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Hellraiser: Quartet of Torment - Limited Edition
[Blu-ray 4K]
Blu-ray ALL - America - Arrow Films Review written by and copyright: Eric Cotenas (12th November 2024). |
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The Film
 "In the 1980s, Clive Barker changed the face of horror fiction, throwing out the rules to expose new vistas of terror and beauty, expanding the horizons for every genre writer who followed him. With Hellraiser, his first feature film, he did the same for cinema." Saturn Award (Best Horror Film): Hellraiser (nominee), Best Music : Christopher Young (nominee), and Best Make-Up: Bob Keen (nominee)- Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films, 1988 Fear Section AwardClive Barker (winner) - Avoriaz Fantastic Film Festival, 1988 Best Film: Clive Barker (nominee) - Sitges - Catalonian International Film Festival, 1987 International Fantasy Film Award (Best Film): Clive Barker (winner) and Critics Award: Clive Barker (winner) - Fantasporto, 1988 Hellraiser: Moving back to England and into the house of his late mother, American-educated Larry Cotton (Dirty Harry' Andrew Robinson) and his frosty British bride Julia (Stage Beauty's Claire Higgins) discover remnants of his ne'erdowell brother Frank's (Scum's Sean Chapman) recent stay. When Larry cuts his hand, his blood resurrects Frank whose quest for extreme sensations culminated in him being torn to pieces by the Cenobites, beings summoned through the solving of an intricate puzzle box who facilitate desires of pain and pleasure before harvesting souls from the human offal. The skinless Frank appeals to former lover Julia to help him become whole again through the blood of a string of male victims she lures to the house for his feeding. When Larry's daughter Kirsty (Warlock III: The End of Innocence's Ashley Laurence) discovers Frank's presence in the house, she escapes with the puzzle box and unwittingly summons the Cenobites. Offering to help them recapture Frank in exchange for her own freedom, Kirsty heads back to the house to warn her father, unaware of what Frank and Julia have in store for her. The feature directorial debut of writer Clive Barker who had previously dabbled in some of the film's themes in his short The Forbidden adapting his own novella "The Hellbound Heart" which had actually written with the intent of making it into a film and was published after the film, Hellraiser was a hit for U.S. distributor New World and internationally thanks to its unusually sober approach to horror in the late eighties, the striking promotional images of the Cenobites, and the heavy use of a quote from Stephen King declaring Barker as "the future of horror" on the basis of his multi-volume "Books of Blood" that featured short stories soon-to-be-filmed as Rawhead Rex, Candyman, and The Midnight Meat Train. While the film's graphic gore and Cenobites by Image Animation formed by Bob Keen who had toiled away in the early eighties on smaller British horror assignments like Inseminoid and Screamtime and on the crews of Alien and Lifeforce are the main draws for gorehounds, the film's "domestic triangle" is approached with sensitivity (on the commentary track, Hellbound: Hellraiser II screenwriter Pete Atkins describes the film as being about humans misusing each other emotionally). Robinson, Higgins, and Oliver Smith as the skinless version of Frank do drive the action a disservice perhaps to Chapman since he was presumably to dub the skinless version of his character before his entire performance was dubbed by someone else while heroine Laurence is underwritten, having little to do during the film's second act. Bradley's Pinhead has even less screen time here than in some of other series entries, but his character was not yet the genre icon nor were the Cenobites the villains of the piece. Also setting Hellraiser quite apart from many of its late eighties contemporaries, including other New World genre product, is the lush photography of Robin Vidgeon (Parents) and elegant orchestral scoring of Christopher Young (Jennifer 8) who was brought in by New World to replace the original electronic score by Coil, a band that included future horror film historian Stephen Thrower, author of Nightmare USA: The Untold Story of the Exploitation Independents and Beyond Terror: The Films of Lucio Fulci.  Saturn Award (Best Horror Film): Hellbound: Hellraiser II (nominee), Best Supporting Actress: Clare Higgins (nominee), and Best Music: Christopher Young (winner) - Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films, 1990 Grand Prize: Tony Randel (nominee) - Avoriaz Fantastic Film Festival, 1989 Best Film: Tony Randel (nominee) - Sitges - Catalonian International Film Festival, 1988 International Fantasy Film Award (Best Film): Tony Randel (nominee) - Fantasporto, 1989 Starting where the first film left off, Hellbound: Hellraiser II finds Kirsty (Laurence) detained at a psychiatric institute under the care of Dr. Channard (Chimera's Kenneth Cranham) and his assistant Kyle (Aliens' William Hope) during the police investigation into the multiple deaths at 55 Ludovico Place. When Kirsty learns that the mattress on which Julia (Higgins) died was taken into evidence, she urges the detective (Witness' Angus MacInnes) to destroy it to prevent Julia from using it as a means to come back from hell. As obsessed with the occult as he is with the labyrinthine workings of the human mind, Channard has the mattress brought to his home. Sympathetic Kyle discovers that Kirsty was telling the truth when he witnesses Channard using the blood of one of his patients (skinless Frank actor Oliver Smith) to resurrect Julia in the flesh minus the skin. Nourished on a string of patients Channard has sacrificed, Julia now has some scores to settle in both dimensions as well as promising Channard access to all of the forbidden knowledge he seeks. Utilizing the puzzle-solving acumen of otherwise catatonic young patient Tiffany (Dreamchild's Imogen Boorman) to open the gateway to hell, Julia introduces Channard to her god Leviathan and initiates him into the order of the Cenobites. Meanwhile, Kirsty voluntarily enters hell in order to save her father, but she must also protect Tiffany and tangle with Julia, Frank (Chapman again), and the Cenobites who are not so willing to negotiate with her this time around to save her own skin. With Barker preparing Nightbreed, former New World exec Tony Randel who had supervised reshoots on Hellraiser stepped in as director with Barker serving as executive producer and consulting on the script by longtime collaborator Pete Atkins. Shot with a higher budget on Pinewood Studio sets, Hellbound: Hellraiser II once again has a lush look courtesy of Vidgeon, an even grander score by Young, and is even more a showcase of the ambitious works of Image Animation; however, the film loses the emotional intimacy and grittiness of the original to a handful of great setieces punctuated by shots of Kirsty and Tiffany running down corridors intercut with Julia's and Channard's more leisurely exploration. The Cenobites are still peripheral characters to a story driven by human characters; however, while Kirsty at least has more purpose here than in the first film, Channard's obsession is underdeveloped, as is the attraction between himself and Julia who has some delicious moments but no character arc as she had in the first film. The film introduces a backstory for Pinhead's character not actually referred to as Pinhead until the third film but scripted scenes that elaborated upon it were unfilmed due to the loss of a third of the film's budget on the Black Monday stock market crash of 1987.  Saturn Award (Best Horror Film): Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth (nominee) and Best Make-up: Bob Keen (nominee) - Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films, 1993 Grand Prize: Anthony Hickox (nominee) - Avoriaz Fantastic Film Festival, 1993 Pegasus Audience Award: Anthony Hickox (winner) - Brussels International Festival of Fantasy Film (BIFFF), 1993 International Fantasy Film Award (Best Film): Anthony Hickox (nominee) - Fantasporto, 1993 Chainsaw Award (Best Actor): Doug Bradley (nominee), Best Supporting Actress: Paula Marshall (nominee), Best Studio/Wide-Release Film: Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth (nominee), Best Screenplay: Peter Atkins (nominee), and Best Make-up FX: Bob Kee (nominee) - Fangoria Chainsaw Awards, 1992 Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth opens with J.P. Monroe (Fire Under the Skin's Kevin Bernhardt) purchasing a sculpted pillar of souls among them the face of Pinhead from a gallery to add to his art collection of "tawdry representations" of agonized flesh festooning his punk club The Boiler Room. An uneventful night at the E.R. for reporter Joey Summerskill (Back to School's Terry Farrell) finds her without a cameraman when a young man is rushed into the emergency room with chains hooked into his face. When the victim's body explodes in a spectacular telekinetic light show, Joey decides to do some investigation on the side, starting with the girl who was with the boy when he arrived at the hospital. A teenage runaway, Terri (Warlock: The Armageddon's Paula Marshall) reveals that the boy was a thief who had pried a puzzle box from the pillar that she had found in a gallery for her boyfriend J.P. Breaking into the gallery, they discover that the column was an art piece bought from the Channard Institute, and other documentation leads Joey to video of Kirsty's stay there and her warning that the box is a gateway to hell. While Joey's recurring nightmares of her father's death in Vietnam are invaded by Pinhead's human half Elliot Spencer (Bradley), he warns her that Pinhead is about to reign hell on Earth unless she can stop him by using the box as bait. Lensed in North Carolina with second unit New York footage and hanging mattes, Hellraiser: Hell on Earth is a decidedly more mainstream effort with the plot's justification for Pinhead no longer adhering to the rules of the Lament Configuration easily missed amidst the greater emphasis on Freddy Kruger-isms, a blasphemous Black Mass in a church scene, and the sort of gory post-Carrie party crashing of The Boiler Room in the like also seen in other eighties and nineties horror films like Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II and Wishmaster (with the blood pooling under the door bit seeming more like a cheap gag rather than Waxwork director Anthony Hickox's homage to Jacques Tourneur's The Leopard Man). While not so much character-driven as characters driven by contrivances to go through the same motions as those in the previous films, the central trio of human characters J.P., Joey, and Terri are reasonably compelling leads, and Bradley's Pinhead gets more dialogue and screen-time here than in the rest of the series. The Cenobite creations here are more comical than scary, with DJ ejecting razor sharp CD projectiles, Joey's cameraman with a zoom lens that punches through victims like the inner mouth of Alien, a chain-smoker still smoking through an exposed throat wound, and Atkins' bartender hurling Molotov cocktail shakers and spitting fire. The photography of Hickox regular Gerry Lively (Return of the Living Dead 3) is slick but not as stylish as his work in Hellraiser: Bloodline (one of its few distinguishing features). Young's Hellbound: Hellraiser II score appears under the opening credits and weaves in and out of the soundtrack amidst less interesting accompaniment from Randy Miller (Witchcraft).  Best Actor: Doug Bradley (winner) - Fantafestival, 1996 International Fantasy Film Award (Best Film): Alan Smithee (nominee) - Fantasporto, 1997 Chainsaw Award (Best Makeup FX): Gary J. Tunnicliffe and Kevin Yagher (nominee) - Fangoria Chainsaw Awards, 1997 Hellraiser: Bloodline: In 2127, Dr. Paul Merchant (Alive's Bruce Ramsay) pilots the space station Minos which he designed into deep space where he uses a robot in a sealed chamber to open The Lament Configuration, hoping to destroy Pinhead (Bradley) and his Cenobites permanently. Unfortunately, the ship is boarded by a military unit from Earth after the stolen ship; whereupon Merchant must convince interrogator Rimmer (Dazed and Confused's Christine Harnos) of the danger aboard the ship. His tale stretches back to the eighteenth century when his ancestor Phillip LeMarchand (also Ramsay) built an intricate wooden and gold puzzle box at the commission of Sadean Duc d'Isle (My Own Private Idaho's Mickey Cottrell) who he spies along with acolyte Jacques (Parks and Recreation's Adam Scott) using the box as a portal to open the gates of Hell and conjure the demon into the flayed skin of a prostitute (The Name of the Rose's Valentina Vargas), dubbing the demon "Angelique" who is actually the Princess of Hell. LeMarchand's attempt to stop them with another box did not go to plan but he manages to steel the box trapping Angelique on Earth. LeMarchand's wife (Titanic's Charlotte Chatton) and child are able to escape to the New World where the family went under the radar until the dawn of the new millennium when architect John Merchant (Ramsay again) is profiled in a magazine for his New York skyscraper designed in the style of The Lament Configuration taking a cue from Hellbound: Hellraiser III's ending in which Joey submerging the box in the foundations of a building supernaturally influenced its architect in its ornate design and is working on The Elysium Configuration, a device capable of generating perpetual light (as a utilitarian artistic piece as he is unaware of his past apart from Angelique reaching out to him in erotic dreams). Angelique retrieves the box from the building and uses an unlucky victim to open it whereupon she is introduced to Pinhead who has taken over running hell in her stead. Although their ideologies are opposed in how to gather souls for damnation, they team up to make John turn his Elysium device into a giant Lament Configuration opening a "vast and permanent gateway to the fields of human flesh." Angelique uses her powers of seduction and temptation while Pinhead decides using John's wife (A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge's Kim Myers) and son (The Shining miniseries' Courtland Mead) would be more effective bait. Back in the present time, the soldier manage to open up the sealed chamber, unleashing the Cenobites to take them out one-by-one A sequel long in gestation when New World was acquired by Transatlantic Entertainment and shortly after the film's release by Lakeshore Entertainment and once again co-produced by Dimension Films who retained the rights to this film and the rights to produce sequels subcontracted to Neo Arts & Logic who also produced the sequels to Mimic, The Prophecy, the Piranha remake sequels, along with the Pulse-remake and Feast franchises, along with the American Pie direct-to-video sequels for Universal. Hellraiser: Bloodline was also one of the first Dimension productions whose heavy reediting and reshooting made the fanzines with effects artist-turned-director Kevin Yagher (Child's Play) walking off the production when the changes diverged too far from his cut and Joe Chappelle whose own Dimension directorial effort Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers was also subjected to much rediting and reshooting being brought on to direct new scenes while directorial credit went to the dread "Alan Smithee" (which had previously been utilized by William Lustig when Neo's Joel Soisson directed additional scenes for the final cut of Maniac Cop 3: Badge of Silence). (actor Scott appeared a few years ago on Conan O'Brien discussing the film and being recalled back several times to shoot different death scenes). The workprint which was not Yagher's edit but assembled after he left and featuring the original score by David C. Williams revealed a somewhat more linear construction of the three timeframes with the use of flashbacks already evidence of interference (fan-edits have popped up over the years but they can only come so close to what was intended as some scenes had not yet been shot and only existed as storyboards before being abandoned for the new material). The workprint opens with the murder of the prostitute and resurrection as Angelique here it is she who has commissioned the box and what LeMarchand spies through the window of the Duc's chateau is her use of it on a table of gamblers (although we never get to see them turned into Angelique's hellish circus since those scenes were never shot). There is no evidence that the story will move ahead into the twenty-second century until the final act which features an introductory scene featuring Paul shaving his hair like a Buddhist monk and then praying with a hologram of a priest played by KennethTobey (The Thing from Another World) in one of his last film roles. The finished film's troubles are evident in the reduction of the two earlier time frames to digest vignettes, and the framing story pretty much a body count picture of uninteresting victims. The Cenobites this time around are less interesting with Chatterer turned into canine Chatterbeast either a pet made by Pinhead or one of those solvers of the box somehow metamorphosed into to a dog-like form a pair of security guards (twins Jimmy and David Schuelke who are now home remodeling experts) merged by Pinhead into Siamese twins (played by Michael and Mark Polish who later played a pair of conjoined twins in their co-written indie Twin Falls Idaho) who absorb victims into their conjoined bodies, and Angelique who seems like the Julia figure but ultimately fulfills the role of the "Female Cenobite" who seems to be the most interchangeable one in the series. Ramsay is not a particularly compelling presence, and Ripley-esque Harnos only has slightly more to do than Myers, and the film could have used more Angelique/Pinhead banter. The orchestral/electronic score of Daniel Licht who had scored Dimension's Children of the Corn II: The Final Sacrifice and was in consideration by Barker to score Lord of Illusions is a step in the right direction after Miller's score for the third film, having a rich orchestral sound with the intimacy of a chamber piece (and, surprisingly, no compilation soundtrack given it was produced by Dimension). It is the photography of Gerry Lively that was functional in the third film and "hellishly" beautiful here but seems to have been the peak of his work on horror films. The production design of Ivo Cristante (Child's Play 2) is flashier yet never so ornate as the work on the first two films. The rest of the sequels from Dimension were largely lensed in Eastern Europe in tax break-friendly Romania and Bulgaria utilizing original scripts into which the Cenobites and The Lament Configuration were shoehorned, reaching its nadir with the scaled-down Hellraiser: Revelations quickly shot in Los Angeles in order to hold onto the rights to the series and then the torture porn-y Hellraiser: Judgment written and directed by Gary J. Tunnicliffe who did make-up effects on the series from the fourth film onwards. Arrow has a deal with Paramount (who have the rights to the Dimension titles) and we shudder to think of a 4K/Blu-ray set of those sequels. 
Video
Hellraiser was released theatrically on both sides of the pond in more or less identical versions due to U.S. distributor New World coming in late in the production with finishing funds (the U.K. theatrical release did have a few cuts but violence had already been reduced by the MPAA for the U.S. R-rated version). In the United States, the film was released on VHS by New World and laserdisc by Image Entertainment in a fullscreen transfer that was subsequently issued by sell-through label Starmaker Entertainment. In 1996, Lumivision struck a new letterboxed transfer from New World/Transatlantic owner Lakeshore Entertainment's 35mm interpositive for a Lumivision two-disc deluxe laserdisc edition that included a Barker commentary, isolated score, and both a gallery of the script and a reprinted paper copy housed in a special case along with a single-disc edition featuring only the trailer. This master was released by Anchor Bay on VHS as a single-tape edition as well as a two-tape edition that included the EPK interviews, trailers, and TV spots from the deluxe laserdisc. The master was also used for Anchor Bay's barebones first DVD in 1998 followed quickly in 2000 by a new anamorphic THX-approved edition featuring a new commentary track with Barker and Laurence (moderated by Pete Atkins) and a new featurette (Anchor Bay's UK edition included the new commentary track and the laserdisc track). In keeping with their practice of multiple upgrades, Anchor Bay issued the film again in 2007 as a 20th anniversary edition that added some new interviews. Just before their rights ran out, Anchor Bay put out in a Blu-ray in 2009 which looked okay for the time, and it was this same HD master tha was used by Image Entertainment for their barebones 2011 Midnight Madness Series line when they outbid Anchor Bay for renewing the Lakeshore library. In 2016, Arrow got the rights and struck a new 2K master for their "Scarlet Box" of the first three films in the U.S. and U.K.. The new transfer was a bit more generously-framed but also sometimes a bit too bright, robbing some scenes of their moodiness; although this was not always the case. Arrow's new 2160p24 HEVC 1.85:1 widescreen Dolby Vision 4K UtlraHD disc the quartet released in the U.K. last year in separate 4K UltraHD and Blu-ray editions and in single-disc editions earlier this year comes from a new scan of the original camera negatives and now with deeper blacks and shafts of light that blind without clipping, there is an almost tactile feeling to detail here that greatly aids atmosphere of the house interior making the difference between rot and decay discernible. Although the film is swimming in grain it is not as distracting as the earlier HD master, the brightness of which might have been at fault. The yellow-orange tinge of candles and practical light fixtures is more subdued here so the actors no longer look jaundiced rather than just looking like a pale Englishwoman, Julia's light use of make-up and rouge is apparent here as if she were trying to look normal while Frank looks tanned and sweaty rather than oiled-up reds like blood pop more on fair skin (along with the glow of the lights around the Virgin Mary statue on the mantelpiece which now colors the room), and also allow better scrutiny of the make-up effects from the faker latex-y bits to the sculpted artistry of skinless Frank's musculature, veins, and arteries and the slimy film covering them (Frank's drained victims still look a bit slapdash compared to their less-fresh mummified forms later on). The Cenobites themselves perhaps look the best here thanks to the effects and the lighting (with only some healthy pink in Bradley's mouth during "We'll tear your soul apart," spoiling the illusion of a being so "exquisitely empty").  Hellbound: Hellraiser II was issued theatrically in an R-rated version by New World and then on VHS in both R-rated and unrated versions (along with an unrated laserdisc). The R-rated version was pretty much forgotten about when the Lumivision remastered the film in 1996 for a widescreen special edition laserdisc which featured all of the gore scenes cut for an R-rating was well as an additional scene that was present before only on the Japanese release along with a Randel/Atkins commentary. This master was released on VHS and then barebones DVD in 1998 by Anchor Bay followed in 2000 by a THX-approved anamorphic DVD with a new commentary by Randel and Laurence moderated by Atkins (the U.K. Anchor Bay edition once again included both tracks). The 2008 20th anniversary edition added some new extras but used the same master. Anchor Bay's rights ran out before they could issue the film on Blu-ray but Image Entertainment issued it barebones as part of their Midnight Madness Series line. Wheres Image's transfer was slightly cropped to 1.78:1 and a bit soft, Arrow's 2K-mastered "Scarlet Box" transfer was correctly framed at 1.85:1 as is the new 2160p24 HEVC Dolby Vision 4K UltraHD and 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC Blu-ray discs. The textural look of the film is far more varied owing to a heavy use of optical effects and matte composites the introductory shot of Leviathan in the labyrinth is a combination of live action, a glass matte, and optical compositing that looks far grainier especially when it cuts back and forth between these shots and close-ups of Higgins and Cranham as well as internegative-sourced footage from the first film compare these recap bits to the use of negative-sourced footage of Larry's and Julia's wedding which was shot for the first film but not used but scenes not treated to such manipulation are slicker than the first film befitting the budget, the use of sound stages, and Vidgeon's abilities with a better-equipped lighting unit. The image remains warm but not so sickly as to obscure the "institutional green" of the hospital walls. Although Julia's skinless look in her introductory shots looks like the body suit that it is, close-ups during the bandaging sequence are more impressive and create a nice contrast between their bloody sheen and the wrinkled texture of the bandages. Hell looks more Bava-esque in its color gels like a part of Hercules' "haunted world" while a jump cut is explained in one of the commentaries as the fault of the negative cutter who damaged part of the negative.  Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth was released theatrically by Dimension Films and then on laserdisc and VHS in an unrated edition (featuring little extra gore and some slightly more graphic sex as well as some scene extensions) by Paramount. Surprisingly, when Paramount released the film on DVD in an anamorphic transfer, it was the R-rated version. When the rights reverted to Dimension, they licensed a chunk of their library to Echo Bridge's DVD was derived from a fullscreen master and was the only one of the Dimension sequels to not be issued on Blu-ray by that company. Before Arrow's 2015 edition, the only overseas Blu-rays featured the R-rated cut with the exception of the French and German editions which inserted the unrated footage from SD (the German version further cropped the SD footage to widescreen but even the film-source part of the master was cropped). Arrow's "Scarlet Box" 2K-mastered Blu-ray offered both the R-rated version from the original interpositive and their bonus unrated version, but that was also a composite of the HD R-rated master and the unrated footage from the panned-and-scanned laserdisc master without additional 16:9 cropping. Unfortunately, Arrow's 2K scan did not account for the soundtrack area when framing, so the 1.85:1 image exposed more on the left side of the frame as well as the top and bottom compared to the DVD and the other Blu-rays. Their new 2160p24 HEVC 1.85:1 widescreen Dolby Vision 4K UltraHD disc comes from a new 4K scan of the original camera negatives and features both the theatrical (93:11) and unrated cuts (96:21). Unfortunately, the footage specific to the unrated version is still upscaled from SD and looks worse here, especially compared to the pop of nineties primaries and unapologetically "theatrical" optical effects. The make-up effects fare less well in 4K, looking more latex-y from scarified flesh to ripped digits, and the Cenobites fare better in medium shot as close-ups look more like masks stretched over heads rather than transformed flesh. The use of smoke, backlighting, and a bluish bias in the lighting dated the look of the film on earlier transfers but is actually endearing here in contrast to the grainier, subtly gold-hued look of the second film and the slickness of the fourth. The Dimension logo present on the Paramount tape and disc (we do not recall if it is on the 2015 Arrow edition) is blacked out here with a few seconds of Christopher Young score before "Clive Barker presents" comes up.  Hellraiser: Bloodline was released to letterboxed laserdisc and fullscreen VHS after its brief theatrical release; however, the DVD came at a time when Miramax/Dimension home video distributor Buena Vista was putting out a mix of 4:3 letterbox and 16:9 widescreen releases based on the existing masters so the DVD was non-anamorphic. When an anamorphic transfer finally did turn up it was from Echo Bridge in an HD-mastered DVD and Blu-ray that dropped the DVD-remixed 5.1 track for a stereo one. When Lionsgate got the rights to the Dimension titles, their was a direct port of Echo Bridge's single-disc Hellraiser 4-MovieCollection which is also what Paramount put out more recently. The film made its 4K UltraHD debut in Germany, however that turned out to be a DNR-blasted upscale from a German industry veteran known for Blu-ray upscales. Arrow's 2160p24 HEVC 1.85:1 widescreen 4K UltraHD disc and the 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.85:1 widescreen transfer in the Blu-ray counterpart of this set come from a new scan of the original camera negatives and is easily the best-looking transfer of the set owing to the film's relative age, sharper film stock, and newer lenses. The film's visual effects fare best in entirely synthetic shots as the nineties digital and optical effects manage to look flatter when composited on live action. The deep blacks fare best on the Dolby Vision disc while depth in the inky blacks still has its limits in 1080p despite being an improvement over the decade old master used for the Echo Bridge DVD and Blu-ray onwards. Scenes during the eighteenth century sequence bathed in rich blues and reds are also less noisy than before, while the actors also no longer look jaundiced under candelight. The increased resolution and superior delineation of light, shadow, and color also open up the interiors of the ship to assessment, taking on a Gothic feel even before the Cenobites start transforming it into a slaughterhouse. 
Audio
Unlike some of the other horror laserdisc special editions that popped up in the late nineties Hellraiser and Hellbound: Hellraiser II did not receive Chace Surround 5.1 remixes of their Dolby Stereo tracks until the 2000 DVD editions from Anchor Bay, and those remixes have persisted through the various upgrades including Arrow's 2015 Blu-ray and "Quartet of Torment" 4K UltraHD and Blu-ray sets with the DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and 2.0 tracks sounding more or less the same as the earlier editions. The matrixed 2.0 track of Hellraiser is more ambient and less ambitious, with some pointed use of foley effects in sequences with the box and Frank's resurrection, and what the 5.1 track really does is give Young's score a sense of apparent depth with a bit of low end rumble. Hellbound: Hellraiser II has a much more ambitious and detailed mix as befitting a film directed by the New World editor who supervised post-production not only on the studio's product but also the extensive reworking of Godzilla 1985 (which had to have a mono mix because the 4-channel mag tracks supplied by Toho had combined music and effects). Chains rattle and launch across the channels, steam spurts, solid walls open and even wobbly set flats are given thuds to hide their artifice the mechanisms of the box and Hell's transformative devices get "under the skin" while Leviathan's black light rumbles uncomfortably on the low end while Young's majestic score makes use of the mid- and high end apart from some brass and horns. The 5.1 track sounds more spacious but even the matrixed 2.0 track does not sound as "crowded" as one might expect flipping back and forth (although it is being decoded by filters created for 5.1 and up rather than the original Dolby ProLogic). Optional English SDH subtitles are included and appear to be free of errors (although the second film does seem to be missing Pinhead's early murmur of "sweet suffering").  Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth was mixed in Ultra Stereo a Dolby Stereo-compatible format often derided for inferior mixes because unlike Dolby it did not require a consultant to audit the mix and once again the mix is serviceable when it comes to foley effects but the club scenes do sound as crowded as they are with music, ambient effects, and production dialogue (shot with the crowd noise added later rather than ADR-ed). The laserdiscs and DVDs mostly featured a matrixed surround track while Anchor Bay's U.K. DVD included DTS and Dolby Digital 5.1 tracks but from a time when they did that with every release including mono films from tape masters without separate DME tracks so, while we have not heard it, we have our doubts it was a true remix. The 2015 Blu-ray included only an LPCM 2.0 track while the "Quartet of Torment" editions feature DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and 2.0 tracks. The 5.1 track does indeed give the busier scenes more breathing room but they are still limited by the original recordings with the "live" club performances sounding less dynamic than score and the Motorhead end title (which itself always sounded rather grungy in terms of the guitar and scratchy, growly vocals). There are dips in quality during the SD inserts where presumably the only material available was the video master's stereo audio track. The English SDH track is free of any obvious errors. Hellraiser: Bloodline was mixed in Dolby Stereo and released on VHS and laserdisc with a Dolby Surround matrixed 2.0 track and only got a 5.1 remix for DVD. The 5.1 track was dropped for the Echo Bridge Blu-ray. We do not know if the 5.1 track here is the same one made for the DVD or a new remix but the 2.0 track nicely balances the bigger parts of the orchestral scoring, production dialogue and some redubbing Vargas has more of an accent on the workprint audio but we do not know if she was redubbed by someone else on the theatrical or revoiced her own performance but it does not sound completely "American" as observed in the commentary (certainly not next to Scott's complete lack of a French accent) while the 5.1 track once again gives the score more breathing room along with making more apparent some of the subtler elements of the mix like the dangling chains, disembodied voices, and the ship noises. Optional English SDH subtitles are free of any obvious errors. 
Extras
Hellraiser features three commentary tracks, one brand new and the other two ported from the earlier laserdisc and DVD editions starting with the new audio commentary by unit publicist Stephen Jones and critic Kim Newman (2023). Although Jones has appeared with Newman on other commentary tracks as a horror film historian, Hellraiser was actually his first job as a unit publicist after producing television commercials and conducting interviews (it was actually John Carpenter who encouraged his career change), volunteering for the job on Hellraiser through Barker (although he also emphasizes the influence on the production of producer Christopher Figg). While Jones and others covering film productions were accustomed to waiting for months after a production wrapped to get publicity materials, Jones started shooting video, taking transparencies, and conducting interviews to have updated material weekly during production since the goal of the production was to bring British horror "back" after a fallow period in the earlier half of the eighties. He also relied on his industry contacts who were also interested in horror including Newman (who visited the set for a day) and writer Neil Gaiman who actually conducted the set interviews (although his input was not included in New World's electronic press kit which Jones estimates used about twelve minutes of the four hours of video he shot which is now supposedly gathering dust in a vault). Jones sheds more light on the reshoots which not only included Frank's resurrection, but also scenes New World vetoed as being too tell-tale about the British setting. The pair reflect on how the redubbing of characters made no sense given references in the dialogue by Kirsty's boyfriend (Wetherby's Robert Hines), how Chapman's real voice was more appealing for a character who is supposed to be irresistible, and are thankful that Higgins and Bradley were not redubbed. They also discuss the state of British horror in the eighties noting that Hellraiser actually got off light with the BBFC, although the deleted material they mention being put back into the video releases was that which was included in the R-rated American version draw some parallels with another similarly-themed British horror film of the period Xtro, and also discuss the contributions to the film of cinematographer Vidgeon and composer Young (along with mention of the original Coil score). A running theme in the track is that the Cenobites were not the villains and not intended to be the focus of the films, with earlier proposed posters focusing on skinless Frank and/or a hammer-wielding Julia, or even the now largely forgotten "The Engineer" (which seems wild given how iconic Pinhead was right from the start). Ported from the 1996 laserdisc edition is an audio commentary by writer/director Clive Barker and from the 2000 Anchor Bay DVD is an audio commentary by writer/director Clive Barker and actress Ashley Laurence, moderated by screenwriter Peter Atkins. On the solo track, Barker discusses at length the major contribution of Young to the film while he and Laurence devote an equal amount of time to Vidgeon's photography on the other (in both, Barker also speaks highly of editor Richard Marden's ability to interweave story elements visually. Other topics covered on both tracks are the story's dark love story and "domestic triangle" (with Barker pointing out cuckolded Larry's endeavors to drag the marital bed up the stairs while Laurence observes that Julia is more mother than lover to Larry). They also cover Robinson's contributions to character including the "Jesus wept" line as well as the MPAA's issues with the film's sex and violence. "Power of Imagination" (58:14) is a discussion with film scholars Sorcha Nν Fhlainn and Karmel Kniprath which is actually quite a rewarding listen considering it really is a videotaped conversation between the two who as teenagers were intrigued but scared by the video box art and came to Barker through literature and came to the film through "The Hellbound Heart". Their discussion of the titular "power of imagination" in Barker's works runs through several of his books and short stories and highlights the theme that also extends to his art and the film of the body as not an end but a means of expression (from the "Books of Blood" story in which a man's body becomes a canvas for the written communication of the dead to limits of Frank's sadomasochistic pleasure which including being pulled apart and reassembled along with those of Julia and Channard in the sequel). Also covered are Barker's children's books which might have been overlooked by his more mature fans but sound worth seeking out. Also new to the disc are a trio of extras featuring genre authors discussing the formative influence of Barker, the body as a means rather than an end, his use of "othered" protagonists, and his queer identity. In "Unboxing Hellraiser" (21:53), genre author A.K. Benedict (Little Red Death) who compares the social media product-sponsored "unboxing videos" to the film's box as well as the more MacGuffin-y boxes in cinema history. Particularly interesting in the discussion is her citing of George Lowenstein's definition of "curiosity" as "perception of a gap in knowledge and understanding" that associates an object of curiosity with the attainment of "self-knowledge" (and on a tangent the hand movements of finding the box's "pressure points" are likened to the sexual fumblings which ties into Tony Randel's joke on the commentary for the second film about a "teenage girl playing with her box"). In "The Pursuit of Possibilities" (40:57), horror authors Paula D. Ashe (We Are Here To Hurt Each Other) and Eric LaRocca (This Skin Was Once Mine and Other Disturbances ) discuss their discoveries of Barker's literature and films while trying to find their voices as both writers and queer people seeing an inherent rather than overt queerness in Barker's characters and their relationships discussing the non-conventional relationship between Julia and Frank, its inversion of power dynamics with the cisgender, macho Frank made vulnerable and Julia empowered as her killings go from acts of devotion to a lover to her own enjoyment, and how their relationship is destroyed by his attempt to wrestle back his position of power. In "Flesh is a Trap" (18:19), genre author Guy Adams (The World House) discusses his own relationship with his body as an awkward youth and his own desires through his imagination and reconciling the magic of meat and bone including the failings of his older self's body through his personal relationships. Unlike the Benedict piece, this is less an "essay" than a musing which also includes discussion of Barker's own failing health in the last several years. While Arrow was not able to recover the four hours of footage Jones shot on set, they have included a behind the scenes section starting with an introduction by Stephen Jones and Kim Newman (10:30) extended separate EPK comments from Clive Barker (4:49), Andrew Robinson (4:24), Claire Higgins (3:18), Ashley Laurence (3:07), and a look at the creatures & effects (9:28), as well as theoriginal 1987 electronic press kit (6:00). While Arrow has dropped the feature-length "Leviathan" documentary a significant omission but presumably due to rights since it was independently-produced and also released separately they have included the four pieces from the "Scarlet Box" and Anchor Bay editions starting with "Being Frank: Sean Chapman on Hellraiser" (26:22) in which he discusses his beginnings as a young actor with a role in the Austrian-lensed Boarding School with Nastassja Kinski and a trio of Alan Clarke films. His first experience with Barker was indirectly with a role in the Barker-scripted Underworld (released stateside as "Transmutations"). Of Hellraiser, he discusses the backstory he formed with Barker, the ways in which aspects of the finished film grew out of the discussions and trial and error (the flashback scenes were excerpted from full scenes including Larry and Julia's wedding, footage of which appeared in Hellbound: Hellraiser II), and the necessity of a skinnier actor to don the latex for skinless Frank, as well as his regret that his take on an American accent was redubbed. In "Soundtrack Hell: The Story of the Abandoned Coil Score" (18:09), former Coil member turned film historian Stephen Thrower recalls his beginnings with the band and its use of early computerized synthesizers and sampling, the piercing and scarification images his band mates showed to Barker that influenced the look of the Cenobites, and the week of studio recording they did to develop themes for the film before New World brought on Young. Thrower also discusses the commercial releases of their soundtrack recordings, the CD of which includes three additional tracks over the LP and cassettes which devoted their side B's to commercial jingle music the band did for other assignments. In "Under the Skin: Doug Bradley on Hellraiser" (12:32), Bradley covers his initially collaborations with Barker in school plays, the founding of the Dog Company theatre group, and screen testing for Pinhead (along with the anecdote that he was initially offered the choice of "lead Cenobite" or the moving man eventually played by future Othello director Oliver Parker). In "Hellraiser: Resurrection" (24:27), Barker who admits that he has exhausted all of his observations on the film goes through the origins of the project as an attempt by himself and Figg, who he met through Parker, to mount a film with no experience. Lawrence, Bradley, and Keen also appear to discuss their experience of the film and its following over the years. The disc also includes the film's theatrical trailer (1:37), red band trailer (1:36), the international trailer (1:37), and four TV spots (2:13) all distinctive for the presence of Smith's original voice as skinless Frank from the production audio as well as three image galleries including scans of the first draft and final draft screenplays.  Hellbound: Hellraiser II also features a new audio commentary by unit publicist Stephen Jones and critic Kim Newman in which Jones reveals that New World was so sure of the first film's success that the sequel was greenlit and went into pre-production before the first film was released; as such, there was still some "wrong-headed" thinking about how Julia and the Engineer were more prominent than the Cenobites. Jones also reveals that the collapse of the dollar in January 1988 meant that the budget had to be slashed and the film was heavily-compromised as a result. While Jones notes the difference in shooting on location versus the Pinewood Studio locations here the Channard Institute exterior will be familiar from other films shot on the lot particularly in terms of sets and lighting and the reuse of hospital props and flats still in existence from the days of Carry on Doctor and Carry on Nurse. They also discuss the performances including those of Cranham, Higgins, and Laurence as well as actor Hope who was big after Aliens but was relegated here to another ineffectual "boyfriend" character, as well as the strengths of the film in Randel knowing what New World wanted out of 1988 horror film and Atkins opening up the mythology in cinema (Barker withheld the publishing rights so was free to exploit the characters in print including control over other adaptations including comics). Ported from the Lumivision laserdisc is the audio commentary by director Tony Randel and writer Peter Atkins and from the 2000 THX Anchor Bay disc the audio commentary by director Tony Randel, writer Peter Atkins and actress Ashley Laurence. Randel and Atkins discussing their differing feelings about the Uncle Frank scenes (Randel feels that they stop the film cold and serve merely to tie up loose ends while Atkin feels they drive Kirsty's character during the third act). They discuss how the script developed and was revised once Robinson withdrew early on, as well as the original concept for Leviathan as more of an amorphous Lovecraftian beast along with the contributions of Young, Vidgeon (who recommended the "groin slice" shot), and production designer Michael Buchanan who over-decorated Channard's study (Atkins also recalls a set visit by Ken Russell on whose Gothic Buchanan had served as art director). Atkins and Randel express confusion over which version they are watching, since the transfer includes a sequence present in the Japanese laserdisc version but not originally part of the American unrated assemblage (Randel also points out that the R-rated version is the rarer option these days since New World's initial tape run was twenty-percent rated and eighty-percent unrated). Laurence comments on the production and her fellow performers, and remains in good humor during the grisly bits noting that people walked out of the dailies of the razor scene and her character's dramatic arc even as Randel and Atkins debate the value of the scene with Kirsty, Julia, and Frank's "family reunion" as tying things up in a film that had already ventured in its own direction. Hellbound: Hellraiser II also features a new audio commentary by unit publicist Stephen Jones and critic Kim Newman in which Jones reveals that New World was so sure of the first film's success that the sequel was greenlit and went into pre-production before the first film was released; as such, there was still some "wrong-headed" thinking about how Julia and the Engineer were more prominent than the Cenobites. Jones also reveals that the collapse of the dollar in January 1988 meant that the budget had to be slashed and the film was heavily-compromised as a result. While Jones notes the difference in shooting on location versus the Pinewood Studio locations here the Channard Institute exterior will be familiar from other films shot on the lot particularly in terms of sets and lighting and the reuse of hospital props and flats still in existence from the days of Carry on Doctor and Carry on Nurse. They also discuss the performances including those of Cranham, Higgins, and Laurence as well as actor Hope who was big after Aliens but was relegated here to another ineffectual "boyfriend" character, as well as the strengths of the film in Randel knowing what New World wanted out of 1988 horror film and Atkins opening up the mythology in cinema (Barker withheld the publishing rights so was free to exploit the characters in print including control over other adaptations including comics). Ported from the Lumivision laserdisc is the audio commentary by director Tony Randel and writer Peter Atkins and from the 2000 THX Anchor Bay disc the audio commentary by director Tony Randel, writer Peter Atkins and actress Ashley Laurence. Randel and Atkins discussing their differing feelings about the Uncle Frank scenes (Randel feels that they stop the film cold and serve merely to tie up loose ends while Atkin feels they drive Kirsty's character during the third act). They discuss how the script developed and was revised once Robinson withdrew early on, as well as the original concept for Leviathan as more of an amorphous Lovecraftian beast along with the contributions of Young, Vidgeon (who recommended the "groin slice" shot), and production designer Michael Buchanan who over-decorated Channard's study (Atkins also recalls a set visit by Ken Russell on whose Gothic Buchanan had served as art director). Atkins and Randel express confusion over which version they are watching, since the transfer includes a sequence present in the Japanese laserdisc version but not originally part of the American unrated assemblage (Randel also points out that the R-rated version is the rarer option these days since New World's initial tape run was twenty-percent rated and eighty-percent unrated). Laurence comments on the production and her fellow performers, and remains in good humor during the grisly bits noting that people walked out of the dailies of the razor scene and her character's dramatic arc even as Randel and Atkins debate the value of the scene with Kirsty, Julia, and Frank's "family reunion" as tying things up in a film that had already ventured in its own direction. While Randel, Atkins, and Jones cover the ways the film was compromised, in "He Was What They Wanted!" (85:17), horror authors Kit Power (The Finite) and George Daniel Lea (Essential Atrocities) are more than willing to engage and interpret the film's broken structural rules and as intuitive choices with context clues rather than overt logic, intellectually and emotional stimulated by the frissons generated by the film as re-experienced on the big screen and deriving satisfaction from the story arcs of the characters including reasoning for the "civil war in Hell," how the old Cenobites fall foul of Leviathan and how it might find the emotional emptiness and sadism of Channard and Julia more satisfying, not to mention the idea that time moves differently in Hell allowing Julia to acquire a lifetime of insight in the days between her death in the first film and her resurrection in the second (although its still a mystery how Channard acquires so many skin donors between Kyle witnessing Julia's resurrection and attempting to get Kirsty out of the institute). "That Rat Slice Sound" (11:54) is an appreciation of composer Young's scores by horror author Guy Adams that, like his piece on the disc of the first film, is more of a performance piece but it does provide some background on Young, his discovery of film music, his formal education, and the early assignments that made his name synonymous with horror. He compares the film's scores to the junked work of Coil, noting that that score might have embodied the film's Hell like a "cheese grater to the face" but would have lacked the counterpoint that highlights the film's twisted love story, treating Frank's resurrection as a celebration with a waltz rather than more traditional horror accompaniment. The behind-the-scenes section features the EPK material including an interview with Clive Barker (3:18), a cast and crew (4:45) bit, and behind the scenes footage (1:51). The disc also includes a selection of archival extras from the Anchor Bay and earlier Arrow editions starting with "Under the Skin: Doug Bradley on Hellbound: Hellraiser II" (10:53) would be similarly unnecessary if not for Bradley's recollections of the surgery sequence which was left out of the film not because it was too horrific but because it didn't come together during the shooting. In "Being Frank: Sean Chapman on Hellbound" (11:35), Chapman recalls having even less to do with the sequel and feeling that Randel was less of a dynamic filmmaker than Barker. The featurette "Hellbound: Hellraiser II: Lost in the Labyrinth" (17:03) is ported over from the Anchor Bay release and would be superfluous after the above documentary if not for the relatively contemporary recollections of Barker and Laurence. The deleted surgeon scene (4:51) stills of which turned up in publicity as well as on the Japanese laserdisc cover is presented in its incomplete form with "scene missing" cards for inserts and angles unfilmed, and the results are rather underwhelming. The disc closes with four theatrical trailers (1:55, 1:19, 1:32, and 1:41 respectively), three TV spots (0:33 each), and four galleries including storyboards, alternate ending storyboards, stills and promo material, and a draft screenplay.  Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth ports over the older commentaries as well as including a new audio commentary by critics Stephen Jones and Kim Newman on the unrated version. The pair discuss how the Hellraiser and Children of the Corn properties wound up with former New World executive Lawrence Kuppin, how Dimension/Miramax become involved, and how Barker was paid to take his name off the film as executive producer only to be paid again after seeing the results to put it back on the film even though his only input was in post-production offering advice on the rough cut and promoting the film. Jones' involvement extended from publicity Atkins contacted him about working on the film to editing the video footage of Lawrence that had been shot in Los Angeles and degrading the signal. They discuss how the film compares to the first films, comparing Hickox's visual style to Barker's and Randel's in the context of Hickox's own brand of late eighties and nineties horror and the franchise ambitions of Dimension, Transatlantic, and Fifth Avenue Entertainment in turning Pinhead into Freddy Krueger while also noting that the film was more dramatically-satisfying for Bradley whose screen time as Pinhead and as Elliot Spencer were virtually even. Jones also points out an uncredited cameo by Zach Galligan (Waxwork) who was a friend of Hickox's and visited the set because he wanted to meet Barker which he probably did in Los Angeles when his death scene during the club massacre was done as part of the reshoots (Jones was not involved in the reshoots but he reveals that Barker showed him a VHS tape of them later). The theatrical version is accompanied by an audio commentary by writer Peter Atkins, moderated by Michael Felsher recorded for the 2015 release while the unrated version is accompanied by the Anchor Bay DVD U.K. audio commentary by director Anthony Hickox and actor Doug Bradley. Both are rewarding listens with Hickox revealing that he was hired with so little time before production that he storyboarded the script on the train to North Carolina and cites his many cinematic homages from Jacob's Ladder, Suspiria and Dead Ringers. Bradley's citing of Atkins' references to Jean Cocteau's Orphιe and Beauty and the Beast on one track dovetails with Atkin's recollection of Bradley describing his "in the box" scenes as Cocteau-ian. Atkins recalls forming some additional backstory for Bradley's human character based on research he did on WWI soldiers and their post-war lives only to find that Bradley had done his own more extensive research, while Bradley discusses some of the backstory had formed for what would draw Spencer to such extreme sensations as those offered by the box. Atkins and Bradley both discuss the various incarnations of the film in treatment and script form before the final version, and all three recall the Highpoint, North Carolina location and studio shooting. All three point out cameos by various cast and crew members (including casting director Clayton Hill and his wife Sharon who had both also appeared as zombies in Dawn of the Dead), the film's early computer effects, the hanging glass mattes, the blasphemous church scene, Dimension's handling of the film and reshoots, and briefly touch upon the disaster that was the Hellraiser: Bloodline shoot. The remainder of the extras are also ported over from the "Scarlet Box" including the 1992 electronic press kit (12:15) which has Barker promoting the film as if he oversaw it and also includes behind the scenes footage of his direction of the Motorhead music video, FX dailies (23:49) which include a lot of shots of hooks pulling at latex skin, chain shooting towards the camera, Bernhardt repeatedly spitting up cups of fake blood, and close-ups of various gory wounds (although Keen directed the inserts, there are a couple slate which refer to cinematographer Gerry Lively as "J. Lively"). Also ported over are Arrow's "Time with Terri" (14:53), an interview with actress Marshall who recalls her first role in this film, her experiences with the prosthetic make-up, her relationships with her co-stars and director Hickox, and her preoccupations as a novice but trained actress with how she looked onscreen, her performance, and continuity. Ported from the Anchor Bay U.K. disc is "Raising Hell on Earth" (13:59), an interview with director Hickox who discusses his attraction to horror films, reveals that he was offered the film by production insurance agent Buckley Norris who had a small role in Waxwork II: Lost in Time, the he discovered the piece of artwork featured in the ending while searching frantically for day's location after believing he had overslept, and screening the film for the Weinsteins. In "Under the Skin: Doug Bradley on Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth" (13:46), the actor recalls that the sequel was planned as a Film Futures production until the problems with Nightbreed lead to the company folding. He also goes into a bit more detail about the "Pinhead opens a bordello" version in which the brothel was an externalization of the box with shifting and changing interiors. Of the film itself, he discusses the attraction of the dual role of Spencer and Pinhead, as well as the different energy Hickox brought to the film (as well as his fast working methods). The disc also includes the film's theatrical trailer (1:52) and an image gallery.  Hellraiser: Bloodline features a new audio commentary by writer Peter Atkins & authors Stephen Jones and Kim Newman in which Atkins reveals that he quit the film two weeks into production long before Yagher had left but that the third draft screenplay that was greenlit had gone through the entire spectrum of colored page revisions with daily notes and rewrites to the point that Atkins is not always sure which scenes he rewrote and which were written by Rand Ravich (Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh) for Chappelle. Atkins, Jones who had worked on the third film but not this one and Newman discuss the evolution of the project including how the property went to Dimension from Transatlantic and how Barker was more involved in the story development than he had been on the third film (where he only got involved during post-production), the idea of the three time frames and speculation that they would have been directed in turn by Barker, Randel, and Hickox, along with rumors that Stuart Gordon had been approached at one point, and budgetary concerns when producer Nancy Rae Stone queried Industrial Light and Magic for a quote. While they all like the Gothic tone of the eighteenth-century portion, the film overall has improved for them with age despite Atkins' admitted bitterness in admitting that if there was an auteur behind the scenes it was not the directors but actually Bob Weinstein who initially touted Atkins as the "Shakespeare of horror" before blaming him when the dailies failed to impress. "Beautiful Suffering" (27:48) looks at the influence of Goth culture on Clive Barker's work and, in turn, Hellraiser's influence on Goth and fetish culture comparing the Cenobite leathers to the imagery in sex magazines of the time and interviewing a trio of sex workers in New York and London about the allure of BDSM and the imaginary extremes of the Barker films (and whether the Cenobites are "unsafe tops"). In addition to the workprint there is also a section of more alternate tootage (5:51) including Angelique's strip poker card game to get the gamblers to solve the puzzle box which is unfinished and includes captions for missing shots and effects. Quality is considerably poorer than the workprint but presumably this is the only difference between this source and the workprint. While the "Leviathan" documentaries and the Barker shorts appear nowhere on the disc, Hellraiser: Bloodline's disc does include to pieces from the Scarlet Box's bonus fourth disc. "Hellraiser: Evolutions" (48:15) is fitfully interesting with Randall, Bradley, producer David Saunders (Wild Orchid) and horror filmmaking contemporary Stuart Gordon discuss the dark romance of the first film (with Randall admitting it was a mistake to Americanize the supporting performances) and how Pinhead supplanted Julia as the film's iconic figure. The remainder of the featurette has sequel contributors writer Hellraiser: Hellseeker writer Tim Day and actress Sarah Hayward, Hellraiser: Deader actress Kari Wuhrer and writer Neal Marshall Stevens, Hellraiser: Inferno director Scott Derrickson, Hellraiser: Hellworld writer Nick Phillips and actor Khary Payton who reveals that his severed head was a prop recycled from Dracula: Ascension and multi-installment director Rick Bota discussing the ways in which the sequels expanded upon themes of the original films (with Derrickson the least convincing in describing how his detective story grafted onto the series concept was thematically-justified). Hellraiser: Revelations is rightfully dismissed with a throwaway comment from Bradley. "Books of Blood and Beyond" (19:23) is of use to the novice Barker reader as author David Gatward how the imagery of Hellraiser the film, the novella "The Hellbound Heart", and the six-part "Books of Blood" inspired his own writing. He gives the viewer an overview of Barker's literary and film career, discussing how Barker expanded from horror to fantasy, metafiction, children's fiction, and young adult, and how the scope of the author's work refuses classification despite Stephen King labeling him as "the future of horror." The disc closes with the film's theatrical trailer (1:14) and an image gallery. 
Packaging
The four discs come in a slipbox with a 200-page hardback book entitled "Ages of Desire" featuring a writing from Clive Barker archivists Phil and Sarah Stokes regrettably not supplied for review. The 4K set is also available with alternate artwork on the Arrow Video website. 
Overall
The Hellraiser franchise has gone through a lot of iterations but even its "purest" incarnation as part of Hellraiser: Quartet of Torment reveals that its world-building was already in flux from the start. 
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