Hellraiser director David Bruckner reviews the creation of the latest batch of Cenobites for his take on the iconic horror franchise. Clive Barker wrote and directed the 1987 original Hellraiser film, based on his novella The Hellbound Heart. The new HellraiserStaying closer to Barker’s source material, Barker’s story follows Riley (Odessa A’zion), a young woman struggling with addiction, who acquires an old puzzle box of unknown horrors. This latest episode in the Hellraiser franchise is the eleventh film overall, but is a soft reboot of the series that is directly inspired by Barker’s novel. Bruckner, whose previous horror credits have included: F/H/S and The ritualacts as the director for this iteration.
The Hellraiser franchise revolves around a mysterious puzzle box with the ability to summon a group of extra-dimensional demons known as the Cenobites. These creatures are former humans who have been transformed by their own ambitions into sadomasochistic abominations that can no longer distinguish between pain and pleasure. Doug Bradley previously played Pinhead, starring Cenobite in the other Hellraiser movies, will not return in his iconic role. Instead, Jamie Clayton (sentence8) will this time play Pinhead and transform into The Priest with impressive practical effects, and now, ahead of her debut, the man at the helm of Hellraiser shares how they created some of these characters.
While speaking exclusively with screen frenzy interview, Hellraiser director David Bruckner talked about his thought process behind designing the latest Cenobites. Bruckner comments on how the Hellraiser The world offers a lot of creative freedom, allowing for extreme designs, and that when creating the Cenobites, the team focused on increasing the human qualities of each demon, pushing their functions to the limit. Read Bruckner’s full quote below:
David Bruckner: There’s so much you can do in the Hellraiser world; Cenobites as a concept are just such incredible movie monsters. We really enjoyed focusing on their human qualities and thinking about the human body and how far you can push that in different directions. We tried to give each of them a personality that was a combination of the stories as revealed in their designs, but also what each of the actors brought them.
One of the nice things about doing hands-on work is that you’re right there on the floor. It’s that everyone has an experience together, and the limitations you face become things you pull from and use. Just as Jamie fought the voice in the throat, some of the other Cenobites’ movement was tricky. We’ve found ways to use that in strange ways, and it’s just a testament to the virtues and pain of practical work.
Practical effects helped Hellraiser make better designs
Although his team encountered several limitations with the practical effects, Bruckner’s Hellraiser crew has clearly twisted their creative decisions in unique ways. In between finding ways to give the various Cenobites, including Clayton’s The Priest, their own unique properties to strive for the thematic weight of each transformation, the director seems to have a good understanding of Barker’s source material, and for helping to expand his selection of monsters from the past. simple killing machines. Clayton herself previously described how her makeup transformation in The Priest was essential to getting into the iconic character’s head space and physicality, showing the importance of returning to a hands-on approach for Hellraiser‘s effects.
Moreover, with the supersaturation of CGI in modern filmmaking, HellraiserThe practical effects are a welcome change. When CGI is used to enhance rather than complement practical effects, monster movie villains can take on a more real and imposing presence on the screen, and in the case of Bruckner’s Hellraiserthis presence is essential to understanding the torturous existence of the Cenobites. Hellraiser premieres October 7 on Hulu.
