Bob Weinstein appears to be still intent on tapping into that French horror vibe and finding someone to direct their redo of the horror film Hellraiser. First, Inside directors, Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury, were named writers and directors of the upcoming redo of Clive Barker's iconic horror series. Then, likely freaked out by their script, Dimension hired Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton to write a new draft. Then in April it was announced that Bustillo and Maury were off the project. So who were the Weinstein's to call upon to helm this project? Enter Martyrs director Pascal Laugier who is reportedly in final negotiations to direct AND write the redo.
To call Laugier's film Martyrs divisive is an understatement [please refer to the archives to see the split]. There is clearly no grey area when dealing with reactions to that film. I don't think anyone here at Twitch would argue that he doesn't shoot nice film, because that he clearly does. And with a more 'commercial' film to handle this should be a more straight forward film than his previous film. It will be interesting to see how the lovers and the haters react to this news. Is the rebirth of the franchise in good hands? Will your reaction to Martyrs determine if you see Laugier's interpretation of Hellraiser?
I believe that Pascal Laugier is a much better fit for this type of movie, but I'm a much bigger fan of the work of Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury; hopefully they will get more 'original' projects off the ground instead of peddling unnecessary remakes/reboots/etc.
Not sure I'll be able to stomach his take on Hellraiser... Ironically, I saw the original for the first time only last weekend. I had seen a few of the sequels as a child in the theaters and thought they were stupid, really, really stupid.
Picked up the 20th Anniversary edition of Hellraiser for 5 bucks from Walmart the other day out of curiousty and was blown away. Oh yeah, I forgot, Clive Barker is a god damn genius. Although sometimes I find him hit or miss. Loved, LOVED, LOVED Hellraiser and can finally understand why it's such a beloved series. Went back out and got the following sequels. Sadly, they're still stupid.
Laugier is an appropiate choice if this has to be remade. It'll be good to know that we'll once again have an intelligent pinhead who refrains from Freddy Kruegaresque one liners or DJ cenobites who shoot cds.
But man, I'm scared to think just how violent and opressively dark this going to be. Like his books, there's a lot of beauty and raw emotion in Barker's original that people tend toforget. Instead, the goth kids and gorehounds go straight for the S&M;/ torture angle which is really just an asethetic. I think Laugier will do the same, and it's almost certain we'll see his stupid 16 year old level philosophy on religion and morality forced into this since it's ripe for that kind of shit. Yeah, I think he's going to make one hell of a nasty, nasty and very pseudo intellectual Hellraiser.
But then again, this is Harvey Scisoorhands we're talking about producing it.
Must suck for Barker, or any artist, to lose control of their creation and see it continually shit on for decades. I hope he gets a good royalty check, but knowing the weinsteins, cheap, asshole, sons of whores, I doubt Barker will see a single penny from this.
I actually talked with Laugier about this in Sitges and at that time he had been offered Hellraiser and, despite being a fan of the original, had told Bob Weinstein personally to fuck off. Apparently the first offer wasn't very good. One thing you can be sure of: Laugier aint going to be a Weinstein whipping boy and they'll have had to offer him a pretty good deal to get him back to the table.
I feel sorry for the guy already.
I think I would have preferred Bustillo and Maury, personally; INSIDE was surprisingly good. Haven't seen MARTYRS but I will be very surprised if I like it from everything I've read about it. Then again, that's what I thought about INSIDE until I saw it. I just get th efeeling MARTYRS is just another FRONTIERE(S) waiting to happen (I really didn't like FRONTIERE(S)...at all).
"I think Laugier will do the same, and it’s almost certain we’ll see his stupid 16 year old level philosophy on religion and morality forced into this since it’s ripe for that kind of shit. Yeah, I think he’s going to make one hell of a nasty, nasty and very pseudo intellectual Hellraiser."
Dumb opinion.
As someone who thought Martyrs sucked, I can only say, "Jesus wept."
What the hell happened to Barkers script for the remake?
Having read the hellbound heart and only seen the first three hellraisers, there is a lot to be improved on in my opinion but I don't think it really needs to happen. Laugier should make another film in France but focus on making it more intellectually developed and tone down the vicious violence.
Dunstan and Melton are still writing so this won't be worth my time.