Hellraiser: Revelations - Legendary Suffering, Even for Hellraiser - That Bad Media

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:19):
All right, everybody, welcome to a really really special episode
of Not That Bad, where our suffering will be legendary
even in Hell. So before we get into the movie
that we're talking about today, we have a special guest,
a very acclaimed, prestigious guest in the world of horror,

(00:41):
Preston Fascil. You and I, you know we've talked before. Preston,
this is your first time coming on the podcast, which
we're so grateful about. Why don't you tell our audience
a bit about yourself?

Speaker 2 (00:54):
Yeah, first of all, thank you all for having me.
This is a really cool, really fun opportunity. I'm a
novelist and journalist. I've had articles published in Roomorg Fangoria
screen magazine for three years. I was a staff writer
for Fangoria. I was a regular contributor to Reomore between
twenty thirteen and twenty seventeen. My debut novel, Our Lady

(01:16):
the Inferno, was the winner of the twenty nineteen Independent
Publishers Gold Medal for Horror and I have been enjoying
varying degrees of success and failure ever since. And I'm
really excited to be here today to talk about one
of my favorite horror franchises, and not necessarily my favorite

(01:37):
entry in that franchise, but one that I don't feel
gets the attention or respect it deserves up against some
of its competition.

Speaker 1 (01:44):
Man, what a big fan asterisk you put on. You
put on that. But that's okay. We're all all about
the disclaimers here. We live off of the disclaimers. Yeah, no, yeah,
you and I, president of both contributed to Fangoria. I've
submitted some freelance pieces to them, and I know you

(02:05):
were very very directly involved with them for for a
number of years. So I mean Fangoria one of the
great brands and horror and you four Fangoria wrote a
very audacious piece where you defended the indefensible. Now that's
kind of our bread and butter here. Our whole model

(02:29):
is bringing on these these controversial movies and and trying
to find some way to defend them. But you you
took a really heavy burden upon yourself because you defended
of all things hell Raiser Revelations, which is is the
bottom of a barrel for a franchise whose whose barrel

(02:51):
extends far, far deep into the earth. Right, Yeah, I
want to turn it quickly over to my co host Connor,
because I, to start off, don't have a deep connection
to this franchise, much less this film. I have seen
six of them now or seven, including the recent Hulu movie.

(03:13):
I do consider myself a casual fan. I enjoy the
first five films to varying degrees. You know, I consider
the first one a classic. But that's really my relationship
to this franchise. But Connor, I want to give you
a chance to tell folks here about your relationship to
the franchise and give us an idea about your history
with this particular film.

Speaker 3 (03:36):
Yes, this particular film released in twenty eleven on an
estimated budget of three hundred thousand dollars direct to video
movie here, with a zero percent on Rotten Tomatoes based
on five critic reviews, and a one point three on Letterbox,
making it officially the lowest rated film that we are
covering in the history of Not that bad, so we
have to show it some props there. Yeah, this was

(03:59):
a movie that so so. I had seen the first
two hell Raiser films pretty early on when I was
trying to get into horror, and I kind of decided
right then and there that maybe this franchise it's it's
not really for me. I don't think, you know, I
could understand some of the things that people liked about them,
but it weren't really gripping me. And I you know,
for years that kind of haunted me. Right, because I'm

(04:21):
getting into horror. I should love all the major franchises.

Speaker 2 (04:23):
Yeah I should.

Speaker 3 (04:24):
I should. I should be in it, I should be deep.
So I went into a movie stop one day while
those were still around, before those went extinct, and this
exact copy of hell Raiser Revelations was on sale for
three dollars, and I thought, you know what, I've never
heard of hell Raiser Revelations, but I got to give
this franchise another shot. You know, maybe the older movies

(04:46):
weren't for me. It's the new movies that I should
be giving a chance to. You know, I don't look
down on direct to DVD movies. So I picked this
here up. And when I tell you that my first
watch was the worst experience that I have ever had
watching a horror movie, I would be lying because Mama exists,
but it'd be close. This movie haunted me for years.

(05:10):
I didn't hate it enough to break it. I mean,
it did spend three dollars on it. That's three dollars
that I can't get back. So I figured might as
well keep it in the collection, maybe trick somebody someday,
you know, give it to them and let them know
how great it is and just unleash it onto their life.
But never got the chance to do it, and so
it sits here today, and for nine years, eight or

(05:34):
nine years now, I have not picked this DVD back
up until today to watch it again. So this movie
has haunted me personally.

Speaker 1 (05:44):
Right, it's kind of yeah, been calling you.

Speaker 3 (05:46):
Oh it's yeah, Oh, I mean, and I opened the
box and my perversions and everything came rushing towards me.
That this movie was my punishment, I think, And let's
find out if I felt that way this time around
as well.

Speaker 1 (06:00):
We have foreshadowed a hell Raiser Revelations episode throughout the years,
you know, I mean, because I think it's kind of
a great white Shark of straight to DVD schlocktastic, utterly
irreputable horror movies. But the problem is that I couldn't

(06:23):
think of anyone who would actually want to come on
and defend it to make the case for hell Raiser Revelations.
You know, we want to have at least one real
viewpoint for for the movie's defense. Then, Preston, you know
I wanted to bring you on the podcast. I asked
you what you wanted to talk about, and you nominated
Hell Raiser Revelations. So I want to turn it back

(06:45):
to you, Preston. I want to know briefly before we
get into the whole whole discussion about the film, you know,
why did you pick Hellraiser Revelations, And also if you
could put it in the context of, you know, your
relationship to this franchise, because I believe you said it's
one of your favorite franchises.

Speaker 2 (07:04):
Yes, So Hell Raiser and Friday the Thirteenth are the
two horror movie franchises that are in constant battle for
me as which one is my favorites, and they both
scratch different itches for me. Friday the Thirteenth is this
retro old school I'm just going to watch really gnarly
kills and Jason is a really cool monster, and isn't

(07:25):
this a great franchise sort of experiences for me? And
then I also think that Jason is a really psychologically
interesting horror movie monster that doesn't get all of the
in depth exploration that he necessarily warns or deserves. And
I feel like there's just been a lot of missed
opportunities with the Fry the Thirteenth franchise, and I like

(07:47):
to fill those in myself. There's this episode of Frasier
where Fraser and Niles have just come back from a
restaurant and they're talking about the meal, and I'm paraphrasing here,
but one of them says, the only thing better than
a really great meal is a really great meal with
one thing wrong with it that you can complain about
for the rest of the night. And with with I

(08:09):
the Thirteenth, I feel like, because they were constantly changing
directors and changing writers, that there were these missed opportunities
in terms of continuity and development of the Jason character
that just got lost. Hell Raiser is just so startlingly original.
When that came out to the landscape, there wasn't anything
quite like it. I don't think there's been anything quite

(08:31):
like it since. I think the Clive Barker is the
closest to that. This generation, the last generation, probably the
next generation is going to get to our own HP Lovecraft.
The Cenobite, their Hole mythology was just so startling, startlingly
unique to me when I came across this, and the
originality behind that's just really jumped out at me. And

(08:53):
so it's do I want something that's a little more cerebral,
something that's a little more about world building and about
mythos and about things that you can't comprehend and the
exploration of the unknown. Or do I want to watch
a giant mutant hillbilly zombie and a hockey mass killed teenagers.
And so there's this psychological emotional tug of war between

(09:13):
the two different franchises. Hell Raiser has a little bit
more sentimentality for me though, because the original hell Raiser
movie is the very first movie my wife and I
watched after getting married back in twenty ten.

Speaker 1 (09:27):
And that's how you do it, folks, for anybody looking
to get hits. So that's that I wanted you to
look at Preston and his wife as role models. That's
how you do it.

Speaker 2 (09:36):
Yeah, And she's a big horror movie fan. I'm a
big horror movie fan. I had just seen it for
the first time recently, and I found it in a
bargain bin at Walmart for like five bucks. I had
never seen any of the hell Raiser movies. At that point,
I was really trying to fill in the gaps in
my horror education back in twenty ten, and even still

(09:56):
to this day. I'm the sort of person who can
sit down talk shop with you about some movie that
played for one week on forty second Street in nineteen
eighty two and has never seen the inside of a
movie theater since, and everybody involved with it is dead now,
and up until a couple of years and up until
a couple of years ago, I had never seen like

(10:17):
a Nightmare at Elmstreet Part six. So yeah, I'd really
been trying to aggressively fill in these gaps in my education.
I had never seen any of the hell Raiser movies,
and I figured, for five bucks, you can't go wrong,
and so I pick it out of the bargain bin.
I was just completely blown away. It's the first movie
my wife and I watch you after we get married,
And we spent the first year of our marriage tracking

(10:38):
down and watching all of the hell Raiser movies. And
this became like a big couples activity for us, was
watching the hell Raiser movies. We read the hell Bound
Hearts we read the Boom comics that were coming out
at the time. Back in twenty eleven, we were living
in San Antonio, not far from a comic shop that
was getting in the Booms Studio comics that were coming

(10:59):
out at that time. Every month, we were there to
grab the new issue when it came out. And so
this was a big thing for us, and we caught
up on all the Hell Raiser movies and it was
this nice sense of accomplishment. We've seen them all up
to hell World at this point. And our apartment was
also within walking distance of a blockbuster. This was one
of the to my knowledge, don't quote me on this,

(11:21):
but to my knowledge, one of the last blockbusters in
Texas before they all went down, And it was like
a quarter mile from our apartment. You could actually walk there.
And one day we go in there to rent a
movie and here's Hell Raiser Revelation, and all of a sudden,
it's whoa, there's one more Hell Raiser movie for you
to watch. And so this became this big Friday night
thing for us. My wife enjoys cooking as a hobby.

(11:42):
She cooked a nice big meal and made a bullet
popcorn and sat down and watched Shell Raiser Revelations, and
so this is a movie that's got a lot of
sentimentality set up for me, and I've got a lot
of other feelings about it as well. But that's my
brief history with the Hellariser franchise broadly and with this
movie specifically.

Speaker 1 (12:04):
I love that and I want to expand on that
and know, did you know anything of Revelations reputation going
into that first watch?

Speaker 2 (12:15):
The one thing I knew is that it had been
made for legal reasons, because I am a consummate film
nerd and a consonments information junkie. Back at the last
in office job I had before COVID, people around the
office would call me Preston Wikipedia Fossil. That was my

(12:37):
nickname around the office. Is because I've got to absorb
new and unknown information about a piece of pop culture.
And I don't do that because I want to hold
it over somebody. I don't do that because it's like, oh,
I know more than you. It's just there is a
joy for me in the acquisition of information and knowledge
and just to be able to have that for myself
and then to be able to share that with other

(12:57):
people as a source of tremendous joy and satisfaction for me.
And so I had been digging into the history and
making of of all of the different hellar Raiser movies
and about this like direct to DVD Netherworld that's parts
five through eight Occupied, And so I knew going into
it that there was a legal snafoo, that they had
been obliged to make this movie to hold on to rights,

(13:19):
that there was some strife involving getting Doug Bradley to
come back to play Pinhead, and whether or not so
this was going to get the blessing of certain people.
I did not know one hundred percent all of the specifics,
and I would not learn those until some time later.
But I did know going in that this did not
have the most stellar genesis.

Speaker 1 (13:40):
Yeah, that clause of requiring a movie to be produced
every couple of years to hold on to the rights,
that clause is actually the main thing that's responsible for
I would say the majority of films and any of

(14:01):
these franchises that we talked about, that single clause, that
single legal uh detail is responsible for this, this this
kind of legacy of of these these these long running
franchises outside of Horror too. I mean, that's why there's

(14:22):
that Roger Corman fantastic for a movie that never got released,
that was made just to hold on to rights. So
you know, that has really been almost the the kind
of fire that lit the cult cinema machine that I
think is pumped out all of these infamous movies, whether

(14:45):
they be you know, adaptation sequels, all of it. So
I just find funny that all roads lead back to
that one, that one clause that seems to be in
all of these contracts. Uh. So, as you mentioned Doug brad,
he did not return to play Pinhead for the first
time as of this recording. His last time playing Pinhead

(15:06):
was Hell Raiser Hell World, and uh, just like Robert
England as Freddy Krueger, there's really no no hope of
him coming back to that role.

Speaker 3 (15:17):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (15:18):
But there are a few a few other voices who
were a part of the film's production that did that
did publicly talk about their dissatisfaction with how the film
turned out, you know, So don't just talk to the
haters that the critics who piled onto this movie from
day one. Let's hear from one of the lead actors,

(15:42):
who uh, in a in a stunning movie that I think,
you know, must have defied the wisdom of his publicist.
He made a comment. He didn't he didn't do an
interview or or even make a statement on social media.
He left a comment on a video about hell Raiser Revelations.

(16:02):
And I'm going to read this to you. This is
from the actor who plays Stephen Dude. I couldn't agree more.
During Hell Raiser Revelations, we had seven different scripts in
thirteen days to shoot. We had scenes that were written
that day. The found footage was only added several months
after we had finished the original film, which again I agree,
is terrible. To this day, it's the one film that

(16:24):
I am most ashamed of, as I feel like the
real hell Raiser fans deserved so much better. Now that
has to make me laugh for the reason that at
this point the hell Raiser fandom is as beaten and
abused as you know, as any fandom can be. I mean,
almost to the point of being discarded and like a

(16:45):
lost civilization. You know, the you know, the whatever you
know status and clout that franchise had, the Hell Raiser
franchise had, and you know, the fandom that surrounded I
mean by that, by twenty eleven, after three, four or

(17:05):
five directed DVD sequels that weren't even originally meant to
be Hell Raiser films. You know, as you mentioned in
your Fangoria article about this film Preston, that this is
actually the first one of that directed DVD era to
at least have been originally envisioned as a Hell Raiser sequel.
So that's the funny thing about revelations to me, and

(17:29):
I think why I feel so distanced from it is
if it is the nadir of the franchise, it comes
after I think most people had checked out, and I
think if Doug Bradley had come back to play Pinhead,
I don't even think this would have really registered in
such a strong way for people. So that's kind of

(17:49):
my opening thesis for all this and my personal viewpoint.
But I have a feeling I'm going to moderate the
real arguments are the real discuss that's going to be
had as again a more distance Teleraser person. So so, Connor,
I'm curious. You know you mentioned how much this movie
offended you. Have you seen the other directed DVD sequels,

(18:12):
uh that preceded this.

Speaker 3 (18:14):
So at the time I had seen four Hell Raiser Films.
So I had seen the first two and then I
saw Hell World, and I saw, oh man, what's the
one with the with the green cover? Was that Hell World?

Speaker 1 (18:37):
That's one with Henry Cavill, Right, Okay.

Speaker 3 (18:41):
I might be mixing it up. I know I had
seen four. I had seen four of the movies before
I saw this, So I wasn't super like. I wasn't
super intending catching up with him because I just I
knew it wasn't for me. I just happened to see this,
and it was actually kind of cool to hear about
the connection with you and your wife because my now
wife at the time girlfriend that was like our thing.
We would go into movie stop and we would find

(19:02):
movies that we had never heard of or things like that.
We'd pick them up and it always worked out like
trick or treat. That's how we found that movie. We
had found several others. My first copy of Rob Zombie's
Halloween I got from there. So there was there was
a lot of things that I enjoyed, and I thought
this would be one of them, and we just never
got a chance to watch it together. So I watched

(19:22):
it on my own. But yeah, I had seen. I
had seen it for hell Raiser films before this. I
wasn't super into the franchise. This was this film was
my attempt to find a place in the fandom.

Speaker 1 (19:37):
So this didn't offend you as a hell Raiser.

Speaker 3 (19:38):
Fan, No, No, not at all. Actually it We'll get
into this a little later, but I think not being
a hell Raiser fan ultimately kind of hurt, especially this
time when I was rewatching it.

Speaker 1 (19:51):
So that's not usually how how that happens, right, I
know it's the fans that get.

Speaker 3 (19:59):
A fe I don't feel like I have a right
to be offended, dude. Like I feel like when I
watched this for the first time, I was like, oh
my god. I remember my wife asking me like, oh,
what'd you watch this week? And I told her, you know,
a couple of movies, including this one. She's like, uh,
any of them? Any of them suck? And I was like, yeah,

(20:19):
actually one of them. And I told her how much
I was. I was so mad, and I was like,
and I don't know why I'm so mad, because I'm not.
It's not like, you know, they massacred my boy. You know,
it's not that, It's just it's just like I just
was so, and I'll get into it as we go,
but like sometimes I feel I don't have a right
to be as offended as I am.

Speaker 1 (20:41):
So why don't we, uh, why don't we give Preston
a chance to to really start making the case for
Hell Raiser Revelations? And I I wanted to start with
this quote from your your Fangoria article defending it Preston,
because I did launch onto this and it's something I
definitely know to in my viewing that it was that

(21:03):
Revelations was the first entry since Hell Raiser Inferno to
willfully wait into the uncomfortable wedding of sex and death,
which I think is really the defining characteristic of what
I would say is the core Hell Raiser films, the
one that really bear the influence of Clive Barker's style
and his voice. Yeah, and the way it manifested the

(21:28):
execution of it. I don't know if it landed for
me as as as a redeeming quality of the movie,
but it did register far more than any other quality
of the film. So why do you think it's so
important for a Hell Raiser movie to exhibit that kind
of provocative intersection between between you know, between torment and pleasure.

Speaker 2 (21:55):
So the thing that was intriguing to me about the
hell Raiser series to begin with was that the centate
By were so different from other horror movie monsters in
that they're not really the bad guys. They're not really
bad guys. They're completely amoral. I really love TV Tropes,
and on TV Tropes there's this concept they call blue

(22:16):
and orange morality, and it gets applied to lots in
sci fi stories where some space crew will encounter society
whose conception of what is right and what is wrong
is so far removed from anything that's we as people
could understand that there's no way to call it good
or evil because their standards are so radically different. And

(22:37):
it's not black and white, it's not shades of gray,
it's blue and orange. And with the Cenobites, that's sort
of their whole deal. They are just these compulsive sense
freaks and it's not necessarily about sex, it's not necessarily
about torments or torture. They're just after new experiences and seeking,
you know, beyond the realm of human excs experience, And

(23:01):
that was a really interesting idea to me. Count Dracula
is this undead monster who feeds on the blood of
the living. The wolf Man is this uncontrolled id monster
that transforms and kills. Freddy Krueger is just a monster.
He's just a child predator. Jason. I could do a

(23:22):
whole podcast about Jason. All of these other iconic horror
movie monsters have what most people would consider to be
a malevolence motivation, whereas in their original incarnation, the cenobytes
are just these creatures that are after the next great experience,
and that's not something that we've ever really seen before.
Since and you can start to see a real decay

(23:46):
with the quality and the originality of the hell Raiser
films and the hell Raiser franchise when somebody sat down
and decide, at some point, fuck it, they're just demons,
And that to me strips away so much of the
originality and so much of what made hell Raiser fun
and new and unique and boundary breaking and narrative breaking

(24:08):
in the first place, was we've had those stories before.
We've had Rosemary's Baby, we have Race with the Devil,
we have Night of the Demons, we have all of
these other pieces of media where the Christian conception of
demons and what they are and mean and do have
been exploited as the monster of this particular piece of

(24:29):
media and just reducing the Son of Bites to, Oh,
they're demons, but they're like sex freak demons and they
wear s and m gear and leather. It isn't that freaky.
It's just not as interesting or provocative to me as
these extra dimensional entities that's come from some realm beyond
the conception of human understanding, and whose motivations and desires

(24:50):
and drives or maybe beyond the conception of human understanding
as well. And that's what one of the big appeals
to me is with Revelation, is that it is really trying,
or at least somebody wanted to try. I don't know
how much real passion or love or motivation there was behind,
but it is an effort to bring the cinemytes back

(25:11):
around to their origins. And that's something that's intriguing to
me about the movie is that whoever was behind the
scenes on this, somebody at least had an understanding and
love for the franchise, because it would have been so
easy if you've got to do this. I think they
call it an ash Can copy. I think that's the

(25:31):
original the term for it.

Speaker 1 (25:33):
You mentioned Doug Bradley's quote about the movie.

Speaker 2 (25:35):
Okay, yeah, because there's there's there's this legal concept you
mentioned before about you've got to exploit an intellectual property
every so often, or else the rights reverts, And if
I recall correctly, that goes back to comics. I believe
that these rights issues and having to use a character
concept every so often before the rights revert to somebody

(25:57):
else began in the comics world, and I I think
the casual term for it is an ashcan copy, because
the idea was you would make this thing, you would
copyright it if anybody ever needed to know about it.
You've got the paper trail to prove that it existed.
But all you were going to do with it was
just tossed in the trash. And this was maybe never
really meant to see the light of day, or meant

(26:18):
to see a very limited light of day.

Speaker 1 (26:20):
It was the first sequel in a long time since
the nineties to receive any kind of theatrical release, I believe,
a limited one week run, and I don't know if
possibly that was also any kind of contractual obligation, because
I believe for some of these clauses, depending on how
they negotiated, some kind of theatrical window of some kind

(26:40):
of scale is an obligation. I don't know if that's
the story here, but it is curious to me that
Hell World, for whatever you want to say about it,
had the production quality I think of a theatrical release,
a lower tier theatrical release, and the three hundred K
Hell Raiser movie only graced cinemas again in some menial form.

(27:04):
But I also wanted to ask Preston talking about the franchise, now,
where do you think that decay, as you put it,
started to set in? And when do you think it
really took hold. I think that's something fans argue about,
is when did the downfall start? I mean, some people
think it started as early as Hell Raiser two. I
think some people, can, you know, consider the first movie
to be the only one really worth the dam and

(27:25):
other people say, well, you know it kind of there
were peaks and valleys, you know, from one through four.
Some people actually defend Hell Raiser Inferno. Now that Scott
Derickson has enjoyed quite a career, I think a lot
of people go back and definitely look for you know
hints of his talents in that movie for sure. So

(27:47):
I'm curious what you think is the the linear timeline
of the downfall of hell Raiser.

Speaker 2 (27:56):
It's really for me it starts with number three, and
I think that's because number three is where they really
got a lot of money injected into it. It really
broke into the mainstream, and I feel this is where
they had to start pairing down one sum of the
more uncomfortable potential sexual elements behind it, because I don't
think that's something that would have played very easily in

(28:17):
mainstream cinemas in early nineties in the United States. Hell
Raiser three, I believe, is also the first entry in
the franchise that was really geared towards a major United
States theatrical release. There's a very British sensibility about the
first two movies, and number three is where we really
get this American sensibility that gets injected into the franchise.

Speaker 1 (28:38):
That's where they turned Pinhead into Freddy.

Speaker 2 (28:40):
Krueger exactly exactly, and that's where I really feel the
decay starts. Is Pinhead was meant to be the sort
of antithesis to the Slashers of the eighties and now
all of a sudden, they just make him one of
the Slashers of the eighties. And this is where I
feel like they felt the compulsion to become more reductive
with the characters. It's like, we can't have this really

(29:01):
deep and complex mythos behind the Cenobites. They can't be
like these extra dimensional entities. That's something that's maybe a
little too high brow, that won't play in Peoria. And
so oh, you know, scratch all that. They're demons. Now,
fuck it, they're demons, you know, you know, say, you
know Sally and Tommy in you know, Middle America go

(29:22):
to church on Sundays and they know who the Devil is,
and they know who Satan is, they know what hell is. Well,
you know what this this freaky dude with the leather
and the pins in his head, he's the devil. Fuck it,
we're going with that. And after that is where the
franchise just really starts to just keep sliding downward into
this hole. The Cenobytes are just demons and devil's thing.

(29:43):
Inferno as a movie, I think is great as a
hell raiser movie, I'm very iffy on. But as a
movie I actually think Inferno is a great direct to
VHS horror film. There's that scene where the guy gets
whipped to death in the ice screen truck, and it
keeps cutting back to the detective's reaction to it, and

(30:04):
we just hear these sounds and his responses to it. Uh,
that's That's one of the most upsetting things I think
I've seen in a horror movie. I think that's. Uh,
it was all on display from the beginning with with
Scott Derek's and he he hit hit the ground running
and just had the misfortunes to have his work back
doored into a franchise that he had nothing to do

(30:25):
with in the first place.

Speaker 1 (30:26):
Well, I think misfortune is a strong word. I think, yeah,
he definitely bounced back at some point.

Speaker 3 (30:32):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (30:34):
The Black Phone, too, I think is on its way
and probably uh that's probably a franchise in the making
onto onto itself. But Connor, turning back to you, since
you're the you're the hater of the episode, you're the
antagonist of the episode. I mean, before we get to

(30:55):
your your quibbles if you will with this film, Uh,
hearing about its actual thematic relationship to you know, the
hell Raiser mythos to hear that it actually does attempt
to do something to honor the franchise in some way
or at least make a statement of its own in

(31:18):
some way. Does that affect your feelings about this movie
at all?

Speaker 3 (31:26):
Maybe a little bit of sympathy, but other than that,
really no, because that's the thing, Like, this was my
attempt to get into hell Raiser again. You know, this
was like, Okay, I was desperate. You don't understand, Okay,
Like I want to belong when it comes to horror movies,
like I wanted to for a long time. Not anymore.
I mean, as a guy who puts rob Zombies Halloween

(31:48):
to at the top of my Halloween ranking, obviously, I
don't fit into a lot of conventions, especially when it
comes to franchises that I enjoy. I just I just
like what I like.

Speaker 1 (31:57):
I sort I think it was more of a proud contrarian, like, yeah,
it is somebody desperate to well, see, Like.

Speaker 3 (32:03):
When I was first getting into horror, like, you know,
I didn't know anybody that liked horror movies. I didn't
know anybody who was into that world. And I just
knew that I watched a movie one time when I
was nine years old, and then I watched the other
one when I was ten, and it scared the shit
out of me. That's all I knew, And so I
got really excited about the prospect of getting into this
world and finally, you know, starting to collect. You know,

(32:26):
I had collected like James Bond DVD's before that, but like,
I really hadn't done anything with horror, and so I
just wanted to have a film in every franchise that
I could talk about, so at least when I would
talk to someone who, you know, maybe they don't like
the movie that I like, I could passionately defend something
that they enjoy in a sense, even if it's loose.

(32:49):
And so I was, I would this My first viewing
of hell Ray's of Revelations came from a place of
desperation to get into that franchise, and it failed me there.
And so like I don't have the connection to the
franchise to say like, oh, well, at least they tried,
you know, because that doesn't affect me at all. I mean,
like I feel bad and it makes me feel worse

(33:09):
for the for you know, the people who are involved,
who do care. It seems like the writer who was
the makeup effects turned writer. You know, it seems like
he kind of had a grasp on what hell Raiser
was about too. It's it's core fans, and I think
that's great. I think the issue that I that I
ran into though, is that that redeeming factor for most

(33:31):
people does not do any anything for somebody who's not
a core fan. And we'll see kind of how that
kind of ties in throughout this. And the Fangoria article
that he wrote was great in kind of detailing that
for me and making me understand how somebody could come
around to this movie or somebody could even look at
it as like a oh, well, you know it's not

(33:51):
my favorite, but you know, at least it did something,
and I appreciate it for doing something because I didn't
see that perspective at all before I read that article.
Excited to hopefully have it driven down here more.

Speaker 1 (34:03):
But the incests just came and won for you, right,
just one the other.

Speaker 3 (34:09):
I'm really interested to see how this episode ends because
I don't anticipate this being a child's play three situation,
but there.

Speaker 1 (34:18):
Is a chance that maybe change your mind. For a text,
that's an instance where you went from really at least
not liking something to some extent coming out on the
other side. But I think the better example as Halloween ends,
because I remember your half star review of that on
Letterbox when you first saw it, and now it's yeah,

(34:40):
what is in your ranking? It's like in the top
three or top four?

Speaker 3 (34:43):
Right, No, no, no, no, it's in the It's in the top
ten somewhere. Maybe maybe not that bad, maybe that bad.
Media rather will have a Halloween ranking up sometime in
the next couple of weeks. Hopfull, hopefully they'll be able
to see that from the release of this leading up
to Halloween. But got it, got to leave him hanging,
But it's not in my top three, but it's it's
high rob zombiees is Halloween to another great example. You know,

(35:07):
I almost broke that disk in half the first viewing
that I that I had, and now it's one of
it's my favorite horror movie of all time. Don't see
this one going that route. However, at least maybe I
can look at it like a wounded animal. So I say, I,
I say, let's talk about the movie a little bit more,
and yeah, we'll see where it goes. I think, though,
I want to ask you guys about the opening for

(35:28):
this movie, because it's kind of jarring, especially if you
don't remember this movie a lot, or you're going into
it for the first time. We kind of just jump
right into these characters in a found footage esque situation,
and all of a sudden, Pinheads just Pinheads there, like
within the first few minutes of the movie. There he is,

(35:48):
in all of his glory. I don't know, I don't
know what to call it in this What did I
want to I guess I'll start with Preston here, like,
how did this opening? Did it leave an impression on
you at all when you when you guys first watched
it together.

Speaker 2 (36:03):
Yeah, I really got the impression that they were eager
to tell people, Yes, this is a hell eraser film.
You're here for Pinhead. We know you're here for Pinhead.
Here's Pinhead, though, say goodbye to him for a while.
I mean, yeah, the Springleum.

Speaker 1 (36:16):
Hindle him in a little more liberally than the previous
few ones. But but I think some people might have
gotten the impression that Pinhead was going to own the
movie again, which hadn't happened since the nineties, but that
that was certainly not the case, probably because they were
not entirely confident about this new actor's ability to match

(36:39):
up to Doug Bradley. But can continue.

Speaker 2 (36:41):
Preston, Yeah, Yeah, I feel like it's an intentional choice.
It's not necessarily one I agree with, but I get
where they were coming from, because it really seemed that
with especially with the direct to DVD movies, that it
was a matter of getting Doug Bradley on set for
one two days, sticking him in the pinhead makeup, and
just as they shoehorned the character into scripts where he

(37:03):
didn't already belong, they had to shoehorn Doug Bradley into
the shoots of these movies as quickly and as efficiently
as they could. And I mean in some of these
movies he's in for like he's in there for like
what like two three minutes of screen time. And I
mean there's a fine line between having a character in
a movie and kind of narrow focusing, laser focusing them

(37:28):
and you know, precidure that my mind's deteriorating. Beatlejuice and Hannahballect,
I think are prime examples of this. Michael Keaton's only
in something like nineteen minutes of Beatle Juice, which is
like an hour and a half long movie. But every
minute he's on screen, damn it, he is taking charge
of it. Hannahballecter is not actually on screen in Silence

(37:49):
of the Lambs that much, and Anthony Hopkins still won
an award for it and people are still quoting him
to this day. Pinhead was never meant to be the
central star of the movie. These movies were never about
Pinhead showing up with an oozy and mowing down terrorists
like Schwartzenegger and Commando or something. It was about these
precision strikes with the character. But those precision strikes had

(38:10):
started to dwindle with these direct to video entries in
the series, and it almost got to the point where
it was why is this even a hell racer movie?
And I feel like having Pinhead show up off the
bat in revelation in the opening moment of the movie.
It was a case of this is a hell raiser movie.
This isn't a movie that was originally something else. Pinhead

(38:31):
wasn't originally the devil. He wasn't originally you know, John Smith,
the serial Killer. We didn't do a find replace on this.
This was always meant to be Pinhead. Here he is.
You can relax. This is a hell Raiser movie.

Speaker 1 (38:46):
What I like about this opening is a dynamic that
I really wish they had followed through on which I
thought we were going to get Harold and Kumar goo
to hell. Like I thought we were going to get
a buddy comedy trapesing through an act only stumbling into
the into the world of hell Raiser.

Speaker 2 (39:04):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (39:04):
And there are there are there are ingredients that would
not have allowed for that dynamic to flourish, namely the acting.
And I do not want to get hard on any
of the actors. I'm sure they struggled with the rewrites,
they scrog struggled with with direction and hectic shoot. And obviously,

(39:28):
you know, the lead actor playing Steven, and then Nico
as Stephen did not come out, you know, proud of
proud of his work on that, which is which is
unfortunate to see, you know, to the extent that he
felt he had to publicly speak about it and disown
the movie. But I still think that's that's a dynamic

(39:51):
the movie would have benefited more from. I really wish
every line of dialogue in this movie ended with the
name Nico. I was just really getting a kick out
of out of how often they were they were throwing
that that around in that bathroom. I would never do
that to you, Nico, Don't do this.

Speaker 2 (40:11):
I get them, Yeah, I get the impression somebody had
played g T A four in close proximity, so really
got focused on the name Nico.

Speaker 1 (40:21):
And then you know, our flashbacks to their their misadventures
in Mexico. As as aggravating as those characters are, there
was a there was a pulse of something it was.
It was probably not something that most people would be
comfortable spending a lot of time with. These are two

(40:42):
characters that you would struggle to to follow throughout the movie.
But I still think it would have honored the traditional
of honored the tradition of hell Raiser more because this
is not a franchise about comfortability, and seeing these these
two dickheads get their come up and in the gruesome

(41:03):
ways that they do, I think that would have offered
a bit more of you know, satisfaction catharsis to the
audience experience, then shifting that over to their family, who
I don't feel like we get to know really other
than being extensions of these two characters, with the exception

(41:24):
of the sister who apparently does have some kind of
haunts for her brother, and that was certainly a personality
trait that I did not forget by the hard to
forget credits rolled.

Speaker 3 (41:35):
Yeah, hard to scrub from your from your brain when
you when you finish watching this one, and luckily we don't.
We don't get that until pretty deep into the movie.
And one thing that I'll one positive that I will
give to this film overall is that this is I mean,
if you don't like it, any movie, any length of

(41:56):
of anything is is a long time. But the fact
that this movie's only seventy five minutes did help. I mean,
my wife, when I watched this earlier today, was in
another room and she goes, is a movie over? And
I was like, yeah, it just ended. He goes, oh, well,
that didn't take a lot of time, and I was like, no,
it really, it's it's it's a shorter movie, and big
chunks of time maybe feel like they're there. I felt

(42:18):
like I hadn't taken notes for a while, and honestly,
most of my notes are just quotes from the movie.
But I it's just basically all Nico. No, but it's
just it's it's kind of I don't know when you
just said that, you were thinking this would be like

(42:38):
a two buddies stumble into the hell Raiser situation. That's
a movie that I would absolutely be interested in seeing
even now. And I know that the franchise is kind
of in a better place a little bit. I know
that the last one was was a lot of people
recommended it to me. They they said that it was
it was quite good.

Speaker 1 (43:00):
Return to form and had some cloud to it. You know,
the screenwriters of The Nighthouse and more importantly to me,
Super Dark Times, one of my favorite films in the
last ten years. Then obviously the director of The Night House.
So yeah, I mean, just seeing talent attached to this

(43:20):
franchise again was kind of enough. I don't even think
I needed to see the movie in order to kind
of breathe a sigh of relief to just know that
it's back in more than capable hands. I'm not sure
about the fate of the franchise. Maybe that's something we
can get into at the end, because I have no
idea if there's any development going on for a continuation

(43:44):
of that other movie. But what say, you presston to
this proposal, would you like to see Harold and Kumar
go to Hell? Is that the movie that you think
this could have been, or are you happy that we
have the actual the set up in the premise that
we do have.

Speaker 3 (44:02):
No.

Speaker 2 (44:02):
I definitely would have liked to have seen that one myself.
I feel like one of the best executions for a
hell Raiser movie is taking different types of people from
different walks of life, different situations, and seeing what happens
when you throw them up against the centemites. I really
feel like a couple of the direct to VHS movies

(44:24):
almost stumbled into this territory, and I just really wish
that they had done more with that. And I feel
like a dark buddy comedy slash travelogue movie where they
stumble up against the lament configuration could have been really cool.
And I understand why we didn't get that because of
budgetary constraints. You know, no matter what else I can

(44:47):
say about this movie, it wears its lack of its budget.

Speaker 1 (44:50):
Right there are saying they had budgetary constraints on this movie.

Speaker 3 (44:56):
What gave it away?

Speaker 1 (44:57):
What I really love. I love that the camcorder they're
shooting the found footage stuff with is only marginally worse
than the camera they actually used for the parts of
the movie, and that's something that you know, has to
be addressed. And for me, this actually cuts both ways
in terms of my ability to enjoy the movie and
my ability to empathize with the people who hate it.

(45:18):
Say what you will about the previous Teleraser direct to
DVD movies, they look like real movies. I mean, I'm
you know, going back and maybe this is just maybe
the speaks to the state of you know, of photography
and in major film releases. But you know, just the
fact that they're shooting it on film with these people
who are clearly veterans of the craft and clearly look

(45:43):
to you know, previous generations for lighting schemes and all
of that. And now, you know, I think the I
think the vast majority of films that come out in
theaters or streaming more closely resemble like Honda commercials in
terms of their photography. So that's that's the hell Raiser

(46:05):
movies for me until you get to this one. And
this is almost ve ball territory for me in terms
of production value. Uh and my I think my favorite
example of that is is the bar that they hang
out in in Mexico which looks suspiciously like a like
an abandoned studio lot.

Speaker 3 (46:28):
It wasn't. It wasn't. It wasn't the Mexican hotel rooms
that that looked like they were all in the same
set area. It wasn't. Uh yeah, there was, I was.

Speaker 1 (46:40):
There was the two uh hooker murder scenes uh in
in the hotel rooms. I really thought, my my, I
thought I thought to be accidentally re round the movie
on me when they walked back into that.

Speaker 3 (46:53):
But you got to watch out. You got to watch
out for the Asian American hookers in Mexico. Uh. It's uh,
it can cause you some problems, and clearly it caused
him some problems when watching Dude, I I, oh my god.
I want to applaud them for the scenes that are
actually in this cenebite area, because those I think are

(47:17):
the best looking parts of the movie. But like, look,
you guys filmed most of this in one place, and
you can't.

Speaker 1 (47:26):
I'm sure, and they can't.

Speaker 3 (47:28):
They didn't. But like, you know, we know low budget filmmakers.
I know one because I host this show with a
low budget filmmaker. And yeah, you were able to you know,
you made a script that was more in the found
footage category, so it's a little easier to hide budgetaries
constraints in.

Speaker 1 (47:44):
The found footage category. But that I I would then
put this, this, this out into the conversation that I
would have been fine for a found footage Celeraser experience.
I think a lot of people, you know, that's the
worst thing they've ever heard. That's the worst idea they've
ever heard of found footage Hellraiser.

Speaker 3 (48:04):
I mean, our friend Cody Leech said something like that
in his review about how terrified he was that this
was going to be a found footage version of the
of the hell Raiser movies. But that sounded more interesting
to me. And I don't even love found footage movies.

Speaker 1 (48:17):
No, no, But but what you know, it would have
It would have covered up the many blummishes oh yeah,
of the production. But but here's the other side of it.
For me, this movie it was like like they hired
ed Wood to direct a hell Raiser sequel, or it
had the same kind of like curious something at the

(48:40):
bottom of your shoe type of filmmaking of like what
is this?

Speaker 2 (48:44):
Who made this?

Speaker 1 (48:47):
It was just a product.

Speaker 3 (48:48):
I know I've seen this movie before. I don't know
what part of the movie I did. I didn't put
anything else, but I just put bro what the fuck
is going on?

Speaker 1 (48:57):
So and that's just talkalking about the merits of the production. Now,
there there are some some things I can compliment in Preston.
You did note that the effects were uneven, but I
think I think some people would acknowledge that not all
of the effects, but some of the effects, some of
the some of the blood, some of the some of
the torment. So we have a lot of faceless people

(49:21):
running around in this movie, and I always thought that
was a that was a highlight of the effects work.
I mean, do you think that these are important qualities
for you when you watch this movie, Preston, Like the
the subpar production, that's that's you know, all of the
all of the budget constraints are so visible on the film.

(49:44):
Is that something something that informs how you experience the
movie one way or another? Or is it just you know,
obviously this is now a low budget franchise. It's been
straight to DVD for years. You just take the good
with the bad.

Speaker 2 (49:58):
Yeah, I'm two minds this. On the one hand, I
sort of feel inoculated to this sort of thing, going
back to me watching movies that like played for one
week in a movie theater in Times Square in nineteen
eighty two and I've never been seen again. So you know,
I've seen my share of movies where the blood is
obviously Caro syrup and on the on the film stock
that they used it ended up looking orange on my

(50:20):
TV screen, or where they very obviously overdubbed the entire
cast because this movie is supposed to be set in
Middle America, but they could only get people from Staten
Island and they didn't want the entire cast of the
film to sound like this, even though it's an end
to be taking place in Indiana. And you know, so
I've seen all of these movies that have you know,

(50:42):
more shortcuts on it then I don't know what. So
on one hand, it doesn't bother me. On the other hands,
if you have a certain sum of money that you're
going to use on a movie and it's a limited
sum of money, I feel like instead of spreading it
around and everything being of a low value, that you
should choose one area and make that good. Maybe the

(51:05):
special effects are really great, but you don't have the
greatest calibler of actors. Or maybe you've got really incredible
up and coming actors and you paid them a little
bit more and the special effects are really bad, or
maybe you sprung for a really great camera and this
movie just looks incredible, but the acting and the SFX
or crap. Here, it doesn't feel like they precision struck

(51:29):
that budget anywhere. It is like, we're just gonna spread
it evenly. We're going to allocate, you know, ten percent
of the budgets here, ten percent of the budget here,
ten percent of the budget here, at ten percent of
the budget here, and however the chips may fall, that's
where they fall. Would I have liked for this to
have been a better looking movie? Yes? Would I have
liked for this stew have been a better acted movie? Yes?

(51:51):
Would I have liked for the special effects to have
been better? Yes? Would I have liked for them to
have used a better camera? Yes. Part of the almost
wishes that they had just said fuck it and gone
out and gotten like an eighties era shoulder mounted your
dad on Christmas morning VHS camcorder and been like, you

(52:13):
know what, guys, this is hell Raiser nineteen eighty four
edition and just like really leaned into that line.

Speaker 1 (52:19):
I could have I mean, what VHS eighty five, VHS
ninety nine, VHS beyond right, I mean, that's that's that's
fashionable now, and that this movie could have broken some
ground by doing by doing so, or it could have
played it safe in it could have ridden road the

(52:43):
wave of a found footage which is still going strong
at this time. I'm actually surprised that they didn't commit
to that. I'm curious to see if there was a
conversation about that, although I guess you couldn't have really
brought that into the of the family dynamic at that house.

(53:04):
But I definitely thought everything we were going to see
of their Mexico adventure was going to be through the
lens of that camcorder in a found footage format, because
they're still stupid enough to record everything anyways. You know,
all the hookers that they kill, all the weird creepy
boxes that they open up, all of the you know,

(53:27):
random homeless men that sell them, you know, exotic objects.
Do you think there was an intentional callback to the
to the character from the from the first film.

Speaker 2 (53:38):
Oh definitely, And I really feel like that was the
writer kind of flexing on flexing on certain viewers and
like nudging another section of the viewers in the ribs.
It's like, yes, I've actually watched these movies. Out of
the direct to VHS movies, one of my favorites is
Hell World. I'm not one hundred percent sold on the
ending of it, but I really appreciate that they had

(54:00):
done their homework and that for like the game within
the movie, like this Hell Raiser based MMO RPG, that
like they are actually culling elements from the Hell Raiser
franchise for it, and whoever did the adaptation of that
script at least was a fan of the series, and
so I appreciate that as a callback. If for no
other reason, then it lets me know that the person
who wrote this, who worked on the script for this,

(54:22):
had at least seen earlier movies in the series. I
also really appreciate that element that they do like document
all of their many crimes, because there is something real
to that. One of the very first jobs I had
out of high school was working as an intern in
a police department evidence room in the town where I
went to high school in Oklahoma, and you would be

(54:45):
amazed at the level of stupidity that goes into certain
crimes where they actually document this is public information because
the guy went on trial, he went to prison for it.
This was presented as evidence in open court. But there
is this one case. So there's this kid. He was
like nineteen twenty years old, and he was stealing credit
cards and buying all of this crap online with stolen

(55:08):
credit cards. He was keeping a spiral notebook tracking what
stuff he had bought on what stolen credit card, so
that he made sure enough to max out the limits
on those cards.

Speaker 1 (55:19):
Like we're yeah, no, they even have the scene that
you need to have in a found footage movie to
explain why there's recording every thing. Why are they not
deleting the video evidence of the murder that they have
just committed.

Speaker 2 (55:35):
Why not?

Speaker 1 (55:36):
So we're on the same team, bro, But Nico, I
would never do that to you, Nico, Nico, I actually
disagree with you, Preston. I don't wish any of those
things were better. I think I think that would have
made this a truly forgettable experience if this was actually

(55:57):
competently made. Getting back to what I'm saying, I could
imagine that in fifty years time, there's going to be
that that club of people, you know, not people like you, Preston,
who actually would argue for the merits of this movie,
but the ironic on a slash on ironic, you know,

(56:20):
the irony vortex fandom where you know, they go to
the midnight screenings, they start screaming back the lines at
the screen and you know, before you know it, they've
watched this more than any of the others, more than
the original. You know, every franchise has I think one
of those that has the legs to be you know

(56:41):
the room, you know, the movie the room of its
own franchise, and I think that's that's part of what
they're working with here, although I think it's a little
too uncomfortable. It's a little too taboo to to be
that that kind of that that kind of wholesome almost
good time fun that you associate with with the viewing

(57:04):
experience like that. I mean, is that a charm that
you could find with this movie, Connor, or is it
just another sin that the movie commits? This?

Speaker 3 (57:18):
This is movies quite the sinner, my friend. Yeah, you know,
I tried this time to and I want to make
sure that I make this clear as we go through.
And I said that a lot of my notes are
our quotes from this movie, because I tried this time
to at least like, look, I know how I felt
about it last time. One of the few movies that

(57:38):
I have ranked bottom of the barrel. It's one of
the few movies that I just found no redeeming qualities in.
Let me try to just have fun with what I
can have fun with, and maybe it'll change my feelings
about the movie. You know, sometimes I have fun with
a movie, but I know the movie still sucks, and
therefore I'm not you know, I'm not going to put
in the effort to try to enjoy it anymore. And
other times, I you know, maybe I don't know ahead

(57:59):
of time, and this time I really felt like, okay,
you know my mood. My moods can change. You know,
I've I've changed opinions about movies plenty of times. Let's
just try to have fun with this. And I'll admit
that I got quite a few laughs out of this,
but I felt this sort of I don't know if
shame's the right word, but you know, like sometimes you

(58:19):
watch a movie and it's okay to laugh at it.
You know, The Room is an example because now you know,
Tommy Wiseau has come around full circle pretty much like
he kind of knows the value the movie has as
that insane human being that he is, and he gets
enjoyment that people find enjoyment out of his film. In
that way, it doesn't seem like this movie has brought

(58:41):
anything to this cast except for pain and a sore
spot on their filmography. And so for me to sit
and laugh.

Speaker 1 (58:49):
At it, that's that's bad now. But you know, when
when The Room first came out, you think people were
proud to admit that they were in the Room or
I mean, go back to Plan nine from out of Space.
You know, I think still the og of this, of
this whole right subgenre, if you will, people were ashamed
to be a part of that. I mean they took

(59:10):
the money and they ran, and then you know, this
kind of real reappraisal of sorts. You know, I'm not
using the word exactly correctly, but some some kind of
new affection that people can develop for the for the
movie occurs. Again, I don't think this this movie is
exactly destined for that.

Speaker 3 (59:29):
I think it has the right pieces in place, No
I don't think this franchise is built for that. And
and and you know, like I wanted to bring this
up earlier, and I'll throw it in here now. This
franchise sort of follows a similar path to the leprechn franchise.
And when you say those two things together, you kind
of are like, what are you talking about? Like why

(59:49):
would how would those two franchises have anything to do
with each other? But like, and it makes me sad
in a sense because again, like this is as a
horror person, as somebody who loves the genres, somebody who's
all about it, like seeing a Titan I would consider
the first movie. You know, I don't just because it's
not for me doesn't mean I can't recognize its importance

(01:00:10):
in the genre, and it's its significance amongst horror fans.
And to see it drop to this level, like this
is a movie like we gave you know, we talked
about all the Leprechaun movies on our patreoton and was
a except one, yes, except Leprechaun Origins. And that movie
is the one that I'm going to compare to this

(01:00:31):
one because they both represent this just uh, just reaching
the very bottom you have. You may have peaked somewhere
in your franchise, but now you're you're You're at the bottom,
and you're you probably are under an avalanche at this point.

(01:00:54):
Because yes, I do agree that there are films that
are bad that get better because they're bad. I just
don't think this, for me is one of them, because
not only just because of the pain, but AI have
no connection and b it's just really hard to get there.

(01:01:16):
There's just so many choices that leave me questioning why
did they do this? And to Preston's point earlier, if
they would have targeted one specific area, I think this
movie would have taken a slight turn for me. If
they had just the best effects throughout the whole movie,
or had some of the best acting in the worst
effects and camera work I had ever seen, or honestly

(01:01:39):
what I think Hell Razer deserves a really really solid script,
something that will help the actors, you know, because not
everybody in this is a bad actor. I quite enjoy
The Scorpion King. The guy from The Scorpion King is
in this movie. The villain of the Scorpion King is
It was one of the parents in.

Speaker 1 (01:01:57):
This and.

Speaker 2 (01:02:00):
I didn't realize was.

Speaker 3 (01:02:04):
The Rock is the hero of the Scorpion Kings.

Speaker 1 (01:02:06):
That would make this the second worst movie that The
Rock has ever made, behind Black Adam. Oh geez, this
probably made more money than Black Adam, though.

Speaker 3 (01:02:17):
It probably did off BBD.

Speaker 1 (01:02:20):
But no, I you know, it doesn't want to posit something.
I want to posit something. And I'm curious to hear
your reaction to this pressent. You know, with everything that
we're talking about, all the notoriety, all all of the
again the visible flaws in some sense, very objective flaws
to this film and all of the things that is

(01:02:41):
going against it. You know, Doug Bradley didn't return. I
think Clive Barker said, this didn't come from my mind.
It didn't even come from my asshole. With all of that,
this is actually the first time I heard anybody talking
about the hell Raiser franchise. This is the first time
I had heard people talking about the newly released hell
Raiser film in my lifetime. You know, I want to

(01:03:03):
know if that was that was your experience, because you know,
it's not like I was paying attention really when I
was when when I guess Inferno through Through Hell World
were coming out, you know, I was paying more attention
to SpongeBob and Barney at the time. But I want
to know, is that does that mesh with with your experience?

(01:03:25):
And why do you think this did spark a new
kind of attention to the franchise to the extent that
it did.

Speaker 2 (01:03:34):
God, I feel old now.

Speaker 1 (01:03:37):
This has happened too often, and I want to be diplomatic.
I want to be diplomatic about this. Since I was
watching The Jetsons and the flint Stones, does that make
you feel better?

Speaker 2 (01:03:51):
I don't. I feel like my experience was skewed because
I was a huge part of internet forums back in
the day when internet forums were still a thing before
Reddit really kind of took over that whole scene. And
so after I saw the first hell Raiser, I immediately
sought out what was at the time the hell Raiser
fan forum and kind of like part time lived there,

(01:04:13):
like digging into all of the other movies, and so
that's where I first heard about Revelations, and I kind
of followed part of the trajectory of its release there,
and so I feel like my perspective on it was
a little bit skewed in that way because I was
in this very specific space, So I don't know what
the average horror fans experience would have been living outside

(01:04:35):
of a very specific Hell Raiser space in terms of
this being one of the first times in years that
hell Raiser had entered into like major discourse. I got
so sidetracked by the SpongeBob thing, I forget the rest
of the question.

Speaker 1 (01:04:50):
And why do you think it starts a new attention
to the franchise again, to the scent that it did,
because maybe our memory skewed, But I, you know, I
was just getting into the online space of you know,
horror fandoms. I was watching a lot of you know,
online reviewers tearing this movie apart, and I went through

(01:05:13):
and I didn't see them talk about hell World. I
didn't see them talk about, you know, other than people
who you know, do retrospectives of whole series. You know,
just seeing you know, thumbnail after thumbnail of somebody you
know screaming in front of this new pinhead actor you
know who was behind them. Just that formula was everywhere.

(01:05:35):
Everybody wanted to talk about how much they were pissed
off about this movie, and it was almost like it
was almost like people forgot, you know, the state that
this franchise was really in, Like, this is the type
of indignation that I expect from like a Halloween resurrection
which comes after a popular entry, seems seems like it

(01:05:56):
just stops the momentum of the franchise dead in its tracks.
So yeah, I want to hear what you think is
going on there into the into the you know, very
loud reaction to to revelations.

Speaker 2 (01:06:10):
There's there's something that's touch surreal about it. Uh. It's
like if after a Nightmare and Elm Street six, there
had been this big gap and there's no more Nightmare
in Elm Street movies, and then they're like, we're gonna
make another Nightmare in Elm Street after like ten years,
You're getting a new Nightmare and Elm Street. Okay, well,
is Robert England coming back?

Speaker 3 (01:06:29):
Well?

Speaker 2 (01:06:30):
No, we've got a new actor to play Freddy Krueger. Okay, well,
who is it?

Speaker 3 (01:06:33):
Is it?

Speaker 2 (01:06:33):
Is it Jack Earyl Haley? Is it Kevin Bacon?

Speaker 3 (01:06:36):
No?

Speaker 2 (01:06:36):
No, it's this guy named Earl Samson the Girls. Who's
Earl Samson? You've never heard of him?

Speaker 1 (01:06:43):
Okay?

Speaker 2 (01:06:43):
Well, surely New Line Cinemas footing the bill for this, right?

Speaker 3 (01:06:47):
No?

Speaker 2 (01:06:48):
No, Well, who's gonna put it out? Then? Uh you
star Line Pictures, star Line Pictures, you never heard of them? Okay, Well,
this is like some dangerous up and coming edgy indie
film production company, and they're gonna make it new and
sexy and exciting again, right, and like we're gonna you know, really,
you know, they've got investors behind this and it's gonna

(01:07:08):
be like this like grand written o. Okay, so it's like,
what's the point of this? Then you're bringing back a
Nightmare and Elm Street, but you're not bringing back Robert England.
New Lines not behind it. It doesn't have a budget.
What are you going for here? We don't want to
lose the rights. It's weird. It's like this is something.

(01:07:31):
It's it's kind of almost like this meta thing. It's like,
just as Hell a Raiser is about forbidden secrets and
things not meant for human interaction. It's almost like this
is a movie that was not meant for human eyes
to see, and yet here it is.

Speaker 1 (01:07:48):
Do you think it's it's almost Okay, imagine that Jessica
Alba Fantastic four movie comes out, you know, it does
it does what it does at the box office. Then
The Rise of the Silvers Ever comes out and it does,
you know, even less at the box office, and there's
a lull after after this. Some star studed Fantastic four

(01:08:11):
duality or something, and people are like, are they going
to make a new one, And then somebody finally says, yeah,
we're making a new one, and it comes down in
theaters and it's Roger Corman's Fantastic Four. You know, I
think it's a I think it's kind of comparable to that.
I think it's yeah, just the I think it's kind
of cannon to people that this this franchise, you know,

(01:08:35):
fell off a cliff and you know, hit the bottom
with Revelations that they don't stop to see, like there
is still a huge like something happened between Hell World
and Revelations. Even though some people would argue this is
actually more of a hell Raiser movie, it's certainly not,
as it's certainly not more of a real movie than

(01:08:58):
the Hell World. So it's like an interesting tension, like
there was like an actual like ode to the franchise
after such a long time. If they only had the
schedule and the budget and you know, whatever resources they needed.
So I'm going to return it back to you know,
the subject of this discussion, and I kind of want

(01:09:19):
to get our closing thoughts on Hollowraiser revelations. I want
to start with you pressed in anything that you wanted
to continue to stay in defense of it, and to
hear your closing statement on it, you know, and finally
your verdict, which for you and for anybody who's listening here,
for the first time, we have a ranking system. You know,

(01:09:40):
the movie can either be that bad, not that bad,
actually good, or it could be actually great, which is rare,
but it has happened. I gave Jason Goes to Helen
actually great, believe it or not. So when it turned
it to you pressed and want to hear your closing thoughts.

Speaker 2 (01:10:00):
So I think it's a not that bad film. It's
not one of my favorite hell Raisers. I don't think
that it's some secret gem. I'm not gonna sit here
and argue that it's Oh, it's actually one of the
best ones in the series. Oh, it's just you know,
it needs to be rediscovered as this fantastic hell Raiser film.
Is this fantastic horror film. No, But is it a
decent hell Raiser movie? Yes? Is it a hell Raiser

(01:10:23):
movie that is actually a hell Raiser movie. Yes. For
that alone, I feel that it gets elevated above many
of the direct to video sequels because it's actually doing
and is actually being what it was meant to do
and be. That's that's why I feel so protective of it,
is because it was finally a hell Raiser movie again.

(01:10:46):
In the hell Raiser franchise. It's like if after a
Nightmare on Elm Street three, we'd suddenly really stop getting
Freddy Krueger as a d dream demon serial killer. And
it's like we had these like weird Dawson's Creek style
teen dramas and then randomly, five minutes before the end,

(01:11:07):
this burned up dude shows up and like says a
couple of lines and kills the main character, and then
all of a sudden, like a Nightmare in Elm Street
Part twelve suddenly is about Freddy Krueger again. And that's
how I felt about Revelations, and why I feel so
protective of it is that it was at least bringing
the series background, to its roots, to its origins, to

(01:11:28):
being hell Raiser again.

Speaker 1 (01:11:30):
And well, on that note, I'm going to turn it
over to you, Connor, all right, So.

Speaker 3 (01:11:41):
I appreciate a perspective like that, you know, as somebody
who is who is a I'd like to think of
myself as a defender of movies that people hate. I mean,
that's That's the whole crux of what That's the whole
crux of Gabe and I's relationship. Ever since we started
collaborating with each other, it's literally just been about defending

(01:12:02):
movies that people think are bad. The first episode of
this show, all the way through to now, that's been
the point. Is to be a champion for things like that.
And when I can't be a champion for a movie
like that, it does make me sad to an extent.
This movie, to me, is probably the worst major horror

(01:12:24):
franchise entry of all time. I and and you know,
sometimes movies can be inoffensive to me. This one I
spent money on to watch it side Unseen, which you
can say, shame on me, that's fine. I hate this movie.
I've been so measured so far, but this this just

(01:12:44):
fucking sucks. I just hate it so much. I hate
I hate everything about it. I hate every minute of it.
There are times where it's funny and it's it's great,
But then I feel bad about myself for laugh laughing
at these professionals just trying to get a payday and
just trying to make something happen. And and you know,
Mama was a movie that sent me into a murderous rampage.
I wanted. I didn't know what I was gonna do

(01:13:06):
with myself after Mama. That viewing, after watching the end
of that movie, and watching people defend that movie drove
me crazy. This movie doesn't do that for me. This
movie doesn't do that at all. But the fact that
I only spent three dollars on it and that still
is a waste of money, and it's not a Blu
ray disc on top of that, is just frustrating. And
so you know what, Hell Raiser Revelations, you do not

(01:13:29):
deserve to be in this collection. You do not deserve
to exist in my household anymore. Movie needs to burn
in hell. Fuck Hell Raiser Relations. I'm never watching this
goddamn movie again. And may God have mercy on the
soul of the person who sold me this piece of shit.

Speaker 1 (01:13:52):
Who knew that DVDs were so bendable. I know, poor
Connor was just like it was like trying to tear
a part a FUPI disc.

Speaker 3 (01:14:00):
Here's a piece of it. If you i'll set I'll
sign this and send it the game.

Speaker 1 (01:14:05):
Yeah, hanging on the not that bad Hall of Fame wall.

Speaker 3 (01:14:10):
Yes, oh yeah, for sure, for sure, I'm gonna I'm
gonna start a box of memorabilia from the show. Hopefully
I don't have any other discs that I break. Honestly
said that I did.

Speaker 1 (01:14:22):
Let me split the difference here, Yeah, but you know,
fine points have been made, you know, there were there
were fine people on both sides. You know, I I
have to come at this from a very dispassionate place. Unfortunately,

(01:14:44):
the only things that registered for this were the where
the flubs were, the blemishes were the things that really
made me feel like I was watching not uh, not
an entry in a you know, an a horror franchise,
but you know, a discarded production that was made for

(01:15:09):
like tax write off purposes that has stumbled its way
into into my DVD. And honestly, you know that three
hundred one thousand dollars budget just two words Hollywood accounting.
There is something suspicious that happened behind the scenes. I'm
just very convinced of that. So those are the things
that registered. But what I could acknowledge too was what

(01:15:32):
Preston has has been pointing out that this actually is
a truer sequel in the most important sense and the
thematic sense. And I'm a very thematic viewer. I love
seeing the through lines of themes, of motifs, of statements.
I love seeing that consistency throughout a franchise. And yeah,

(01:15:54):
obviously the directed DVD era of hell Eraser was critically missing,
and that's why I've checked out of it. I mean,
if they could have continued that, I would have put
up with some shoddy writing, some shoddy effects. I basically
put up with that in the first couple of hel
Raiser movies to one extent or another. You know, they
all have their their flaws if you ask me, But

(01:16:18):
you know, I could have put up with all of that,
and I did put up with it in Revelations, you know,
even though it was to a devastatingly embarrassing extent. But
so what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to
mediate all of these things, these you know, the two
halves here, and what it comes down to is rewatchability.

(01:16:38):
And this is this is more rewatchable for me because
it contains both, you know, a little bit, a little
bit of substance to chew on, and more importantly, what
a candidate for bad movie night, Nko. I would never
do that to unique.

Speaker 3 (01:16:57):
Oh, I would never to get out of this.

Speaker 2 (01:17:01):
I would never say your.

Speaker 1 (01:17:02):
Movie is that bad, Niko. What I would say, though,
is that it is.

Speaker 2 (01:17:05):
It is not that bad.

Speaker 1 (01:17:07):
It's very far from being actually good, very far. It's
probably the biggest gap for me between not that bad
and actually good that we've had.

Speaker 2 (01:17:15):
But it is there.

Speaker 1 (01:17:17):
It did land there, and I'm glad I finally saw
it after hearing everybody talk about it, shit on it
and now try to pretend it never happened. I'm actually
glad that I saw it. Now I can, I can,
I can join that conversation and maybe I can be
some kind of, at least you moderating voice for all
the intense curiosity that comes the way of this movie.

(01:17:41):
So no worries. I don't have a DVD copy of it,
but if I did, it would remain safe and intact
and on and on my shelf, not not where, you know.
I keep the Prouder titles in my collection, but it'd
be somewhere towards towards the bottom. So we have to
thank our guest, Preston yes bringing this to us once again,
and forgetting us the conversation you know that's eluded us,

(01:18:05):
not just about this movie, but about the hell Raiser franchise.
We've never talked for some franchise in any depth. So
thank you, Thank you, Preston, and thank you for having me.

Speaker 2 (01:18:13):
This was a blast.

Speaker 1 (01:18:14):
And where can our audience go to support you? You know,
your books, your your writings, all of that. You know,
where where should they go to support you?

Speaker 2 (01:18:24):
You can find me on Amazon. Is my name going
to be printed on this? Yeah? The description?

Speaker 1 (01:18:30):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:18:30):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, so my name. I am one of
these people whose name is not pronounced the way it's spelled.
So I realized that when you introduced yourself. So I
felt very bad for checking your pronunciation. You know, I'm
so jaded because of the way my name gets butchered.
So I've I've I've continued the cycle of abuse.

Speaker 1 (01:18:51):
And I'm really sorry that the chain needs to be
broken here. Yeah, but the links for for Preston's writing,
you know, your your author profiles and your books will
be in the description, so check it out. Preston Is.
I mean, he's one of my favorite voices writing horror
and writing about horror right now. And you know, I

(01:19:14):
want to thank you Preston for introducing me to Bill Landis.
If anybody wants to read about a real, a really
underappreciated figure in horror history, check out check out Preston's
biography of Bill Landis. And I also heard some exciting
news Preston that your audio book has has some star

(01:19:36):
power narrating it.

Speaker 2 (01:19:39):
Yeah. The audio book of Landis, the story of a
real man on forty second Street, is narrated by Kelly
Morony of Chopping Mall and Night of the Comet Fame.

Speaker 1 (01:19:49):
Really big fan of Night of the comment myself, so
that was awesome, really big Chopping Mall fan. It's a
huge We've just completely split the difference here. You know,
you get very two different signs of fandom here in
this podcast. I've never seen Chopping Mall seen. I have

(01:20:10):
seen fun hold On, I have seen Phantom of the Mall,
which was shot at the same mall as Shopping Mall.

Speaker 2 (01:20:17):
I think I think every eighties movie shots in California
that had anything to do with a mall was shot
at that mall because I actually believe scenes and Night
of the Common are also shot at that mall. Fast
Time Surprising, Fast Times at Ridge Mount High was shot
at that mall because Kelly was saying something on Facebook
not too long ago about how, like all of the

(01:20:37):
movie she's known for from the eighties, she basically just
kept going back to that mall that she sees at
this mall.

Speaker 1 (01:20:46):
Yeah, I'm planning on a double feature Phantom of the
Mall and Shopping Mall. I think that'd be a Yes,
I think that'd be an awesome double feature.

Speaker 2 (01:20:54):
So they may I offer a strange alternative to Fansom
of them All.

Speaker 1 (01:21:01):
Phantom of the Mall is a stone cold classic in
this household. But continue, go ahead, go ahead.

Speaker 2 (01:21:06):
So this is one of the deepest cut weird cameo
slash references. But chopping Mall is a strange pseudo sequel
to another movie called, yes called Eating Raoul.

Speaker 3 (01:21:18):
Yep, what there's a movie.

Speaker 2 (01:21:22):
There's a movie with Mary Warnov and Paul Bartel and
the dude who played Chakota on Star Trek Voyage or
Robert Beltran called It's called Eating Raoul. And for reasons
that I'm not one hundred percent sure on. Characters from
Eating Raoul pop up in the first half hour of
Chopping Mall and then just kind of disappear, and it's
kind of like, by the way, these people are like

(01:21:43):
still running around out there, and it's this very strange,
very unique movie about I don't want to ruin it.
It's it's a it's not quite like another movie that
you've seen, but it's it's a interesting level.

Speaker 1 (01:21:59):
House Strong is the connection to Chopping Mall.

Speaker 2 (01:22:03):
Two characters, two of the protagonists from Eating Raoul, two
of the main characters pop up in the beginning of Chopping.

Speaker 1 (01:22:10):
Mall like Jane, Silent Bob or.

Speaker 3 (01:22:14):
Kind of like yeah, actually, that's that's pretty accurate. Yeah,
that's exactly how it is. It's it's a fun I
recommend watching the other movie before you watch Chopping Mall
because then it's like a funny like, oh, okay, like
why are they in this? Okay, all right, well let's
just get on with the mayhem.

Speaker 1 (01:22:30):
Okay, well then maybe we'll have to make it a
triple feature.

Speaker 2 (01:22:32):
How about that?

Speaker 3 (01:22:33):
Do that? Yeah, go for it. But Chopping Mall is
very fun.

Speaker 1 (01:22:37):
Unofficial trilogy on the level of Johnny Carpenter's Apocalypse trilogy.

Speaker 3 (01:22:42):
Yes, yes, yes, and and by the way, I do
want to say as we as we as we get
ready to hoour ourselves out on the show. I do
think it's important that if you, if anybody watching this
is interested, definitely recommend checking out his article, Preston's article
about this movie from Fana, the sound bite that you

(01:23:03):
heard from Gabe, the quote that was very solid from
that article, there's plenty like that. I learned a lot
reading it. I learned a lot about his insight on
the on the film as well, So I think it's
an important read. We'll link that in the description below
as well, so that people can kind of get a
chance to expand maybe their knowledge about the film and
expand within Preston's knowledge and feelings as well.

Speaker 1 (01:23:25):
So if anybody wants to see Preston die for any reason,
you go watch VFW.

Speaker 3 (01:23:32):
Yeah. I guess if you really didn't like his take
on Nora Revelations, you can watch him die.

Speaker 2 (01:23:39):
You could if you don't blink and you watch very carefully,
you can see me get a Punge Traffman out of
a beer keg and then get bludgeoned to death by
William Sadler.

Speaker 1 (01:23:48):
Yeah, And you know, I just bring that up because
you know, when I first talked to Preston and I
just for whatever reason just mentioned that was a big
fan of VFW and joe begos he said, oh, you've
seen me die.

Speaker 3 (01:24:01):
Then, So that's a Hey, that's a great way to
introduce yourself to somebody.

Speaker 1 (01:24:07):
Getting killed by William Sadler is that's an honor beyond
any award accolades. That's that's the highest onner I think
anybody in our in our field could achieve.

Speaker 3 (01:24:15):
Oscar who Yeah, the No, seriously, can't wait. I can't
wait to check that out myself now. So that'll be awesome.

Speaker 1 (01:24:23):
BMW Connor. No, No, it's not awesome, it's great, it's great.

Speaker 3 (01:24:27):
It's it's always been on my watch list, Like especially
as I was, I called I call an horror There's
like a whole era of my horror fandom called the
horror Pack era where I was where I subscribed to
the horror Pack subscription and that's how I was getting
all my knowledge of movies and so if it had
a cover like the horror Pack originals, I was like
super into it. So I've seen obviously the cover of

(01:24:50):
VFW before and I've seen it and I've had it's
been on my watch list forever. But Gabe, you know
this better than anybody. Uh, if you're waiting for me
to watch a movie, you're gonna probably die but before
I watch it, So yes, I will be checking that out.
And of course, anybody out there listening, we would love,
we would love for you to to support the filmmakers

(01:25:11):
out there by watching our friend here pass away. So
that is welcome, believe it or not. Regardless though, you
can also support this show if you'd like. We have
a couple of ways to support our show. If you'd like,
We have a We have a website. Not well, it
was not that badpod dot Com. I was about to
say that again, but this time it's that badmedia dot

(01:25:33):
Com has all of the links to all of our
individual shows. You can go to our YouTube from there.
Not that badpod dot Com does still work. It takes
you straight to not that bad page on the that
bad media website. There's of course bios about your two
favorite or least favorite hosts of a podcast, your your
boys here, and not even how the show began, so

(01:25:54):
definitely recommend checking that out. But you know our relationship,
you know, liking, commenting, subscribing, it's it's it's in a
great place. It's in a fantastic place. But if you
want to spring a little bit more, if you want
to take our relationship to the next level, Gabe, how
can they do that?

Speaker 1 (01:26:11):
Well, it's funny you should ask Connor because we just
uploaded a new content to our Patreon. I reacted to
Variety's top one hundred list of the best horror movies
in their In their judgment, it's a it's a movie
that nerds online have been fighting about. I actually ended
up being quite happy with the list, as as you'll see.

(01:26:32):
But if you also uh subscribe to the patreon, you
can see vaulted episodes where we defend the likes of
the Super Mario Brothers movie, the original Mortal Kombat movie.
You can see all of this long, long, long before
anybody else on the face of the planet does. Which
is I mean, it's really quite a privilege when I

(01:26:52):
when I put it that way, so I don't know
why you're not already subscribing.

Speaker 3 (01:26:56):
Hey for that privilege, you peasants.

Speaker 1 (01:26:59):
And of course, you can find us on social media.
You can follow us on social media for our for
our takes. You can follow us at Twitter, Facebook, Instagram.

Speaker 2 (01:27:10):
All of that.

Speaker 1 (01:27:10):
You can also follow Preston on on those platforms. What's
your what's your handle? Preston? Where can they find you?

Speaker 3 (01:27:17):
Uh?

Speaker 2 (01:27:17):
Twitter? I'm at Preston Fossil And I found out recently
that I've actually got an Instagram that I've started to use.
What's my handle? Because, like Facebook, automatically you found out, oh.

Speaker 1 (01:27:29):
It created it for Facebook?

Speaker 3 (01:27:31):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:27:31):
Yeah, you didn't make it in a blackout stupor one
day and you woke up with like, where did this
Instagram account come from?

Speaker 3 (01:27:39):
No?

Speaker 2 (01:27:40):
Just Facebook creative for me out. P A Fossil is
my Twitter handle?

Speaker 3 (01:27:46):
Okay perfect. We'll make sure to link all of his
stuff in the description, but definitely look him up if
you if you are interested.

Speaker 1 (01:27:55):
Yeah, well I am. I think I'm done with the whrring.
If I do anymore, I'm probably gonna get stabbed. So
I can be used as a sacrifice to bring back
some frat boy or something or other.

Speaker 3 (01:28:09):
So on that note, blood brought me back, Bring me
more blood.

Speaker 1 (01:28:15):
And I got to say again to all the fans
out there, I would never do that to Unico. Oh
my god, you guys have to know that. I would
never do that to Unikoo wherever you are out there.
So once again, I am Gabe, I am Connor, and
that's Preston and this is not that bad slash, that

(01:28:36):
bad media. We changed the title recently, kind of having
our time keeping track of it. But whoever we are,
we are signing out

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Hellraiser: Revelations - Legendary Suffering, Even for Hellraiser

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Hellraiser: Revelations - Legendary Suffering, Even for Hellraiser