Hulu’s Hellraiser reboot recently released its first trailer, giving the best look yet at Jamie Clayton’s iteration of Clive Barker’s best-known creation, the Hell Priest, aka Pinhead. Having been played for decades by Doug Bradley in many Hellraiser movies, the initial reactions to this very new and very different take on the character divided fans into those who only know Hellraiser movies and those who know Barker’s original story, The Hellbound Heart. It seems that in this new iteration, Bradley was offered the chance to make a cameo appearance but chose to leave his role in the franchise in the past.
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Many fans of Clive Barker’s sadistic and terrifying Cenobites are excited to see Clayton bring Pinhead to life in a brand new way. After being played by Bradley for so long, replacing him with a similar actor would have led to the inevitable desire to attempt to imitate Bradley’s exact portrayal of the Hell Priest, which would have ended in the same kind of terrible movie that became Hellraiser: Judgment in 2018. Clayton’s appearance draws more on the original character of Barker’s novella, and looks like bringing something new to the franchise.
When it comes to Doug Bradley, in a similar way to Robert Englund’s Freddy Krueger, the actor has become the only iteration of the character that fans want to see in the role. It is partly for that reason that Bradley seems to have backed out of appearing at all in Hulu’s new movie, wanting to leave his legacy in the past and to allow the new version to go on without the distraction of having its past waved in everyone’s faces. Hellraiser director David Bruckner recently explained to Jake’s Takes:
“We reached out to Doug, we wanted to have him cameo in some way in the movie but, in the middle of a pandemic, I don’t know, he also respectfully wanted to leave his legacy with the character and you can’t argue with that.”
Hulu’s Hellrasier Reboot Will Not Be a Remake of the Original Movie
Hulu
According to those involved, the new Hellraiser will not simply rehash the original movie, but instead will return to Barker’s original novella and readapt aspects of it into a new story that will potentially kickstart the franchise for a new generation. “This is not a remake,” Bruckner said. “I just didn’t think you could ever remake the original Hellraiser. It’s too much its own thing and it would be, I think, perilous territory for filmmakers, because how do you top that? This is a new story in the Hellraiser universe.”
While there will be those who cannot get past either the recasting of Pinhead or the fact that this is not Hellraiser from 1987, for everyone else, the trailer has promised a dark, disturbing journey into the world of the Cenobites, desire and pain. Hellraiser will arrive on Hulu on October 7 in the U.S. The movie will likely also be released on Disney+ Internationally, but no confirmation of this has been given at time of writing.
