it was cool that they brought back some of the old ones and had the new ones. And the new ones were crazy. And then Jason is like, what? He’s, like, seven foot six. How tall is he?

David: He’s six foot seven, actually.

Odessa: Six foot seven. He comes out in this, like, Chatterer costume. And he’s, like, 10 times taller, and it’s the craziest. And watching them, like, put everything on. They had to screw him in. Like, he was in there. And same with Jamie. Jamie was, like, in a full, like… She had to get, like, what? They put gel on you, and then you slip on the suit?

Jamie: Lube.

Goran: I remember seeing Jamie for the first time. I saw her before, and I saw her in the process of getting the stuff on because I was also having tons of prosthetics and stuff. So, she walks on set, and I started laughing, not because it was funny, because I didn’t know what to do. I was seriously like, what the… I mean, she looked so out of this world. It was kind of mystical and scary and unusual and unreal, surreal, because, like Odessa said, you know it’s an actor inside a costume. But the details, the pins, the lenses, the… You know, and she was just steady. And her voice.

David was asked about the extreme saying: Well, I mean, when you’re doing sex and violence on screen, you’re always digging into some stuff that is going to affect people. And so I just think they’re powerful expressions, you know, in movies. It’s not to be taken lightly if you’re going to show people in states of vulnerability or if you’re going to stimulate the audience or evoke something that is an image that’s going to stick with you. But what did we want to get across?

I think a lot of it was just about the spirit of the franchise and finding the kind of the flavor of it that felt right for us, but also letting the story kind of take us there as it would. You know, the narrative of the original film, the plot is a little bit more directed towards the sexual aspect of Hellraiser. But I think we found some interesting connective tissue in this where that lives, particularly as it relates to addiction and all forms of addiction in some ways. So I think it’s in the DNA of the movie in many different ways.

The last question was for Jamie: “What makes Clive Barker horror different than anyone else?”

Jamie: Clive is gay. And has just a really honest, unique, again, like, very sexy approach. I mean, write what you know. He wrote the Hellbound Heart off of his experiences going to BDSM clubs in New York in the ’70s. And, I mean, come on. That’s what makes it different is that he’s not afraid. You know, it’s not just slash them up to slash them up. It’s like David was saying. There’s all these layers and all of these [SIGH] ideas and things that you can dig into. And either you catch them, or you don’t, you know. You relate to them, or you don’t. But they’re there. And that’s what I think makes Clive’s ideas, like, really special and really unique. There’s a sexiness to what he writes and to Hellraiser that doesn’t exist, in my opinion, in other horror franchises.

Hellraiser will debut exclusively on Hulu on October 7, 2022. 

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUlgwJNdu2I]