Here’s the fan short Hellraiser: Origins explained, which was created as a pitch for a potential movie reboot. Hellraiser: Origins briefly got fans excited about the franchise’s future back in 2013, as it pitched a very different take on the classic horror series. The first two Hellraiser movies are beloved by fans, but from there the property fell into disrepair following the fourth entry Hellraiser: Bloodline. That 1996 prequel/sequel was the last entry to see a theatrical release, and in the decades that followed, six straight to video entries of mostly poor quality were produced.

That spoke to the lack of interest in the series on the part of Dimension, who owned the Hellraiser rights for decades. The company was more interested in grounded horror properties like Scream and eventually started greenlighting tiny budget sequels like 2011’s infamous Hellraiser: Revelations – which recast Pinhead – merely to hold on to the rights. During this time, they took various pitches on a Hellraiser remake, including an unused Clive Barker screenplay, but a theatrical reboot never happened.

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Followers of Hellraiser are in luck because, in addition to an upcoming movie reboot heading to Hulu, there’s also a HBO TV series in the works. Of the many potential reboot concepts, the fan short Hellraiser: Origins may have been the most exciting. This teaser trailer was directed by Mike Le Han and written by concept artist Paul Gerrard, and instead of being a low-budget, STV effort like many of the sequels, Hellraiser: Origins was to be an epic detailing where the cenobites and Pinhead came from.

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While it may be a fan short, Hellraiser: Origins was aiming to be a bold reinvention of the Hellraiser movie mythology. Both the trailer and concept art reveal an epic vision of Hell and its residents and made Pinhead the prime focus of the story. In this take, he would have been a human ambassador seeking revenge for his family’s murder on some ancient gods, and the movie would have ended with L’Merchant – the designer of the franchise’s Lament Configuration box – designing the “seed” of Leviathan, which opens up the portal to Pinhead and the Cenobites.

Despite Le Han and Gerrard’s hard work on the short, it appears it was doomed from the start. The Clive Barker Hellraiser reboot was announced as being in development before the fan short Hellraiser: Origins arrived, and it’s doubtful Dimension would have greenlit such a grand, expensive vision for the series – exciting as it would have been.

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Padraig Cotter
(3499 Articles Published)

It’s pronounced Paw-rick, not Pad-raig. Now that’s out of the way, a brief introduction. Padraig has been writing about film online since 2012, when a friend asked if he’d like to contribute the occasional review or feature to their site.

A part-time hobby soon blossomed into a career when he discovered he really loved writing about movies, TV and video games – he even (arguably) had a little bit of talent for it. He has written words for Den of Geek, Collider, The Irish Times and Screen Rant over the years, and can discuss anything from the MCU – where Hawkeye is clearly the best character – to the most obscure cult b-movie gem, and his hot takes often require heat resistant gloves to handle.

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He’s super modern too, so his favorite movies include Jaws, Die Hard, The Thing, Ghostbusters and Batman. He can be found as i_Padds on Twitter making bad puns.

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