Hellraiser

Plans for a Hellraiser remake were publicized in October 2007, when Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo were reported to be directing, with Barker producing and Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton writing the script. After Maury and Bustillo left the project, Todd Farmer and Patrick Lussier were attached, with production slated for an early 2012 release. However, following the release of Hellraiser: Revelations (2011) to secure continuing rights, Farmer and Lussier were no longer involved. By 2018, after the critical and commercial success of Halloween, Miramax had confirmed plans for new Hellraiser installments. The film was green-lit in early 2019, with Bruckner directing from a script written by Collins and Piotrowski, while the project moved to Hulu with Spyglass Media Group and Phantom Four Films. Filming took place from September to October 2021.

The film was released in 2022; first during Fantastic Fest 2022; throughout North America, through Hulu; and then the United Kingdom and globally, through Spyglass and Paramount Pictures. The film received mixed-to-positive reviews from critics, with some deeming it an improvement over its predecessors and the best since the original 1987 film; it was praised for its new take on the series, faithfulness to the tone of the source material and Clayton’s performance, while being criticized for its rushed character development and runtime.

Six years later, recovering addict Riley is living with her brother Matt, his boyfriend Colin, and their roommate Nora. Riley’s boyfriend, Trevor, convinces her to help break into an abandoned storage warehouse, where they discover and take the puzzle box. Returning home late, Riley gets into an argument with Matt and leaves. At an empty park, she solves the box and avoids being cut by the blade. The Cenobites, a group of mutilated humanoids, appear and demand she choose another sacrifice. Matt finds Riley blacked out and, as he tries to wake her up, inadvertently cuts himself on the box. He goes to a nearby restroom to clean his wound. Riley hears him scream and discovers that he has vanished.

Believing the box caused Matt’s disappearance, Riley and Trevor track down Serena Menaker, Voight’s former lawyer, who had hidden it in the warehouse. Menaker tries to take the box from Riley but is inadvertently cut by the blade and later taken by the Cenobites. Riley visits Voight’s abandoned mansion, finding his journals and learning that the box has multiple configurations, each of which requires a victim to be “marked” by the box’s blade for the Cenobites to take. On completion, the box allows its holder to receive a “gift” from Leviathan, the entity that rules over Hell. Riley sees an apparition of Matt and is horrified to discover he has been flayed.

Trevor, Colin, and Nora arrive to take Riley home. While Riley explains her findings to Colin, the still-living but mutilated Voight, who is hiding inside the walls, stabs Nora with the box. The group escapes the mansion in a van, but Nora is taken by the Cenobites. Their leader, the Priest, taunts and flays Nora. The group crashes the van and walks back toward the mansion. Riley is confronted by the Priest, who offers to resurrect Matt if Riley chooses two more sacrifices. Riley refuses, and is cut by the blade. The Priest commands the now marked Riley to choose two more sacrifices or become a victim herself. After Trevor is injured by one of the Cenobites, the Chatterer, Riley solves the next configuration and stabs it. The Cenobite willingly gets torn to pieces as the next sacrifice.

The group makes it back to the mansion, realizing that there are steel doors designed to lock the Cenobites out. Riley and Colin leave Trevor to rest, and it is revealed that Trevor has been working for Voight to find people to sacrifice to the puzzle box. Riley and Colin trap a Cenobite, the Asphyx, to become the last sacrifice, but Voight appears and stabs Colin with the box. Voight reveals that he sought new pleasurable sensations after completing all of his sacrifices, but his “reward” was a contraption attached to him that twists his nerve endings, leaving him in constant pain. He completes the final configuration and traps the Cenobites, demanding they ask Leviathan to free him from his “gift”. While Leviathan appears in the sky above the mansion, Riley retrieves the box and unlocks the steel doors, letting in the Cenobites. Riley saves Colin from torture by stabbing Trevor, choosing him as a new final sacrifice. Trevor is mutilated and dragged to Hell. Meanwhile, the Priest tells Voight that his reward cannot be revoked, but can be traded for a different reward as his current gift, “pain,” does not suit him. She offers him “power”, which he accepts. Voight is released from his contraption and healed, only to be immediately impaled with a large chain by Leviathan and lifted away.

With the sacrifices completed, the Cenobites tell Riley they can resurrect Matt as a gift. Riley refuses to have any gift because she knows it is always going to be twisted, and tells them that she will accept Matt’s death. The Cenobites tell her that by choosing to live with her guilt and loss, she has effectively chosen the gift of “lament”. The box reverts to its cube configuration and the Cenobites disappear. As Riley and Colin leave the mansion, he asks her if she made the right choice; Riley remains silent. Inside Leviathan, Voight undergoes a brutal transformation into a new Cenobite.