Hellraiser Remake in Theaters Next September

Snicker. I'll ignore Cabin Fever and Hostel, two films which I don't enjoy but have gotten a ton of praise -- but Halloween? Seriously? Great story?

Barker's statements are especially stupid regarding "Inside", which is dumber and senselessly bloodier than anything Roth or Zombie have presented to us thus far. Serious, "Inside" is one disgusting fucking movie. If anything, this "Hellraiser" remake will not lack for gore.

While i don't think Barker has a particularly good track record as far as movies go, i do agree with him that Roth and Zombie are two of the woorst film makers around. I just don't understand what anyone likes about any of their films.

But hey, most people can't understand why i own Event Horizon and Money Train on DVD. So what the fuck do i know?

I don't get it. Why don't they just make a good Hellraiser sequel?

There hasn't been one since III that had Pinhead with more than 15 minutes of screen time has there?? I stopped watching after Hellseeker (which I thought was alright. I must admit).

Clive Barker has forgotten more about the horror genre than Eli Roth will ever learn, and for this Van Natter fella to champion the guy who made Cabin Fever over the guy who wrote The Books of Blood and filmed the original Hellraiser is downright laughable.

Um, there wasn't one before III where Pinhead had more than fifteen minutes of screentime, that's for sure.

Seriously, at this point, The Scarlet Gospels is the only Hellraiser continuation that anyone should give a shit about.

Yep, and at current pace, it should be arriving sometime after the return of Jesus Christ.

Sad but true. Still, it should get here before that third book of the Art.

And I certainly wouldn't call Cabin Fever great storytelling. In fact, I think it's one of the more pointless pieces of gore fluff I've ever seen. Everything that happens in it is there just to show a gruesome piece of prosthetics work.

My friends are all dying of a flesh-eating disease...WELP, time to shave my legs!

That's some great storytelling right there.

I'd still take that over "You know what would make the original Halloween better? Shortening it down to half an hour and playing the Phantom Menace infront of it.

So we can criticize the genre of today, but Clive Barker can't?

Define 'going up in flames.' Horror has always been incredibly unstable, with massive peaks and then deep valleys every few years. It's not as if the last ten were any different than the previous ten.

Your continual harping about the videogame is akin to busting Peter Jackson's nuts because the King Kong videogame sucked. WHO CARES?! Barker lent his name to Jericho and helped with the story elements of the game. I don't think he'd consider it his life's work, as you, for some absurd reason, make it out to be.

God forbid we allow Clive to follow his muse and jump to other projects, to other genres entirely. Clive paints. He writes brilliant, imaginative fantasy novels. He produces film when he gets the chance. He owes the horror genre, to which he's already contributed mightily, jack and shit.

Correction, he's arguing with the guy who not only likes it, but also said Rob Zombie's Halloween is great storytelling.

That's a trademark of the internet generation, though -- you can find it in any group of movie fans brought together who, inevitably, start to argue. "If you don't think this, you're not a true fan!" Well, who the fuck are you to tell me what I am and am not a fan of?

It just so happens the horror community is a pretty large sect of the internet populace.

For the record, the only two horror movies from the last five years that I really loved are the Dawn of the Dead remake and Slither. So if people like Van Natter think it's the duty of anyone who's ever found success in the genre to keep horror from "going up in flames," I guess we should just go ahead and shoot everybody not named James Gunn.

The situation with the horror genre is that there is more than the traditional reasons of good story/good acting in enjoying them. Kills-Fans and Gore-Hounds dont' require either to be in place to like a film. I happen to like Roth as he tends to throw my two favorite things, blood and breasts, into his films. Does that make him a good film maker? No, but it makes him someone whose films I enjoy.


And Barker doesn't owe anything to the horror genre, as "The Books of Blood" pretty much paid that bar tab for the rest of his life. That being said, he's a much better writer than director, so I'd rather see the actual film making process fall into the hands of someone dedicated to that craft.

While the BOOKS OF BLOOD are incredible...there are only two stories that seal the deal for me. PIGS BLOOD BLUES and IN THE HILLS, THE CITIES are so fucking great that words fail in describing their awesomeness. I don't have anything against Rob Zombie except for his awful music and terrible films. Eli Roth can go take a flying fuck off a rolling Fulci reel for all I care. Neither of them "saved" the horror genre from anything, they merely made slick (or not-so-slick, HO1kC and Hostel 2) copies of films that defined the genre. The smegma under Barker's foreskin has done more for the horror genre then Zombie or Roth combined.

Oh, hell YES.

In the Hills, the Cities is the crown jewel of The Books of Blood.

Nothing helps make that film great. It isn't great. It's remarkably unremarkable, actually. It uses its copious amounts of gruesome effects work to carry a bunch of dull characters through a lifeless series of events that are masquerading as a story. Don't even get me started on the pancakes kid. It's just another gore showcase. Hostel was leaps and bounds beyond the abilities he showed in Cabin Fever. I'm afraid to see anything else he does for fear that Hostel was a fluke. The guy clearly loves horror, so I'd like to like him. But Cabin Fever represents everything that I've ever disliked about horror filmmakers, and the trumpeting of it as some kind of genre savior represents everything I've ever disliked about horror fans. If it's nasty, it's great horror, apparently. Sorry, I don't agree.

Agreed completely. I've never read a short story that left such a lasting impression on me. I came into Books of Blood impressed with Barker's gift for lurid and disturbing imagery, but I left overwhelmed with his incredible imagination. It's his ideas that amaze me, and that story is Exhibit A. The Body Politic gets high marks in this area as well.

I think part of the shoulder chip comes from the way mainstream audiences regard horror as at best a cheap thrill. A lot of Horror fans seem desperate for some saviour to elevate horror above that status, but I can't see that happening. Even the Exorcist gets that sort of reaction outside movie geek circles, and on top of that for every "The Exorcist" there a 4 "Saw" movies.

It creates a "Horror fan vs the rest of the world" mentality, so that if someone speaks out against their current horror heroes it's seen as traitorous. Roth and Zombie are no saviours they're just what horror's got right now, and horror always has someone because as soon as someone shows a hint of promise they get elevated to these spots.

I'm a little late to the party here, but thought I'd drop the following into the soup. I agree w/ the sentiment that Barker has paid his tab for life w/ his past contributions, The Books of Blood and The Hellbound Heart in particular. His greatest strength was always the innovation of his ideas, as has been expressed above in the love shown for "In The Hills, The Cities". I didn't like everything he did, but he could tell a really neat story the likes of which hadn't been seen up to that point. So I can see him not liking films that aren't as strong on innovation and story as his work was. And the use of "was" is intentional. His tab may be paid, but it'd be nice to see him throw a little something horror related into the mix now & again these days. I do think he took a cheap shot at Roth and Zombie, though. Maybe their films aren't the best examples of storytelling to be found, and on an inspired day Clive could write rings around the both of them. But as stupid as the story elements may have been, I kinda liked Cabin Fever. For the gore if nothing else, as I am an unapologetic gorehound. And I really liked Hostel (haven't seen Part 2 yet), and not just for the gore. I HATED House of 1,000 Corpses, but kinda liked Devil's Rejects. Haven't seen Halloween, and considering the venom directed at it and how shaky my faith in Zombie is to begin with, I'm not sure I ever will. I agree w/ the Shape that horror is cyclical, with peaks & valleys in its existence ever since it was first put to film. Zombie and Roth are 2 of the torchbearers that inspired the current peak, but to say they saved the genre is going a bit far. It would've bounced back eventually; it wasn't going away for good. We horror fans do have chips on our shoulders because we do feel as if it's us against the world sometimes because of how the genre's viewed by "mainstream" audiences. Can't we all just get along and agree to disagree?

I don't have anything to add, but your misspelling of that word made me laugh out loud for some reason. The fact that you call yourself a writer makes it all the sweeter.

I'm getting tired of the "torture porn" label as well. I didn't like 1000 Corpses because it was disjointed and didn't make a whole lot of sense to me, and the video game ending was something Uwe Boll would pull. It just didn't belong there. As for the "Saw" movies, I liked the 1st one because we got to dwell w/ the characters a bit, and there was some genuine tension in their situation. And notably, most of the kills and limb sawings took place off camera. To me, as good as the gore in "Hostel" was, the truly chilling moment is where the lead figures out, at the same time the audience does, just what the hell is really going on. No gore at all there. As for barker, I get how someone could not like his work. There's plenty I don't like; I couldn't even finish "The Damnation Game", I disliked it so much, and I only finished "Everville" because I had to see how it ended, but didn't like it at all. But whatever you may think of Barker, his influence is pretty large; he inspired a movie franchise, several other films (including Midnight Meat Train and the Hellraiser remake that are yet to premiere), and several comic book series'. I daresay that his influence can probably be detected in the works of fellow Brit Neil Gaiman. Roth & Zombie don't have that kind of clout. At least not yet.