As someone who works primarily in horror, Bruckner is fully aware that there’s an entire bequest riding on the success of this film. “‘Hellraiser’ is pretty hard,” he said. “I was joking, you know, it could be a person with a mask on and a knife, but it’s not, they’re inter-dimensional BDSM demons coming from a labyrinth, it’s complicated stuff to get right.”
What has always separated “Hellraiser” from its contemporaries like “Halloween” or even “A Nightmare on Elm Street” has been the complicated lore of the Lament configuration and the Cenobites. This is so much more than just a slasher series, especially when the aesthetics are rooted in the very real, underground BDSM queer scenes that inspired Clive Barker’s novel, “The Hellbound Heart.”
“Actually making one of these films, my admiration goes to all the filmmakers that have come before us on it,” said Bruckner. “So [we were] holding that in as high regard as we can, but also — and this is something that we all talked about as a team, and I think everybody was on board for — it was like we also have a responsibility to just lose ourselves in this and allow it to take us in different directions if we’re so compelled, and to be true to the story that we’re telling.” It’s clear that Bruckner has such sights to show us, and the wait to see how his take on “Hellraiser” turns out will be exquisite agony.
“Hellraiser” will be available to stream on Hulu beginning October 7, 2022.
