{"id":163233,"date":"2021-01-09T13:00:31","date_gmt":"2021-01-09T13:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gamerant.com\/clive-barker-director-hellraiser\/"},"modified":"2021-01-09T13:00:31","modified_gmt":"2021-01-09T13:00:31","slug":"how-clive-barker-became-the-director-of-hellraiser-game-rant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/2021\/01\/09\/how-clive-barker-became-the-director-of-hellraiser-game-rant\/","title":{"rendered":"How Clive Barker Became The Director Of ‘Hellraiser’ | Game Rant"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Long before\u00a0Hellraiser<\/em><\/strong> director Clive Barker picked up a camera<\/a>, he established himself as\u00a0a writer of\u00a0surrealistic and erotic horror.\u00a0The Brit’s short story series\u00a0Books of Blood<\/em>, published in six volumes between 1984 and 1985,\u00a0earned him\u00a0admiration\u00a0among fans and peers alike. Even Stephen King gave Barker the highest praises, writing in his blurb for\u00a0Books of Blood<\/em>,\u00a0“I have seen the future of horror, and his name is Clive Barker.” The success of\u00a0his\u00a0anthology\u00a0<\/em>turned Barker into a\u00a0rising star. He\u00a0quickly followed suit with\u00a0The Damnation Game<\/em> and\u00a0The Hellbound Heart<\/em> (the source material for\u00a0Hellraiser<\/em><\/a>) while\u00a0producing his first screenplays.<\/p>\n

Barker’s\u00a0expressionistic and evocative early prose style seemed made for movies, but his ideas landed in the wrong hands. The first two films\u00a0Barker penned screenplays for, based on\u00a0his original story ideas, bombed. 1985’s\u00a0Underworld<\/em>\u00a0centers around bioengineered mutant humanoids who live beneath London,\u00a0while 1986’s\u00a0Rawhead Rex<\/em> follows a pagan god’s rampage across rural Ireland.\u00a0George Pavlou, who Barker met at a dinner party in London, directed both films. Critics were not impressed by the low production values, but no one was as\u00a0disappointed as Barker – who found Pavlou’s visual effects lacking and one-dimensional<\/a>.<\/p>\n

RELATED:\u00a0\u2018Spree\u2019 Introduces A New Type Of Horror<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

When Barker decided he wanted to make a movie based on\u00a0The Hellbound Heart<\/em>, about a mystical puzzle box\u00a0with connections to an extradimensional realm, he was wary\u00a0about letting another director\u00a0tamper with\u00a0his gory, transgressive vision. This gave Barker an idea: why not write the screenplay and direct the film himself?\u00a0With what he described to\u00a0The Guardian<\/em><\/a> as “two cinematic abominations” under his belt, Barker thought, “How much worse could I be?”\u00a0Barker’s decision to\u00a0see what would become\u00a0Hellraiser\u00a0<\/em>through to the end of its production resulted in one of the most influential horror films of the 1980s.<\/p>\n

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Clive Barker did what anyone in search of knowledge does: he went to a library<\/a> to check out\u00a0books about directing movies, but the only title available was\u00a0on loan to someone else.\u00a0Still, he forged ahead, landing a deal with cult director Roger Corman’s production company New World to make the film for $900,000. Barker wrote and directed a short film called\u00a0Salome <\/em>in 1973,\u00a0but he had no experience helming feature-length films. Barker told The Guardian<\/em> that\u00a0<\/em>producer\u00a0Christopher Figgs\u00a0provided him with the secret formula to make a scary movie on a small budget: “You just need a house, some monsters, and pretty much unknown actors.”<\/p>\n

Barker secured all three, casting his college friend and former theatre pal Doug Bradley as\u00a0Pinhead, the film’s most iconic Cenobite. Cenobites are interdimensional beings summoned by\u00a0humans who\u00a0want to explore the prurient, carnal underworld occupied by the creatures;\u00a0humans establish contact with this world\u00a0via the\u00a0Lament Configuration puzzle box. With the help of special effects guru Bob Keen, Barker developed\u00a0a\u00a0unique filmmaking style for\u00a0Hellraiser<\/em>\u00a0– a style that relies on visual shocks,\u00a0intense body horror sequences<\/a>, and sadomasochistic\u00a0desire. The Cenobites don black leather bodysuits, chrome chains, and possess varying levels of\u00a0body modification\u00a0caused by ritualistic torture. Former humans themselves, the Cenobites are tasked with making their latest subject’s darkest fantasies come true.<\/p>\n

New World insisted upon changing the movie’s location from England to America, but Barker was able to\u00a0preserve the film’s most important theme: forbidden desire.\u00a0Hellraiser<\/em>‘s fantastical, dreamlike\u00a0effects are gruesome\u00a0genre feats\u00a0considering Barker’s limited funds. Censors didn’t know what to make of the movie and gave it an X rating. Barker cut back on some of the violence and took “some spanking out of the flashback scenes” in order to get the R he needed\u00a0for wider distribution. Released on September 18, 1987, in the United States,\u00a0Hellraiser\u00a0<\/em>divided critics but earned over $14 million<\/a> in theatres.<\/p>\n

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Now, Hellraiser<\/em>\u00a0is considered a genre classic whose macabre philosophical\u00a0implications, graphic imagery, and\u00a0focus on\u00a0sexual taboos make it the center of much discussion among cinephiles. Also considered an important\u00a0LGBTQ+ horror film,\u00a0Hellraiser<\/em> does away with many genre conventions.\u00a0While most horror films maintain a dichotomy between good and evil with their clear\u00a0villains<\/a> and heroes,\u00a0Hellraiser<\/em>‘s humans and Cenobites exist outside this formula. The Cenobites are portrayed as\u00a0“angels to some, demons to others,” figures who remain morally ambiguous about what transpires around them. Their job is to guide those who call upon them through a nether region where there is no\u00a0distinction between pain and pleasure. Barker drew inspiration from his experiences as a gay man and sex worker in the 1970s as he conceived of this singular world.<\/p>\n

These nuanced Cenobite\u00a0characterizations remain a central tenet of 1988’s\u00a0Hellbound: Hellraiser II<\/em>, whose screenplay was co-written by Barker. Unfortunately, the rest of the\u00a0Hellraiser<\/em> franchise lacks Barker’s input, and the subsequent eight films recast the Cenobites as purely evil entities<\/a>. This choice strips the overarching story of its queer, subversive themes.\u00a0Barker\u00a0went on to direct 1990’s\u00a0Nightbreed<\/em> and 1995’s\u00a0Lord of Illusion<\/em>, but neither film managed to achieve\u00a0Hellraiser<\/em>‘s\u00a0celebrated status.\u00a0The same is true for the\u00a0Hellraiser<\/em> sequels after\u00a0Hellbound<\/em>: none of them manage to come close to\u00a0Barker’s initial concept.<\/p>\n

Clive Barker\u00a0is currently\u00a0set to\u00a0executive produce the forthcoming\u00a0Hellraiser<\/em><\/strong> revival for HBO.<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0The One You Feed Trailer Brings a Thrilling Love Triangle<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n\n

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Long before Hellraiser director Clive Barker picked up a camera, he established himself as a writer of surrealistic and erotic horror.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1213,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"slim_seo":{"title":"How Clive Barker Became The Director Of 'Hellraiser' | Game Rant - ITTeacherITFreelance.hk","description":"Long before Hellraiser director Clive Barker picked up a camera, he established himself as a writer of surrealistic and erotic horror."},"footnotes":""},"categories":[607],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163233"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1213"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163233"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163233\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":163234,"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163233\/revisions\/163234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}