The Hellraiser Films and Their Legacy (46 page)

When talking to Amy, he claims the box is a “family heirloom” that belongs to him. As Pinhead gives his—now almost compulsory—summing up speech during the finale, he says, “It seems that evil does run in the family. Your lineage is that of a craftsman. A maker of toys. You should have stayed in the family business.” It is obvious that Winter cannot be little Jack; for one thing, he is the wrong age (Jack would only be in his teens). For another, Winter dies without—to our knowledge—leaving any children behind to carry on the bloodline which would eventually culminate in Paul Merchant’s birth. More likely is the possibility that he is a cousin of Jack’s or perhaps even a brother of John’s we weren’t aware of. (After all, Jack is shown already building things with his Meccano, whereas Winter is involved in another game entirely.) That none of this is clarified reflects the haste with which the change was made.

Another factor that wasn’t quite thought through was Winter’s new motivation for the Deaders. Tantalizing though the thought of building a force to fight the Cenobites is—indeed, it was even used in the
Hellraiser
comic series for “The Harrowers” plotline (see chapter 33)—it jars when coupled with the original Deader idea. In Stevens’ incarnation, Winter represents the Nightworld and unreality, in direct opposition to the light or Dayworld. In
Hellraiser
there can be only one source of darkness, that of the Cenobites.

In contrast to the Stevens written character, Winter wears white (trousers, T-shirt and coat) like an angel and pits himself against Pinhead. Yet the world in which he lives is very similar to the Hell we know: dark and clandestine, stone walls and shadowy corridors. Also, the methods he uses are questionable, to say the least, as he recruits his group from the hedonistic thrill seekers of Romania’s backstreets. He even repeats Pinhead’s line, “Don’t think for a second you’re not in danger.” The struggle over Amy’s soul—she being the only one who can both open the box and become a Deader—is inventive, but it is not fully explained why Winter should want her to do this. If he is of Lemarchand’s line, then surely the last thing he’d want is for
anyone
to open the box? In Day’s script Amy has already done this by the time she meets Winter, an encounter with chains and Pinhead in her apartment her reward for finding the box at Marla’s. Indeed, the prising of the box from Marla’s dead finger’s is a retread of Amy reaching for the package: two suspense scenes for the price of one.

Both the Deader and Hellraiser strands work perfectly on their own, but do conflict somewhat with each other. This was something Stevens contended when he saw a copy of the finished shooting script. (As a requirement of the Writer’s Guild, when there is more than one writer involved in a screenplay, a copy must be sent to all participants past and present.) He told
The Hellbound Web
via e-mail in 2003 that he’d had no contact whatsoever with Day or the makers of the final movie. “I haven’t spoken to anyone at Dimension in years,” he said. “I simply cannot be enthusiastic about the process that transformed my script, which had nothing whatsoever to do with
Hellraiser
or the
Hellraiser
universe, into a direct-to-video
Hellraiser
movie.”
⁹
Director Bota diplomatically said, “Neil Marshall Stevens had really brilliantly written a story in dialogue, but once it was changed along the way into a
Hellraiser
sequel, there were several scenes which really did not work anymore within the mythology.”
¹⁰

An unused Cenobite: Spike (courtesy Gary J. Tunnicliffe).

So, this was the script the makers had and, barring changes on the way such as the inclusion of underground tunnels after a scouting trip to Romania (Bota found the perfect Deader den—World War II Army bunkers on the outskirts of Bucharest), this would remain pretty close to the finished film. As mentioned, Dimension wanted to shoot two
Hellraiser
sequels back-to-back in Romania, which would mean extremely short schedules—an incredible twenty-five days for
Deader
—and possible problems when trying to hire Bradley again. In his book,
Behind the Mask of the Horror Actor
, Bradley tells readers how Dimension wanted to book him for both movies, but only pay for one.
¹¹
Luckily, all came to an agreement and the role was once again secure in Bradley’s capable hands. For his part, he was particularly happy to be involved again because it meant for the first time in the series’ history he’d be working with the same director twice and wouldn’t have to go through the motions of explaining the character.

For the daunting part of Amy Klein, the makers chose another experienced genre actress, something they’d later be very thankful for. Born in 1967 in Brookfield, Connecticut, Kari Wuhrer began studying acting at thirteen, as well as singing at every opportunity (she was the youngest member of the band Freudian Slip). RADA trained, when she was old enough she moved to New York and applied for as many auditions as she could. Ford’s Model Talent Division signed her up and she appeared in a number of commercials on TV Her first film was
Fire with Fire
(Duncan Gibbins, 1986), but almost immediately afterwards she landed a job as an MTV VJ, co-hosting
Remote Control
. When she returned to movies, it was for the 1990 comedy
The Adventures of Ford Fairlane
(Renny Harlin, 1990) and
Beastmaster 2: Through the Portal of Time
(Sylvio Tabet, 1991). She also found time to star as Abigail in the
Swamp Thing
TV series (1990).

Parts followed in such films as
Beyond Desire
(Dominique Othenin-Girard, 1996) and Stephen King’s
Thinner
(Tom Holland, 1996), but it was on television again that her next big break came, playing Maggie Beckett on the sci-fi parallel universe show,
Sliders
, from 1997 onwards. Just before taking the role of Amy, Wuhrer had starred in the big budget Hollywood creature feature,
Eight Legged Freaks
(Ellory Elkayem, 2002), alongside David Arquette. The film actually had its Romanian premiere during filming of
Deader
. She had also just executive produced her first feature in 2001, coincidentally entitled
Spider’s Web
(Paul Levine). Said Wuhrer afterwards about the experience, “The pace of making this movie, it was extreme. It was the longest day imaginable on a film set that we could get away with ... and yeah, I was in every scene, start to finish, and it was grueling.”
¹²

For the enigmatic role of Winter, Wales-born Paul Rhys was also perfect casting. The intense actor’s first film was 1986’s
Absolute Beginners
(Julien Temple), followed quickly by TV roles in an adaptation of
My Family and Other Animals
(1987),
Tumbledown
(1989) and
Opium Eaters
(1990), as well as a part as Sydney Chaplin in
Chaplin
(Richard Attenborough, 1992). The television work continued for over a decade with productions such as
The Healer
(1992),
The Haunting of Helen Walker
(1995),
King Lear
(1998),
I Saw You
(2000) and the new version of
Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased)
(2000) with Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer. But it was in the lavishly superb adaptation of Alan Moore’s graphic novel,
From Hell
(Albert & Allen Hughes, 2001), that he really shone with a career best performance as Dr. Ferral, one of the suspects in Johnny Depp’s Jack the Ripper investigation.

Londoner Georgina Rylance took on the difficult part of Marla, now more European-looking than Asian. Another TV actress, she had been a regular as Anna in the series
As If
(2002), in addition to securing roles in
Manchild
(2002) and the U.S. fantasy program
Dinotopia
(2002). Georgina had one of the toughest tests of the shoot, to lean forward and hold still while pretending to be dead on the toilet, the process of which actually hurt her back during takes. She was joined by Northampton-born Marc Warren as Joey, whose energetic, spontaneous performance caused some headaches when it came to editing, as no two takes were the same. Warren had enjoyed a long and varied acting career that encompassed everything from the BBC’s
Casualty
medical series (1991) to the Spielberg produced
Band of Brothers
(2001) on television, and
Bring Me the Head of Mavis Davis
(John Henderson, 1997) and
f2point8
(Paul Hills, 2002) in the cinematic realm. He would definitely add a much-needed humorous slant and his last line, “For fuck’s sake!” after Pinhead runs him through with a chain, is one of the most memorable in the entire franchise.

Another Englishman, Simon Kutz, was hired to play Amy’s boss, Charles. Kuntz’s admirable credits included
Four Weddings and a Funeral
(Mike Newell, 1994), Disney’s
The Parent Trap
(Nancy Meyers, 1998) and homegrown horror chiller
The Bunker
(Rob Green, 2001). A regular also on British TV, Kuntz brought a requisite charm and ruthlessness to the role of Charles that would lead some to believe he was in league with the Cenobites themselves, especially after Amy’s line: “You know there’s something vaguely demonic about you, Charles.” The other woman in his life, secretary Betty, would be portrayed by veteran actress Linda Marlowe.

The majority of other actors in
Deader
would be drawn from Romanian stock. The Landlord, for instance, Costi Barbulescu; Young Amy, Maria Pintea; Amy’s father, Daniel Chirea; Anna, Madalina Constantin; Subway Cops, Mircea Constantinescu and Marius Ratiu; the Deader Guide who shows Amy the way to their hideout, Nike Phanzu; and the Young Girl who paints in the asylum, Daria Enescu in addition to the numerous extras needed for scenes like the subway carriage lair. Many of these actors couldn’t speak a word of English and had to learn the lines parrot-fashion, particularly impressive when you consider the inflections they managed to achieve. But this would expose one of the largest problems the U.S. director faced, the language barrier with a Romanian crew.

As hardworking as they were—though in Hollywood terms they were being paid relatively little, their Romanian wage was a cut above the average worker there—Bota would find it difficult to communicate his meaning on occasion. This would become particularly apparent when dealing with major crew members like cinematographer Vivi Dragan Vasile [
Ultima noapte a singuratatii
(Virgil Calotescu, 1976) and
Dark Angel: The Ascent
(Linda Hassani, 1994)]. As we saw in previous chapters, Bota is an experienced DP himself and even wondered whether or not to hire a cinematographer at all for
Hellseeker
. But he was actually looking forward to working with a foreign DP of this caliber. And the majority of the time there was very little problem working with the translator on set. “It was just the fine detail and explaining of things. I think he was more traditional, so things like odd camera movements and odd lighting decisions didn’t come as easily to him. I think he was thinking he was doing an American movie, and I was thinking I was doing a European movie. He wanted to add lights, I wanted to subtract light and, given the language difficulties, there were times we definitely clashed.”
¹³
In addition, Bota had difficulty securing some of the locations he’d set his heart on when scouting. For example, the director wanted to film in one of the old, run-down subway stations for the scenes with Joey and Winter, but instead the Romanians had arranged for him to shoot in a new station that hadn’t even opened yet.

Bota did have some recognizable faces around him, though, like Gary Tunnicliffe, who was not just handling the make-up effects this time, but was also directing the second unit filming (his are the close-up shots at the start in the crack den). Tunnicliffe also turned his hand to acting, for a memorable exchange with Wuhrer in the
London Underground
office during the title sequence: he’s the one who asks Amy to show him what’s she’s learnt while she’s been undercover. Tunnicliffe’s expertise was especially useful when filming the finale, where the chains jet out of the walls and hook into Winter, pulling him apart in the same gruesome way they did Frank in the original. “Although it looks as though we have many pieces of wall, we actually only use one wall section and we just make a different hole, blast one chain through, then take it out, patch it up, and then just blast another section.... But from different angles, shot high and low, at different frame rates, faster speed, slower speed, it’ll look like the hooks and chains are bursting from all over the place.”
¹⁴
Perhaps the fact that one producer of
Deader
was special effects maestro Stan Winston (who created the monsters for
Aliens
and
Jurassic Park
) made him raise the bar even higher for this outing.