More than 20 years after the events of the first film, Clive Barker's Hellraiser: Revival is taking the horror franchise into the world of video games with a standalone story that is every bit as scary, lore-accurately g...
Primary Journalistic Dispatch & Direct Reporting
More than 20 years after the events of the first film, Clive Barker 's Hellraiser : Revival is taking the horror franchise into the world of video games with a standalone story that is every bit as scary, lore-accurately gross and provocative as fans might expect and then some. The game follows Aiden, a troubled young man whose relationship with his girlfriend Sunny takes them into a nightmare of pain, pleasure and Cenobites.
DEADLINE: It feels like a video game version of Hellraiser has been a long time coming. Basically since that scrapped 1990s NES version. With that said, what kind of conversations did you have with Clive Barker and the rest of the Hellraiser team to bring this standalone to life?
EMIL ESOV: Well, when we started developing the game, it wasn't a direct conversation with Clive. It was mostly talking to licensors/IP holders to see if it's available. So there was a bunch of business stuff to it.
In-Depth Developments & Factual Context
ESOV: But then we jumped at the opportunity because there was no Hellraiser game ever. And then we got to Clive, actually.
ANTONY DE FAULT: Clive was very easy to work with. He's a true artist, so he knew what we needed to do to understand the spirit of Hellraiser . But he also knew that he wasn't going to be able to puppeteer us from afar, that that wasn't going to produce good art. He just needed to make sure that we understood the spirit of the series, and then he let us rip. And we made the game with that spirit and focused through the prism of ourselves as opposed to him, and he supported us in that. So, he didn't challenge any major creative decisions or anything like that. He gave us a few pointers on the representation of the labyrinth, some aesthetic choices, and stuff like that, but it was truly minimally invasive. It was a really nice relationship.
DEADLINE: Did this make you all nervous because now the world of Hellraiser is being interpreted through you all in video game form?
Industry Impact & Strategic Analysis
DE FAULT: No, honestly, it was just very exciting. Hellraiser has a unique flavor among horror films. And I've said in a few other interviews, but it allowed us to push harder on the maturity, push harder on the graphic nature and the blending of sex and violence, and also to push harder on philosophical horror than I think we would've had permission to do if we were making an original IP or another IP. Hellraiser really builds that stuff in from the start. It was really exciting.
DEADLINE: You've got an original character named Aiden. Who is he? What is he about?
DE FAULT: Aiden's a very messed-up character [laughs]. He's a brand-new character for the game, as are basically all the characters other than the Cenobites. He's a troubled dude. He's had a history of addiction. He's been to prison, he's been in gangs, and he, at the start of the game, is in a pretty unhealthy relationship with his girlfriend, Sunny, who is a similar type of person. Also, we describe them as people who have an inner voice they're always, always seeking to fill but can never truly fill. So that drives them to these extreme behaviors that you saw in the preview.
Forward Outlook & Market Perspective
DEADLINE: For directing, I'm assuming you looked at the Hellraiser movies, but what else was the inspiration here? What was the emotionality you were trying to get across to gamers when playing this?
ESOV: So, basically, we started looking at Clive's original work, the novellas, the first couple of movies, and then we didn't go further than the early works. The idea was to really dissect what the spirit of Hellraiser is, to really understand it, because we weren't really familiar with it at the start when we started working on it. To be clear, we were familiar with Hellraiser in a colloquial sense, but then we started digging into it. Then the important part was to nail the idea, story, and the overarching theme of discomfort present in every scene. As Antony said, this is a story about unfulfilled voids because Hellraiser is, at its core, transcendence gone wrong, and we wanted to capture that.
As for gameplay parts, we started looking at the competition, like other horror games, how they do it, and what stuff we can use and weaponize. In the game, you can see influences from Resident Evil , BioShock, and Condemned: Criminal Origins , but we also tried to add our own stuff, like configuration. We wanted it to be a gameplay element, but also as a watch device. So all of these things melded into each other.
DEADLINE: I mean this in a positive way, but I was truly stunned by the blood, gore, violence and crass sexual innuendo. All of these, of course, being iconic to the film series itself, but was there anything you were worried about bringing into the game world?
DE FAULT: We've been called sickos in the press for this game [laughs]. The purpose of Hellraiser as a piece of art is to be nobly provocative. So, the game is also provocative. But it's to get you thinking about something, to expand your mind, and not to see the world in such binary terms as pain and pleasure. For example, you see sensation, and you can understand there's a spectrum of sensations. We felt that as long as everything we were doing had a philosophical purpose, as Hellraiser does, then we would be valid in doing it too.
DE FAULT: Doug was involved for less of the production because he came in to consult on his character a little bit, and to record his lines, but it's not like he was there from day one through to the very end. So, I worked more than most with Doug, because I'm the narrative director. He read the script and gave us some notes on how Pinhead might behave or speak. But, generally, he was extremely supportive. He really dug that in this game, Pinhead has an actual agenda. He's trying to achieve something over the course of the game. And his motivations drive the plot as much as Aiden's do, which is not really the case in any of the other Hellraiser things where Doug was performing the character. So he really responded to the fact that he has more agency and more lines.
Reporting synthesized and verified under Nexvoro.tech editorial guidelines. Full primary records referenced via Deadline Hollywood.
