J. R. DePriest :verified_trans: :donor: :Moopsy: :EA DATA. SF:<p>Now that there is a <a href="https://saber.games/hellraiserrevival/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Hellraiser: Revival</a> game coming out and Clive Barker is working on it, I thought I'd share my thoughts on the 2022 Hulu <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0887261/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Hellraiser</a> movie.</p><p>There are only three Hellraiser films in my "head canon" - the "Original Trilogy" as I like to think:</p><ul><li>Hellraiser</li><li>Hellbound: Hellraiser II</li><li>Hellraiser: Bloodline</li></ul><p>The rest of the films are garbage.</p><p>The makers of the 2022 film seemed to misunderstood why Hellraiser was good. That was obvious to me.</p><p><strong><em>SPOILERS FOR 2022 HELLRAISER WILL FOLLOW</em></strong></p><p>But first, I did not mind the redesign of the cenobites. They looked like embalmed corpses someone stole from a morgue then dissected and mutilated like insects before they got up and walked away. That was a different and interesting take. I prefer the visceral version from the earlier films, but this update did not disappoint me like many other aspects of the movie.</p><p>But, I did not like how passive the cenobites were. They did not seem to have much agency or personality. They were servants of Leviathan and just did as they were told, even if that meant dying in place of a human sacrifice. They didn't make <em>choices</em>. The original cenobites were <em>tools</em> of Leviathan, yes, but they had personalities and some degree of freedom in how they chose to enact its will. The new ones were just... boring.</p><p>I also liked the comparison between using the puzzle box and drug addiction. That was cool and should have been more interesting than it turned out to be in practice. It leaned into how addiction can hurt those you love and care about more than it hurts you, but that was about it.</p><p>They created a great deal of extremely unnecessary lore and ritual around the puzzle box and gave it multiple forms, each with its own name, its own purpose, and its own price. It had seven forms and each form required a live sacrifice.</p><p>I did not care for this version of the multiple forms because they were nonsense. In the original movies, the additional forms were logical and looked like a box of that size and shape could reasonably take them. You understood how a person in the film could convince themself "maybe it is just a puzzle box".</p><p>Also, the lore itself and each form having a name and purpose was too much of our world. The cenobites are from a realm that has very different values and rules. There should not be a notebook that tells you exactly how to unlock the box because <em>how</em> you unlock it is supposed to be different for each person. It is about <em>desire</em> and <em>need</em> not following a set of instructions. That is <em>not</em> what the box was about.</p><p>And the final choice being about "power" vs. "regret" was weird. That was the "lament configuration" by the way: rejecting their gift and living with the fact that you could have done the thing. That's... not really what it was supposed to be about. What the other guy got was closer to the original: you get what you asked for but find out it wasn't what you thought. You "lament" at your hubris.</p><p>I don't know. I watched the 2022 movie once, on my 10" tablet screen and I will probably never watch it again.</p><p>I'd watch the first and second original movies any time and the fourth one if I was in the right mood. I still spit "Toymaker" as an insult sometimes, but nobody ever gets it.</p><p><a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/Hellraiser" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Hellraiser</span></a> <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/CliveBarkersHellraiserRevival" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>CliveBarkersHellraiserRevival</span></a></p>