‘We’ll tear your soul apart’ promised ‘Pinhead’ in 1987 with the release of ground-breaking horror Hellraiser… and with audiences demanding to see more of his terrifying visage and his posse of equally hellish Cenobite pals, Pinhead and co. have continued to feast on the souls of dedicated horror fans for over three decades!


With the release of two new instalments in the Hellraiser legend, Hellraiser: Judgement and Hellraiser: Revelations, we’re now being treated to a double dose of horror from this timeless franchise, digging ever deeper into its dark mythology. Pinhead may have risen to the status of horror royalty, up there with Freddy, Jason and Michael Myers, but he isn’t the only horror villain to have found an audience with a never-ending appetite for his unholy deeds. Many franchises have emerged over the years which have continued to make their mark years later.


To celebrate the release of Hellraiser: Judgment and Hellraiser: Revelations on Digital Download 22 February and Blu-ray™ 1 March, we’ve taken a look back at some of our favourite horror creations that have continued to inspire terror since their inception!


PHANTASM (1979 - Present)
A bizarre mix of surreal dream logic and classic gothic horror, Don Coscarelli’s Phantasm seems an odd starting point for a franchise, yet the film’s unique weirdness struck a chord with fans leading to cult status and a string of sequels. Shot on a shoestring budget, Phantasm introduced the world to The Tall Man, played by enduring fan favourite Angus Scrimm, a towering undertaker who stalks a small town, murdering its inhabitants and transforming them into mutant monsters. When young Mike becomes aware of the evil in their midst he convinces his brother Jody and local ice-cream man Reggie to stand up to The Tall Man and his terrifying flying mechanical death spheres! All the main characters would return for the sequel, a grander affair with Universal Studios funding as they looked to cash in on the 80s hunger for horror hits. While the partnership with Universal didn’t last, a franchise was born and Coscarelli was able to continue the story, picking up each film immediately where the last one ended. Three further sequels have followed, with the last, Phantasm: Ravager, released the same year as the sad passing of series mainstay Angus Scrimm. Will The Tall Man return? We wouldn’t put it past him…


HELLRAISER (1987 - Present)
British master of horror Clive Barker had such sights to show us in Hellraiser, one of the 1980s most twisted horror films. Based on his novella The Hellbound Heart, Hellraiser was Barker’s first foray into directing. The series’ main monster is Pinhead, aka the ‘Hell Priest’, leader of the Cenobites, a breed of demented monsters who dwell in the darkest regions of Hell and lure sinful humans with the now iconic lament configuration puzzle boxes. What started in the first film as a contained but kinky horror film about murder, S&M sex and doomed souls escaping from Hell slowly morphed into a dense, gothic mythology as the series progressed with more monsters, more Cenobites and more Pinhead! Never afraid to try something new, the series has constantly evolved and added more layers to Hellraiser lore and the latest twisted instalment Hellraiser: Judgment is no exception, with its weaving together of a classic crime and punishment tale with evil new characters and shocking revelations about the afterlife. In the words of Pinhead, it ‘will tear your soul apart!’.


CHILD’S PLAY (1988 - Present)
Back in 1988 producer David Kirschner was on the lookout for a killer doll project, and Don Mancini had just what he was looking for… Inspired by the rampant consumerism of the 80s and toy lines such as Cabbage Patch Kids and My Buddy (a doll aimed at boys) everyone’s favourite psychotic children’s toy Chucky was born! Brad Dourif starred in the original as deranged serial killer Charles Lee Ray who finds himself mortally wounded inside a toy store after a high-speed police chase. Performing a voodoo ritual, he successfully transfers his soul into a nearby ‘Good Guy’ doll. When young Andy Barclay receives the doll as a gift, naming his new best friend Chucky, a killing spree begins! An iconic horror favourite, Chucky has run rampant through multiple sequels with the series mix of classic slasher tropes and dark humour proving an ever winning formula. The original film was followed by six sequels, with Chucky getting a love interest when Jennifer Tilly joined the series for 1998’s Bride of Chucky, before getting a full reboot in 2019 when Mark Hamill took over Chucky duties from Douriff. When will Chucky rise next? A TV series is due this year with Don Mancini at the helm and Brad Dourif and Jennifer Tilly both involved. We can’t wait!


PUPPET MASTER (1989 - Present)
Created by Charles Band’s Full Moon Features production company, the original Puppet Master introduced us to Blade and his band of killer puppets, who have been brought to life thanks to a black magic spell cast by puppet maker Andre Toulon. The original was set for theatrical release by Paramount Pictures but ultimately skipped cinemas finding its life as a VHS release, making Puppet Master one of the most successful direct-to-video series of all time. Throughout the series the puppets themselves have been portrayed as the good guys, the bad guys, and everything in between, but have always retained their passion for gory, inventive kills, thanks to some fantastic stop motion wizardry. With no less than 11 films in the original series spread across a sprawling timeline of prequels and sequels, Charles Band’s demonic toys finished their initial run of films in 2017 with Puppet Master: Axis Termination. However, the murderous marionettes returned to screens yet again in 2019 for the outrageous reboot, Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich, with cult movie legend Udo Kier taking up the mantle as Andre Toulon. With a sequel planned for future release, it seems you can’t keep a good puppet down!


TREMORS (1990 - Present)
Emerging at the beginning of the 90s, the horror-comedy Tremors pitted Kevin Bacon against a pack of giant ravenous subterranean worm monsters known as Graboids around the isolated community of Perfection, Nevada. Although an initial disappointment at the box office, the film was a hit on home video and spawned a follow-up in 1996 with Tremors 2: Aftershocks! It's been a sporadic series to say the least, with gaps of up to 10 years between some entries but with every return to Perfection audiences have learnt more about the Graboids and their origins as they spread further afield, wreaking more and more havoc across the USA! As well as creating the iconic underground monsters, the series also gave us a beloved character in survivalist gun nut Burt Gummer (played by Michael Gross), who has returned in every sequel including the most recent entry from 2020, Tremors: Shrieker Island. Always staying true to its classic formula of tongue-in-cheek comedy mayhem, Tremors has proved to be an unshakeable addition to the American monster movie canon.


Hellraiser: Judgement is on Digital Download, Blu-ray™and DVD now from Lionsgate UK


Hellraiser: Revelations is on Digital Download and Blu-ray™ now from Lionsgate UK


Amazon Blu-ray: https://amzn.to/2Lc9Ctb ​

From the depths of hell, horror legend Pinhead returns in the latest chilling chapter of the bloodcurdling Hellraiser franchise, created by horror master Clive Barker. With long-time series SFX artist Gary John Tunnicliffe at the helm, get ready for gore-soaked set-pieces and nightmare visuals that will tear your soul
apart!

Hellraiser: Judgment finds two tough detectives, brothers Sean and David Carter, on the hunt for a gruesome serial killer terrorising their city with a series of murders based on the Ten Commandments. Joining forces with detective Christine Egerton, the trio dig deeper into a spiralling maze of horror that draws them into Hell to confront Pinhead and his evil Cenobite sect.
​
Starring: Heather Langenkamp (A Nightmare on Elm Street), Damon Carney (Fear the Walking Dead), Randy Wayne (Escape Room), Alexandra Harris (Secret Diary of an American Cheerleader) and Paul T. Taylor (Sin City) as Pinhead. Directed by Gary John
Tunnicliffe (Hellraiser franchise).

Blu-ray and DVD Special Features
Deleted and Extended Scenes
Gag Reel

Certification: 18
Run time: 81 mins

Amazon Blu-ray: https://amzn.to/2Lc9Ctb 
​
Hellraiser: Judgment is on Digital Download 22 February and Blu-rayTM and DVD 1 March from Lionsgate UK

© 2021 Lionsgate Home Entertainment UK. All Rights Reserved.​

At the start of the year I was contacted by Ken MacGregor and Linda Nagle the editors  behind  Stitched Lips: An Anthology of Horror from Silenced Voices.  It was an honour to be considered to writer the introduction, and I gladly accepted the opportunity to provide and introduction for a charity anthology.  It was only when I sat down to write the introduction that I was hit by a massive dose of imposter syndrome, and thoughts of why am I writing an introduction to an anthology for silenced voices authors?  

It took a lot soul searching, but after a while I was sure I had came up with an angle that was respectful and in tone with the contents of the anthology.  I know get the feeling of dread authors get when submitting work, after sending a rough draft to Linda to ensure i wasn't going in a direction that they didn't want, I was wracked with, thoughts of "Oh my God, they are going to hate it".  Thankfully Linda didn't and here we are with the book now out in the wild world.  It's a fantastic anthology featuring authors who I would never in a million years have dreamed of sharing a table of contents with.  

R.L. Meza, Sarah Hans, Linda Nagle, Lucy A. Snyder, Lee Murray, Z.Z. Claybourne, Joanna Koch, Gabino Iglesias, Hailey Piper, Patty Templeton, Michael Paul Gonzalez bring you some of the most horrifying tales available today. ​

The line up is so great this would be a must buy, but add in the fact that proceeds are going to a very worthy cause, you really need to go and pick up a copy now.  

In a moment of arrogance on my part I have included a small excerpt from my introduction, below 

Tired of the same old thing? So much of we read is homogenous, Far too often, the people whose voices we need to hear most are silenced by the louder ones of the majority.

STITCHED LIPS pushes back on that. Within these pages, you'll find eleven staggeringly original and well-crafted horror stories, from amazing authors who are People of Color, LGBTQ+ folks, and writers who identify as women. All profits from this anthology will be donated to the Southern Poverty Law Center, an organization whose goal is the advancement of human rights for all people.

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Late in 1915, prolific French director Louis Feuillade released the first instalment of Les Vampires. Even by the standards of his previous successes in serialized silent cinema, the project was incredibly ambitious. With a complex, double-cross filled plot and the amoral band of criminals at its heart, Les Vampires helped invent the vocabulary of the cinematic thriller. Despite a scathing critical reception and multiple attempted bans by the moralists of the day, the release of each instalment was a resounding audience success.

Regardless of the title, the story owed more to the pulpy plots of crime and adventure novels than the supernatural. Not until the sixth instalment, "Les Yeux Qui Fascinent" does the film briefly flirt with the metaphysical. A criminal with a "hypnotic gaze" uses his mesmerism to make a stooge of an innocent housemaid, all the better to take the spoils of the titular gang's heist as his own.

It's a rather slight plot point, with the maid given a scant few minutes of screen time in a serial that runs over 10 hours in total. Even the teenaged actress tasked with the role was given a demure ingenue's credit, as Mademoiselle Maxa. Yet, in her brief turn, there's an undeniable charisma in her performance. Using only carefully calibrated gestures and her doll-like eyes, she telegraphs both terror and terrible desire. Hypnosis becomes something more akin to a little death (in either the literal or the French idiomatic sense). The cocktail of fear and arousal would define her professional life. Stardom lies not in the endless rolling of the film cameras but on the well-trodden boards of a tiny stage of a chapel turned theatre in the backstreets of Paris.

The Grand Guignol had existed since just before the turn of the century, and much as its namesake puppet was used to deconstruct sociopolitical issues, the venue had taken to tearing down the classical conception of theatre for the (then brand new) movement of naturalism. Abandoning romanticized symbolism for a comparatively gritty look at the harsher aspects of human life, the plays staged often dealt with the seedy underbelly of Paris society, delivered in the appropriately working-class argot. Rather than ignore the existence of class differences, crime, vice or perversion, naturalistic plays were more interested in the psychology behind the ugly truths of contemporary taboos than they were in idealized fantasy.