The Hellraiser Films and Their Legacy (44 page)

When Gwen visits him at home and takes her clothes off, she asks, “Where is it...? You usually have it up and running by now.” We cut to the camera watching as she straddles him, the same tapes Kirsty found to incriminate him. In a longer version of the scene where Kirsty confronts him in the car, she states, “I know about Gwen ... and the others. You think I don’t know what’s going on. I’ve seen the fucking tapes, Trevor. All those women in our home, in my bed!” It is the only way he can “see”; Trevor needs the aid of this device to fulfill his sexual fantasies. It is not enough to scrutinize the naked woman in the window of an apartment across the road, as she can see him, too, and closes the curtain.

“You have seen many things that you will wish you had not,” Pinhead informs Trevor as he writhes around, hooks and chains holding him fast. Trevor was hoisted by his own petard, his love of watching finally turned around and aimed at him.

Good and Bad

Another theme in
Hellseeker
is the one crystallized by Lange and Givens. Lange was meant to be a caring figure, like Allison, who guides Trevor through the search for his wife. “How’s that head of yours feeling?” he asks as Trevor comes down to the station for a talk. When he inquires whether something might have happened, just before the accident, that Trevor is withholding, Lange says in his softly spoken voice, “Don’t take it the wrong way, I’m just a guy trying to do a job here, okay?” Later, after they catch Trevor at the scene of Sage’s murder with a bloody ice pick in his hand, Lange appears genuinely disappointed in the man.

His partner, Givens, is a completely different character. Mean, cynical and bad tempered, the grilling he gives Trevor about Kirsty and her inheritance oozes malice: “How many zeroes was your wife worth? ... Don’t play fucking stupid with me, all right? ... If Kirsty’s dead, like you seem so
fucking
certain, well, then I guess it all goes to you, Trev.” He continues, “My partner, Detective Lange, he’s softer around the heart than I am. Me, I’m hard as they come and when I get a feeling about something I’m usually right. And I get a bad feeling about you, Trev.”

Toward the finale, when Lange takes Trevor down to the morgue, we discover that they are, in fact, one and the same person, augured by Givens’ sudden appearance after Lange walks down a corridor, and when Trevor hears the two of them talking in an office, but only Lange emerges. “I believe each of us is the sum of two entirely different people....” says Lange. “Good and bad, honest and dishonest, righteous and evil. That’s how we’re all made. It’s just a question of how much of each.” In the original script, we see Givens’ face on the back of Lange’s head. In the finished movie, thanks to Goei’s visual imaging, Givens separates his head from Lange’s and it hovers on his shoulder—a little like Johnny Knoxville’s character in
Men in Black II
(Barry Sonnenfeld, 2002). “I believe you and me have a lot in common,” Lange tells Trevor, which is true.

Lange/Givens are Trevor’s twin characters, used to highlight the fact that Trevor
also
has a light and a dark side. But instead of being the ultimate good cop/bad cop like them, Trevor is torn between the love he felt for Kirsty (his imagined past with her) and his sordid vices—women and money. This is only fully revealed when Pinhead forces him to remember what really happened that anniversary night when he handed over the Lament Configuration. “I trusted you,” says Kirsty, “Goddamn it, how could you do this to us? You told me you loved me...” Trevor answers coldly, “Just open the fucking box,” which she does, much to his eventual regret.

No Mercy

The title here comes from deleted lines that Pinhead utters in the script: “Jealousy arouses a spouse’s fury. And no mercy will be shown when that revenge is given.”
¹
It is an appropriate one as it underlines the final major theme in
Hellseeker
, that of revenge. Without a doubt, it is Kirsty’s vengeance that is the driving force for the entire narrative. She takes her revenge against the women who have slept with Trevor by killing them one by one, and then murders the man with whom he conspired to kill her. Her final act is to shoot Trevor and then ensure he takes the blame for the murders. And why is her retribution so brutal? Not only had he betrayed her sexually—possibly the worst thing a man can do to his wife—but he had also brought the box to her again, confronting her with a past she thought she’d left behind. Trevor offered up Kirsty. “I can’t believe this is happening. I have a deal,” he says in the car. “No, you
had
a deal,” Kirsty takes great delight in informing him, “but I made a better offer, and guess what? He took it!” She sacrifices Trevor just as he was willing to do to her.

But hers is not the only revenge on display. The women whom Trevor used—and who are now with Pinhead—also get to take their revenge on him. Gwen shocks him when she is suffocated by the plastic bag; Tawny’s bloody corpse appears in his apartment, and then she rejects him when he knocks on her door; and Sage leaves him to Pinhead’s devices in the acupuncture room, stabs him with the ice pick, and coerces him into pulling that same pick out of her head, thereby incriminating himself. Bret, too, compels him to watch as he blows his own brains out, after accusing him of reneging on their deal: “You had to go solo with your little car accident bit, then you fucked it all up. What were you thinking?”

Finally, Pinhead is granted a revenge of sorts when he catches up with Kirsty. She escaped him twice in the past, and, indeed, the last time they met he was killed at the hands of Channard. Now, at last, is his opportunity to play with her; to watch her squirm at his hands (although there is an altogether different reading of this that can be made as we shall see in the following chapter). He is the one who gives her the opportunity for revenge, but at the same time he is also the one who turns her into a killer.

It is a revenge any Cenobite would be proud of.

Homage to Hell

In addition to the return of Kirsty,
Hellseeker
contains references to every single
Hellraiser
movie thus far. The guardian of the box, or merchant, if you prefer, is back striking deals with the damned. In the screenplay the warehouse Trevor finds contains a tribute to the Pyramid Gallery from
Hell on Earth
with “erotic, sometimes grotesque sculptures, paintings, and other collectibles from all over the world depicting lust, ecstasy and torture.”
²

The brain operation scene at the start is a direct lift from
Hellbound
when Channard gives his “labyrinths of the mind” speech. The all-important mirrors from
Hellraisers II, III and IV
are referenced when Trevor is lying on the acupuncture bed (“What’s the mirror for?” asks Trevor and Sage replies, “To help see into your soul”), and the chart through which Pinhead appears bears a close resemblance to those seen in Channard’s obsession room.

Infidelity as a theme reappears from parts
I
,
II
,
IV
and
V
, while the entire plot strand of tracking down a killer and solving a mystery is pure
Inferno
. But far from making the material clichéd, all this simply shows is that there is an acknowledgement on the writers’ and director’s behalf of the
Hellraiser
history, and that some attempt has been made to incorporate this into
Hellseeker
.

24

HELLBOUND HEARTS

Much has been made, particularly in fan circles, of the relationship between Pinhead and Kirsty. Since they met in
Hellraiser
there has been a fascination between the two. She has been the only person Pinhead has bargained with instead of taking straight to Hell. This indicates some form of connection, possibly sexual, but definitely one based on admiration on Pinhead’s part. It could be argued that on one level theirs is the only union that has ever worked in the entirety of the series’ history. Though on the surface they are supposed to be enemies, as the Female Cenobite stated in
Hellbound
, they “do keep finding each other.”

Kirsty is drawn to Pinhead and the box, just as much as he is to her, and
Hellseeker
plays with these issues, while Pinhead and Kirsty play with each other. The look, the smile that passed between them when he was in his human form the last time they met, insinuated that without his dark side there might have been a chance for a friendship—and possibly more. On Kirsty’s behalf this could be read as a surrogate father figure attraction after the loss of Larry, while Elliott may have viewed her as someone he could put his faith in after both God and Leviathan had failed him. In
Hell on Earth
, Joey is Kirsty’s substitute, and a romantic undercurrent could certainly be detected.

But Kirsty is the one Pinhead has always truly longed for, “a far more interesting creature,” as he refers to her. The much longer encounter between them, found in the extras section of the DVD (bizarrely taken out of the movie because Bota didn’t want to exclude viewers who hadn’t seen the other
Hellraiser
s) confirms what many have suspected about these two for so long. In it Pinhead spells out his intentions quite clearly: “You opened a door a long time ago and it will not be closed until I get what I came for,” he says. “My soul,” Kirsty acknowledges. As if to verify this, he goes further: “I will not rest until I get what I want, and what I want is you!”

Adding more weight to the claim, he also draws attention to how she has been hurt and left alone in the past. “It was your
loving
husband who did the hard work. He made it easy for me. It seems your family always does.” Kirsty retorts, “That was Frank. I gave him back to you. I did what I promised.” “Don’t think I’m not grateful,” he says. “I am. Eternally grateful ... But there was another bargain, wasn’t there. You will not have forgotten that I gave myself to let you run. Did you think that gift was nobly and freely given? Did you?” In essence, Trevor betrayed her, Frank betrayed her, but Pinhead allowed her to escape from Channard. He is attempting to make her see that out of all the men she has known—apart from her father—he was the only one willing to sacrifice himself for her. Kirsty owes him, and he won’t let her forget it. But perhaps she doesn’t want to. Pinhead’s first line is extremely telling: “Still playing the innocent, Kirsty? You disappoint me. After all these years surely you’ve realized it’s
you
that wants
me
here.” It’s interesting that she doesn’t contradict him.

An unfilmed version of this exchange from the script presents yet more evidence:

KIRSTY: How did you find me?

PINHEAD: I never lost you. I’ve waited. Watched and waited. Seen how the bud blossomed and ripened into firm fruit. But what to do? Pluck it and consume it? Or watch it fall from the bough, rot and wither into dirt?
¹

Hardly subtle, which is possibly why it was cut. But one last piece of dialogue remains:

PINHEAD: Ah, a little understanding at last. It [her soul] is mine Kirsty. I possess it utterly. More completely than your pathetic Trevor ever could in his haphazard couplings. I touch the deep, dark, secret center of your self. And you know it. You welcome it.
²

More metaphors that need no explanation. Yet the question remains: why let her go again?

There are two possible explanations. First, he is impressed once more with her bargaining skills and that she is willing to kill this time (“You’ll get your five!”), something she gives him the credit for (“I had a great teacher,” says Kirsty in the extended scene). In the script it has Pinhead smiling like a “proud parent” at this point, but reading between the lines it could be more than simple emulation. Second, if Kirsty is released, not only will she be granted her revenge as we’ve seen, but also the game can carry on, as will the sexual tension. “The box will never let you go,” Pinhead tells her, and he is talking about himself as well. As long as the
Hellraiser
saga continues the question of whether Kirsty and Pinhead will ever meet again—and what will happen next time—remains.

Theirs are the real Hellbound Hearts of the series.

25

SOUGHT AFTER?

Hellseeker
was released in October 2002 and met with another mixed response from critics. Garth Franklin at
Dark Horizons
on the Internet questioned the logic of making a movie so similar to the last one: “Again this is a character drama about a man who may be suffering delusions, though there’s a more ... unsettling horror tone than the previous paranoid venture.” He also laments the shortage of Kirsty: “Where this film truly bites, though, is that the great Ashley Laurence is back but totally underused and appearing in only a few minutes of footage at best.”

Meanwhile, Jason Myers at
Revolution Science Fiction
sang the film’s praises, declaring, “Imagine my surprise, then, to find that
Hellraiser: Hellseeker
was not only better than most direct-to-video horror movies, but also better than a good portion of the horror movies that get a theatrical release.” Although he admits to having only seen the first two films in the series before this one, he says: “Questions about the movie’s innate ‘
Hellraiser
ness’ aside,
Hellraiser: Hellseeker
is actually a decent horror flick.”

Horror Express
’s Scott W. Davis saw the positives as well: “[The puzzle] appears briefly, but in fact it’s all around us. That’s the trick of the latest
Hellraiser
film. The entire film is a puzzle. Every time the film shifts, it reveals one part of the picture while concealing another. During the entire running time, we’re wondering which end is up? Actually, people who are familiar with this type of story may guess where it’s all leading, but there’s enough of a surprise in the final revelations to make it all satisfying. Yes, I said satisfying.
Hellraiser: Hellseeker
has defied all expectations and is actually a good little horror film, the best this series has seen in some fourteen years. Clive Barker is allegedly happy with the film, too, since it seems to treat the mythology, surroundings and, most importantly, the characters with respect.” On the other hand: “Writers Carl Dupré and Tim Day’s script likes to walk the fine line between fantasy and reality, but rarely does it cross the mediocrity line from TV movie to feature film,” claimed Travis Eddings of
Film Threat
. “Even the sets stay, the majority of the film, grounded on Earth, unlike previous prequels, which ventured into nether worlds.”