Making a HELLRAISER Musical?

I'm a regular participant in the Concellation Facebook group created to provide people who would have attended conventions canceled due to COVID with a social outlet. In late December I adapted my blog post about how Labyrinth is Hellraiser for kids into a YouTube video and posted it in the group. Someone asked if Hellraiser had a musical number, what would it look like? My response was that you could actually make a full-blown Hellraiser musical.

So here's where I plot out a Hellraiser musical. Some ideas for songs and sequences, complete with the relevant film clips.

*At the beginning, Frank Cotton has a musical number while he solves the Lament Configuration. He discusses how he's experienced every pleasure the world has to offer (with some pretty big hints that many of these pleasures are illegal and/or immoral) and now he's looking for pleasures beyond the world. As he solves the box and the boundaries between the worlds start to thin, an ominous chorus of the Cenobites join in. The song culminates in the solving of the box, the chain-attack on Frank, and the first appearance of Pinhead. Here's the relevant scene in the film.

*When Larry Cotton (Frank's brother) and his second wife Julia move into Frank's old house, we could have a three-person musical number featuring Larry, Julia, and Larry's daughter Kirsty from his first marriage. Larry is hoping moving back to Julia's hometown in Britain will help save their marriage, Julia is lamenting how boring it is to be married to Larry, and Kirsty (arriving later to help) sings about how she misses her biological mother and how much she dislikes Julia.

*Frank's resurrection from the floorboards of the room where he was taken to Hell, culminating in a terrible scream, might be an instrumental number. Alternatively, it could have Frank recounting in some kind of spoken-word fashion the horrible things the Cenobites did to him as his body reassembles itself from the floor.

*Bored at a party attended by Larry, some of his work friends, Kirsty, and Kirsty's new boyfriend Steve, Julia goes to investigate the strange noises in the attic, culminating in the encounter with the skeletal resurrected Frank. There's a duet between the two where Frank begs her to help him fully regain his body while Julia is torn between her disgust at this meatless bony monstrosity and her memories of Frank seducing her before her marriage to Larry. At the end of the song, she agrees to help Frank, provided no harm comes to Larry. Despite his obvious contempt for Larry, Frank agrees.

*We next have a musical montage number (possibly some kind of ballet?) of Julia luring men back to the house and killing them for Frank to feed on. Some near-misses where Larry nearly discovers what's going on and Julia has to come up with an increasingly bad series of excuses to conceal her and Frank's activities.

*Befuddled by his wife's odd behavior, Larry takes Kirsty out to lunch and they discuss the situation. This could be dialogue-only, or a sweet-natured duet between the two of them.

*Kirsty sees Julia bringing a man into the house and comes in, only to see Frank kill him and eat him. Frank then attacks her, either in a sexual fashion or to simply eat her too, but she's able to fight him off with the puzzle box and escape the house. She's taken to the hospital with the box, which she refuses to give up, and locked into her room by the staff, plays with it and accidentally solves it. This calls forth the Cenobites and we have a whole musical number about how the Cenobites are "explorers of the furthest reaches of experience, demons to some [and] angels to others" and how, since she's solved the box, Kirsty must come with them and "taste their pleasures." The terrified Kirsty manages to bargain with them, offering them Frank in return for herself.

*As Kirsty rushes home to warn her father, Frank and Julia murder him and Frank skins him. This is something that wasn't in the movie, but should have been, so the confrontation between the brothers and Larry's murder should be a musical number culminating in Frank's horrific appearance and Larry's death. Kirsty arrives and, momentarily deceived by Frank's disguise as her father, briefly encounters the Cenobites in the house as they brood over Larry's corpse. Frank attacks Kirsty, accidentally killing Julia (whom he feeds on as she's dying) and pursues Kirsty into the attic room where Larry's body is. There Kirsty tricks Frank into confessing his true identity and the Cenobites arrive to claim him.

*The Cenobites then try to abduct Kirsty anyway ("we have such sights to show you"), but she uses the box to banish them. Steve arrives and the two attempt to destroy the box, only for a vagrant to appear, take the box, and transform into a dragon before flying away.

You guys like? There's a ballet based on Dracula and a musical based on Evil Dead, so as long as the musical retains the film's score (or at least a version of it) and the best lines, this could be better cool. Heck, some of the film's best lines like "we have such sights to show you" could be the titles of songs.

(Also, check out the Myopia Movies episode on Hellraiser.)

LABYRINTH Is HELLRAISER For Kids

The other day I watched Labyrinth on the elliptical at the gym and while ironing some clothes. The thought hit me that it has a lot in common with, surprisingly enough, Hellraiser and its sequel Hellraiser 2: Hellbound. Beware spoilers for all three films.

Firstly, both franchises have significant stepmother-stepdaughter drama. Hellraiser protagonist Kirsty Cotton and her stepmother Julia clearly don't get along at the beginning of the first film and once supernatural forces get involved, it escalates into outright violence. In the second film, once Julia has been thoroughly corrupted, she explicitly refers to herself as the wicked stepmother and the evil queen and mocks Kirsty as "Snow White." Meanwhile, protagonist Sarah Williams is openly disrespectful toward her stepmother Irene in Labyrinth, and Irene clearly does not know what to do with her. Knowing her stepdaughter's interest in fantasy, Irene complains that Sarah treats her as a "wicked stepmother."

Furthermore, at the beginning of the film when we first meet here, I get serious Julia vibes off Irene. They're both dressed formally (albeit for different reasons--Irene and Sarah's father are going on a date and Julia just seems like an ice-queen in general) and their hairstyles are somewhat alike. Although there's more open hostility between the two than between Kirsty Cotton and her stepmother Julia in the first Hellraiser, Sarah is several years younger than Kirsty and significantly less mature. Perhaps Julia and Kirsty were similarly hostile when Kirsty was a young teen, although if that were the case I doubt Kirsty's father Larry would have been so foolish as to assume a now-adult Kirsty would want to live with them in their new town or later ask her to help him figure out why Julia is acting so strangely.

Later, when Sarah becomes frustrated by baby Toby's crying, she wishes the Goblin King would take him "far away from me." The crying abruptly stops and when Sarah goes to investigate, we see goblins in the walls, moving under mattresses, etc. That gave me major Hellraiser vibes, especially given how Kirsty's sinister uncle Frank Cotton's personal hell in the second film involved sensual women under sheets (who disappeared when he removed them), how doorways to Hell formed in the walls, etc. You can see some of that in the clips below.

Also, Kirsty in the first Hellraiser solved the puzzle box and summoned the Cenobites completely ignorant of what the box actually did. She was curious about this device that her undead uncle was so protective of, started fiddling with it, and then this happened. 

Like Kirsty, Sarah had no idea that her frustrated wish to be rid of her baby half-brother would actually summon a supernatural being. And although Jareth and his goblin cronies are significantly less rough than Pinhead and his crew are, there are definitely similarities. Here are two YouTube clips depicting Sarah summoning him and his arrival:

The Goblin King is nowhere near as dangerous as Pinhead--the latter is a Dracula-like sadist who attempts to welch on his bargains, while Jareth is more whimsical and kid-friendly--but both are dangerous and sexual creatures with an unhealthy interest in the young, brunette female protagonist.

Oh, and there's that. Pinhead describes himself as his crew as "explorers of the furthest reaches of experience, demons to some and angels to others" and they subjected Frank to "pain and pleasure indivisible" when he was under their control. The almighty TVTropes describes the Cenobites as "the priests of an S&M religion." In the climax of Hellraiser, Pinhead attempts to abduct Kirsty, telling her that, "We have such sights to show you," while the in second film, he confidently allows Kirsty to freely wander his realm, informing her that, "We have eternity to know your flesh." 

The sexuality in Labyrinth is a bit more subtle given how this is a children's movie, but Jareth's infamous bulging crotch has been discussed at length online, we see David Bowie as Sarah's mother's new boyfriend in a newspaper (a romantic rivalry with one's own mother?), and Jareth gets very testy at the notion of Sarah kissing Hoggle, a dwarfish creature whom she befriends in the Labyrinth. This culminates in Sarah essentially getting roofied and dancing with Jareth at a ball, a scene that is downright rapey. And Jareth later straight-up propositions Sarah, telling her, "I ask for so little. Just let me rule you, and you can have everything that you want. Just fear me, love me. Do as I say and I will be your slave."

Finally, both franchises have elaborate mazes. Sarah must solve the titular Labyrinth in thirteen hours to rescue her brother from Jareth, while Kirsty briefly ventures into the Cenobites' realm when she solves the box in the first Hellraiser film. The second film features a more extensive exploration of the Cenobites' maze-like realm.

So although rarely does one associate a children's fantasy film (albeit one with some significant adult subtext) like Labyrinth with the sexual horror of Hellraiser, there are an interesting number of similarities.

Ideas for a Soft Reboot/Sequel for HELLRAISER...

A common complaint about the state of the film industry these days is that it's all sequels and reboots, with few original ideas. One film that's been subject to Sequelitis and has had a reboot in Development Hell for years is Hellraiser, the tale of an occult puzzle box that can be used to summon the grotesque Pinhead and his Cenobites, "demons to some and angels to others."

This subject was discussed on one of the horror-related Facebook groups I joined in order to hawk my novel The Thing in the Woods and so I posted some of my thoughts on what such a film should look like in response to a June 23 post. The following discussion is my ideas, expanded.

Much like J.J. Abrams' 2009 Star Trek, one could have a sequel that's also a "soft reboot." Ashley Laurence and Doug Bradley, who are both alive and in good health, could return as Kirsty Cotton and Pinhead respectively. The decline in the series began after Hellraiser 3, in which they have a completely new protagonist Joey Summerskill (Terry Ferrell), and it went straight to video after Hellraiser: Bloodline. They brought Kirsty back for Hellraiser: Hellseeker, but that was direct-to-DVD and had a plot that made no sense--there is no way in hell (hee-hee) that Kirsty would be stupid enough to touch anything resembling the Lament Configuration again. And they replaced Bradley with other actors in Hellraiser: Revelations and Hellraiser: Judgement and I've heard very little good about those films--they were very low budget and existed only so the production company could keep the rights. And Bradley wanted nothing to do with them. Fortunately Bradley himself is a good sport and is up for reprising his role.

However, both actors are a lot older than they were back in the 1980s--Laurence is in her mid-50s and Bradley is nearly 70--so it can't just be "Kirsty and Pinhead at it again." Since the original cast is aging and the idea is to reboot the series, this could be a means of giving the original cast their last hurrah before they hand off the torch to a new generation.

My idea would be take Hellseeker into account, but make it a nightmare Kirsty had or some kind of hallucination induced by a head injury from the film's car accident. Kirsty is older and married to Trevor (Dean Winters) and they have teenage children. Due to her experiences in the first two films, Kirsty has a lot of baggage and isn't the easiest person in the world to deal with, a contributing factor to her husband cheating on her.

(Obviously not to the degree he does in Hellseeker--in that one he was unfaithful to Kirsty with three separate women. However, Kirsty is likely a jumpy paranoid mess due to her backstory, so she might think it was more than just him venting about his marital problems to a sympathetic coworker and things just getting out of control from there.)

Kirsty, though she's understandably upset (especially given how she remembers Frank and Julia), doesn't file for divorce--yet. After all, she knows the pain a broken home can cause a child--she moved out of her father's home and lived in a nasty apartment rather than share a home with Julia--and doesn't want to inflict this on her own children, who aren't aware of his adultery. Furthermore, she recognizes Trevor strayed in part due to drama caused by her own issues. However, their marriage is in a very fragile state and more problems arise when a letter from a foreign bank arrives. They've been trying to find the next of kin for one Frank Cotton for twenty-odd years--a small amount of money he'd stashed away has, through the magic of compound interest, grown to a somewhat larger sum. Trevor would like to put the money for some useful purpose (perhaps a family vacation to make everybody feel better, or some needed renovations on the house), but Kirsty, suspecting the money was gained through crime--Frank in the novella The Hellbound Heart smuggles heroin and earns money through other illegal means--wants nothing to do it.

(In Hellseeker Kirsty was the beneficiary of both Larry and Frank's wills and didn't want to spend the latter's money, viewing it as dirty. However, it was apparently a large sum and Trevor was able to enlist a close friend in a plot to kill her to get his hands on it. However, Larry doesn't seem particularly rich in the first film and in the book Frank is always in debt due to his hedonistic lifestyle. More realistic that Frank had some bug-out money hidden somewhere and it's been slowly accumulating interest ever since.)

However, this isn't going to be a domestic drama however much the original Hellraiser came off as one at times. Pinhead is involved somehow, either to get his hands on Kirsty at long last or go after her children like Captain Hook threatened Peter's family in the film Hook. 

(Pinhead has shown a willingness to make deals, like sparing Kirsty to lead him to the escaped Frank in the first film and Kirsty's own bargain with him in Hellseeker. Perhaps someone from the bank had solved the Lament Configuration but Pinhead, upon learning he had found Kirsty, agreed to let him help take her instead.)

If the goal is hand off the franchise to a new generation, in the resulting confrontation Pinhead and Kirsty (and perhaps Trevor too) are all killed. That might be tricky given how Pinhead withstands gunshots and even futuristic laser cannon in some of the films, but maybe Kirsty could run him over with her car (something that would inflict a lot more damage than a single bullet or laser beam) and die in the process, defeating her old enemy at the cost of her own life. 

However, her sacrifice is in vain--the forces of Hell claim one of Kirsty's children as a new Cenobite. However, another manages to escape and vows to reclaim them for humanity, something Hellraiser II: Hellbound showed was possible with the Channard Cenobite reverting Pinhead to Captain Elliott Spencer before killing him. To save their sibling, the character would seek occult knowledge and we could use that to bring in concepts from the Hellraiser comics like the Harrowers, human warriors chosen by the hell-god Leviathan's sister-goddess to fight him. Subsequent films can get into the "war of the gods" angle with all-new Cenobites and human characters, much like the comics did.

Muppet HELLRAISER? Muppet IT? Muppet MISERY? Muppetizing Famous Horror Films

As all of you should know at this point, I'm a regular participant in the film podcast Myopia Movies. In addition to appearing on the show in almost every episode, I also share a lot of memes and other amusing content in our Facebook group. Below is one meme I found that spawned some particularly interesting discussion.

Seriously, a Muppet version of A Clockwork Orange? The Hensons would sooner commit collective suicide. However, when I shared the meme in the group, some interesting discussions emerged. James O'Neil from my writing group suggested a Muppet version of Hellraiser, with Beaker as Pinhead. That would deprive us of the awesomeness of Doug Bradley as Pinhead, but I'll at least acknowledge that. Here's my cast:

Kirsty Cotton: Ashley Laurence

Larry Cotton: Kermit The Frog

Julia Cotton: Miss Piggy

Frank Cotton: Sean Chapman (alive), Oliver Smith (undead)
Steve: Robert Hines
Derelict: Gonzo
Pinhead: Doug Bradley
Female Cenobite: Janice
Butterball Cenobite: Bobo the Bear
Chatterer Cenobite: Fozzy Bear

The other characters (like Larry's party guests, the men Julia brings home for Frank to kill) can be a mix of humans and Muppets. Since they don't really have distinctive personalities, it doesn't matter who plays whom.

I thought about making Animal Frank Cotton (the "WOMAN! WOMAN! WOMAN!" stuff would tie in with Frank's sexual aggression), but Muppet Treasure Island uses human Tim Curry having been in a romantic relationship with Miss Piggy for jokes. Keeping the canonical actors as Frank would work for that purpose as well. Given how the Derelict (the keeper of the puzzle box) is supposed to be an unnatural and scary being, Gonzo would work for him too--until Muppets From Space revealed he was an alien, he was always a "Whatsit" or, in Muppet Babies, a "Weirdo." And making Chatterer Fozzy Bear would be amusing--instead of the click-click-click thing, he just says "wokka, wokka, wokka" all the time.

James also suggested a Muppet version of It. I was initially skeptical because Miss Piggy is always the female lead and I would never buy her as Beverly. When we see her as an adult, Beverly is beaten down by life (and literally by her evil husband Tom Rogan), while Miss Piggy is loud and takes no crap from anybody. James suggested the Muppet Janice might work better, but she's not one of the major Muppets. For convenience's sake, we're using the adults here for the most part, not the kids. Credit to horror writer @disneynine for Ben, Richie, and Eddie.

Ben Hanscom: Kermit
Richie Tozier: Fozzie Bear
Beverly Marsh: Jessica Chastain
Bill Denbrough: James McAvoy
Mike Hanlon: Isaiah Mustafa
Eddie Kasparak: Gonzo
Stanley Uris: Andy Bean*
Tom Rogan: Will Beinbrink
Pennywise: Bill Skarsgård
Sonia Kaspark: Miss Piggy (flashback)

Although Henson's special-effects crew could make a magnificent practical-effects Pennywise for the climax in which It's true spider-like form is revealed, I liked Bill Skarsgård's performance in It: Chapter One (I never saw It Chapter Two), much like how I liked Doug Bradley's performance as Pinhead. Replacing either with Muppets would be a shame. Jessica Chastain pulls off the sort of worn-down look the adult Beverly would have--she's nearly 40, has been smoking since she was in middle school, and her husband hits her. Depicting the mild-mannered and encouraging Kermit as her eventual second husband Ben would work personality-wise.

And if the vengeful Tom shows up (in the book he followed Beverly to Derry and was enslaved and eventually killed by Pennywise), we can play his jealous horror at the thought of his wife sleeping with a Muppet for laughs. He was ready to kill her because he thought she'd left him for Bill (in this version a human)--how psychotic would he get if he thinks she'd left him for a Muppet?

Also, since this is a Muppet movie, Miss Piggy has to be in there somewhere. The only way I could think of to work her in would be having flashbacks to Sonia Kasparak, who has Manchausen's Syndrome by Proxy and tricked Eddie into thinking he has asthma, and attempts to separate him from his friends.

*Although the cast seems a little too human (only four out of the ten major characters are Muppets), Stanley is the one who slits his wrists in the bathtub rather than return to Derry to confront Pennywise. His wife coming into the bathroom and finding "IT" written on the bathroom walls in Muppet fluff would be unintentionally hilarious, not horrifying. This isn't supposed to be The Happytime Murders.

Another discussion that emerged from that was Stephen King's Misery. Imagine Miss Piggy as Annie Wilkes and Kermit as author Paul Sheldon, whom she imprisons and terrorizes. :)

HELLRAISER as...a Lifetime Original Movie

In mid-October I watched Clive Barker's horror film Hellraiser for the first time in several years for the podcast Myopia: Defend Your Childhood. Here's the podcast for your listening pleasure.

Although I saw the film as an adult rather than a child or teen like most of the movies we've done, it didn't hold up as well as I'd thought. One of the big problems was pacing--the film could really stand to use a trimming. And then podcast host Nic made a comment that I can't really refute--Hellraiser came off like a Lifetime Original Movie.

(For those of you who aren't Americans or aren't super into television, Lifetime is a television network aimed at a female audience. It has a reputation for overdramatic low-budget movies focusing on women in peril from the latest in-the-news danger and/or dramatizing real-life incidents like the woman who killed her child's molester in court. Here's an article discussing the phenomenon; it even has an amusing TVTropes page.)

And if you stripped out the supernatural elements, it would seriously look like a "teen girl in peril" film more appropriate for Lifetime than, say, the horror streaming channel Shudder. Seriously, Kirsty could be an older teen (in the original script she's only twenty and she could easily be 18-19) who moves with her father Larry and disliked stepmother Julia to a new town and finds the situation so intolerable she rents an apartment of her own and gets a job she doesn't particularly like to pay for it. She finds a new boyfriend and things seem tolerable at least...until she learns that Frank her pervert uncle has escaped from prison. He's hiding in the attic of the family home and is canoodling with Julia, encouraging her to commit crimes to get money so they can run away together.

Furthermore, some of her uncle's criminal associates are looking for him (Frank in the book and film is referenced as owing people money) and if they can't have him, they'll gladly recoup their losses by taking Kirsty away for sex trafficking (with human trafficking being a major news topic I could definitely imagine a Lifetime movie about it--and I'm pretty sure they've covered this before) instead. She bargains with them by offering to give them her uncle (whom she discovered and who attacked and injured her) instead. This they go along with, arriving at the family home to find her stepmother and uncle have already murdered her father. The criminals kill both of them (or, like in the film, Frank kills Julia by accident before the criminals kill him), then renege on their deal and try to kidnap her anyway. Fortunately she's found her father's gun or managed to steal one from one of the criminals and disposes of them all like a Final Girl in a slasher film.

What do you all think? All of these elements generally line up with what happened in Hellraiser, minus the whole "resurrected by blood from sadomasochistic Hell," "evil Rubik's Cube that opens dimensional gateways,"  and "leather demons" parts. And given the greater awareness of sexual assault (Frank's rampant perving on the teen Kirsty and the very rapey flashbacks with Julia) and human trafficking, this would definitely include Lifetime movies' "ripped from the headlines" tendencies.

Furthermore, Kirsty would be a good protagonist for a film intended for female audiences. She isn't reliant on or obedient to any male character (she gently disregards her father's wish that she live with him and Julia and chooses to support herself), she fights off the rapey Frank by herself upon their first encounter, she's able to bargain with the Cenobites (or in this case a bunch of human criminals) when she can't physically overpower them, and although the film never explicitly depicts her having sex with boyfriend Steve, one of them is definitely staying over at the other's home and yet she doesn't suffer Death By (Possible) Sex like many female characters in slasher films do.

My Next Convention: MultiverseCon (Plus Panels I Wish I Could Attend)

In my admittedly limited experience as an author, I make more money from going to events and signing books than from royalties, much like how musicians make more money from going on tours and concerts than from selling records. Consequently, I go to a lot of events--this past year's adventures included the Decatur Book Festival, Hypericon in Murfreesboro (where I was a panelist), various bookstore appearances, a gun show, and the new Next Chapter Con in Ringgold where I sold a bunch of books and definitely plan to come back.

At most book events I have two books to sell, The Thing in the Woods and The Best of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly Vol. 2, which contains my short Viking monster story "Nicor." In November I will have a new book coming out, Little People, Big Guns from Deadite Press, but there's one more big fandom convention in Atlanta between now and then and that's MultiverseCon. It seems to be a relatively new event at the Hilton Atlanta Airport 10/18-20 and not only was the author table price relatively cheap but it's pretty close to my day job, so off I'm going.

Not only will there probably be a lot of vendors at the event (the vendors are sold out this year), but MultiverseCon's schedule shows a lot of really interesting panels. Given my table responsibilities I would only be able to attend the ones after the dealers' room closes, but here are some I find particularly interesting:

Friday, 10/18

Where Horror Lives (2:30 PM)-As a teen and then an adult there's not a lot in horror movies or books that really scares me, although there is stuff I do find really depressing (the unnecessarily bleak ending of the film The Mist that I have no interest in seeing comes to mind). I think the only time I've ever gotten straight-up nightmares from something was James Tuck's (as Levi Black's) first Mythos War novel Red Right Hand and my own short story "I am the Wendigo," and that's having been interested in the scary stuff since preschool (I wasn't allowed to see Arachnophobia and Gremlins 2, which was for the best). So looking for ways to crank up the fear would be a wise use of time.

Flash Your Fiction: How Short Can You Go? (5:30 PM)-I've heard that flash is hard to write but easy to sell and my first paying sale, "I am the Wendigo," isn't that much longer than flash. This might help me churn out salable material in a relatively short time.

Meetup: Podcasters and YouTubers (5:30 PM)-I'm a regular on the podcast Myopia: Defend Your Childhood and an occasional contributor to The Geekly Oddcast. I've also considered starting my own YouTube channel as an additional income stream and as an additional marketing mechanism. I've also appeared on podcasts to promote my work and have promotional appearances lined up for Little People, Big Guns, so this would be a good place to network too.

Pub Pitch (10 PM)-Various writers help each other refine their elevator pitches.

The Virtue of Villains (10 PM)-The villains that inspire the most discussion (and thus money-generating word of mouth) are often at least some degree sympathetic. A lot of people sympathized with Killmonger from Black Panther for example, while I've repeatedly defended Magneto from The X-Men and been very critical of his unnecessarily-evil portrayal ("Kill all humans") in the second X-Men film. I've worked hard to make the Big Bad Grendel and his son and heir Falki in my upcoming "Dark Tower meets Game of Thrones" novel Battle for the Wastelands deeper and more developed characters with understandable and even sympathetic motivations, even when they do really bad things like execute people trying to surrender, keeping defeated enemies' teen daughters as concubines, etc. This panel is noted for featuring Falstaff Books overlord John G. Hartness, whom I've met at DragonCon several times.

Saturday, 10/19

Beyond Ghosts and Goblins (10 AM)-Creating new and innovative monsters, especially ones that tap into current fears.

From Smaller to Baller: What Technological Advances Can Help Build Galactic Empires? (10 AM)-How to conquer defended planets, build interstellar polities, etc. This could be really helpful for my Federated Worlds universe, which features interstellar warfare and governance.

Publishing Q&A (10 AM)-Also featuring Mr. Hartness and writer Terry Maggert, whom I met at Hypericon over the summer.

Girls Rule (11:30 AM)-Female writers on how to write female characters. This could be useful for improving my personal writing.

Beyond Vampires and Werewolves (11:30 AM)-This is like the earlier "Ghosts and Goblins" panel, but with a focus on urban fantasy rather than horror. I don't think I've written a lot of (if any) UF, but I have written across many genres and what's one more? The more varied one's product, the more successful one is.

Teaching Speculative Elements (11:30 AM)-As you might've seen on Twitter, my day job is a high school teacher. This is something that could help me improve in that area.

Beyond the European Paradigm: Creating Fantasy Worlds for your TTRPG that Aren't Anglo-Saxon (1 PM)-I'm not a gamer, but this could be a good place to learn some interesting world-building elements.

Social Media For Writers (1 PM)-Social media is a pretty big time sink and I need to learn how to use it more effectively.

Sunday, 10/20

Let's Do the Mash! The Genre Mash! (10 AM)-As the panel write-up points out, mixing sci-fi and horror created the wonder that was the Alien franchise and I explicitly describe Battle for the Wastelands as "Dark Tower (Weird Western) meets Game of Thrones (deliberately subversive high fantasy)." I've also supported the idea that horror is an aesthetic more than it's own genre--Alien, Terminator, and the works of Lovecraft are sci-fi, Hellraiser is fantasy, etc.

ASK ME ANYTHING: How to Get Into Working on Licensed Properties (11:30 AM)-I've written for the BattleTech fictional universe before with my short story "Skirmish at the Vale's Edge," but that was a very long time ago. Scoring a gig in an established property like Star Wars or V-Wars like Delilah S. Dawson and James Tuck (whom I knew when we all lived in the general Atlanta area) would be awesome.

Craft of Writing: Characterization (11:30 AM)-Although I've gotten better at it, I remember writing-group critiques of "make us care about them before you kill them" and this would be a big help.

The Many-Faced God: Unraveling Sub-Genres in Fantasy (11:30 AM)-Lots of potential market research here.

Advanced Craft: Characterization: Writing the Anti-Hero(ine) (1 PM)-This ties in with my desire to improve my characterization--flawed heroes and sympathetic villains are more interesting characters. Some of my favorite fictional characters (Magneto, Snape) would fit in this category. Hell, in my Harry Potter fan-fic "Lord of the Werewolves" I took the kindly Remus Lupin of all people in this direction.

Pushing the Envelope: Religion, Politics, and More in Horror Fiction (1 PM)-Although I don't buy the adage that "all art is political," a lot of time the arts are more political than you think. Hell, my novel The Thing in the Woods deals with "retro vs. metro," religion, racial and class prejudice, etc. I've even written an article about it. And Little People, Big Guns deals with religion, disability, etc. These days when there's an increased awareness of that sort of thing, this could be useful.

Unless the vendor's room is truly dead I'm not likely to abandon my post to check these out, but the rest of you might find this interesting. So if you're in the Atlanta area 10/18-10/20 or are able to come down for the weekend, definitely check out MultiverseCon.

Christian Themes in the Movie "Hellraiser"

In a couple previous posts I've made on the movie Hellraiser, I've discussed the character of Frank Cotton and the theme of godly versus worldly sorrow (see 2 Corinthinians 7:10). Seeking Biblical truth in a horror film centered on sadomasochism may seem quite strange--and many will see it as just as excuse to justify watching a movie with gross and immoral content--but there's actually a good bit of thought in there.

Below are some Christian themes I've noticed in the film:

Godly vs. Worldly Sorrow

2 Corinthians 7:10 states the following:  Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death. The article above goes into more detail, but I'll summarize a bit for the TL; DR crowd or for those who might not be interesting in visiting a Christian website. "Godly sorrow" is sorrow for the immorality of one's actions--the disrespect shown to God and harm done to others. "Worldly sorrow" is regret for the personal costs of sin only.

And in Hellraiser (and the novella it's based on, "The Hellbound Heart") "worldly sorrow" is epitomized by Frank Cotton. Frank is an unrepentant hedonistic pleasure-seeker who in the book describes having smuggled heroin and in both the book and film seduced his own brother's fiancee. The book elaborates by describing how the only reason he doesn't "snatch her from under her would-be husband's nose" is that he would soon tire of her and have his vengeful brother after him. He grows bored with "dope and drink" and endless fornication and seeks out the Lament Configuration, which promises wonders and pleasures beyond human comprehension.

Well, the ones bringing said wonders and pleasures have some very different ideas of what constitutes fun. Frank is abducted by the Cenobites and subject to gross physical and sexual abuse, which he escapes purely by accident. He regrets his involvement with the Cenobites--this early draft of the "Hellraiser" script shows how deeply the Cenobites have traumatized him--but not the immoral lifestyle he has led. This same early draft of the script depicts him attempting to rape his own niece when he sees her for the first time in years, and in both the book and the film he treats Julia as a means to an end, disposing of her when she is no longer convenient. In "The Hellbound Heart," he seems interested in applying some of what he learned about pleasure and pain in Hell to Julia if only she would set him free, which implies he intends to go straight back to sleeping around if not worse once he's fully reconstituted.

And in the end, Frank's worldly sorrow leads to death. In his desperation to rebuild his mutilated body, he and Julia murder several people so he can feed on them. When Kirsty threatens to expose him, he murders his own brother, and when he and Julia attempt to kill Kirsty, he accidentally stabs her and then feeds off her remaining life-force rather than trying to help her. He attempts to kill Kirsty (his niece in the film, a friend of his brother in the book) and is ultimately reclaimed by the Cenobites, dismembered alive and returned to Hell. In Hellbound: Hellraiser 2, he ends up getting killed by the damned Julia, who uses the exact same words he told her before he tried to consume her.

Conscience and Universal Knowledge of Morality

The first two chapters of Paul's letter to the Romans are something I have always had problems believing. Romans 1:18-32, which states outright universal knowledge of the nature of God and universal human rejection of what they know to be true, is what Carl Sagan would call an extraordinary claim needing extraordinary proof. Furthermore, many conservative Christians, especially Calvinists, have taken it so far as to claim that everybody knows the Christian religion specifically is true and simply rejects it out of desire to sin. Seriously, we're talking about people who call ISIS "God-haters," never mind that they're fanatics of a different religion rather than irreligious. Romans 2:12-16 describes how the laws of God are written on the hearts of Gentiles and in particular suggests the human conscience is divinely ordained. The conscience in my opinion is more malleable than that.

Frank's life before he's taken by the Cenobites is not discussed much in the film at all (beyond the whole "seducing/semi-raping his brother's fiancee" part), but the book describes his imagination as "fertile" when it comes to "trickery and theft" and among other things he smuggles heroin. He apparently owes a lot of people money, which he probably spent on "dope and drink" and prostitutes. However, and this is the important part, he knows what he's doing is wrong. The prologue refers to him growing bored and dosing himself with whatever opiate "his immoralities had earned him." This is from his point of view, not the narrator's, so even if he had "suppressed the truth in unrighteousness" (i.e. convinced himself superficially his behavior was not immoral despite knowing better), on some subconscious level he knows that his lifestyle is evil.

In Which Frank Quotes the Bible

In the film, when Frank is speared repeatedly by the Cenobites, his last words are, "Jesus wept" (John 11:35). That's the shortest verse in the Bible, in which Jesus mourns for His dead friend Lazarus, whom he later resurrects. I'm not sure what Frank is referring to in that context--according to some Googling, the line was ad-libbed by the actor and Barker decided to keep it.

An Early Draft of HELLRAISER: Script Review and Commentary

The other day I found this early draft of the script for Clive Barker's horror film Hellraiser. I read it and liked what I found, so here's some commentary...

The Good

*The opening is much better than in the canonical film. It's very scary and vivid, while at the same time leaving a whole lot up to the imagination. It also avoids the canonical film's problem of having Frank getting the hook-chain treatment as soon as he solves the box but Kirsty able to wander about and actually talk to the Cenobites. We don't see just what exactly happens, although once we meet Frank and he tells Julia what happened, we know that it was him who solved the box and is the particular victim you can hear screaming over the others. The opening script also keeps the Cenobites mysterious--you don't really see them at first, unlike in the canonical film where you see the Female Cenobite and Pinhead full-on.

*The Cotton family drama, like the canonical film, is shown rather than told. Neither Larry nor Julia say their marriage is unhappy, nor do Kirsty or Julia say they dislike each other.

*Frank's tale of his suffering at the hands of the Cenobites is much more interesting than in the canonical film. He's showing Julia the box and reflected in its shiny surfaces we can see what Frank experienced in Hell. The thing that comes to mind is the Nightmare Fuel flashback to the destruction of Sandleford Warren in the animated Watership Down film, and some kind of animation might have been the only way to really get some of the trippier aspects of it done. Accomplishing this with the limited special-effects budget Barker had might not have been possible...hence Frank's "pain and pleasure, indivisible" spiel with the images of him spinning around covered in blood.

*Speaking of Frank, he's more developed as a character. His evil is amplified in the attempted rape of Kirsty (his own niece!), but at the same time he's so clearly traumatized by what the Cenobites did to him that he's actually sympathetic. Also, that Julia is nothing more than a means to an end to him is made clearer much earlier in the film, foreshadowing how in the climax when she's accidentally mortally wounded Frank feeds on her rather than making any attempt to help her.

*Steve, Kirsty's British boyfriend, is much more useful than in the movie. In the script he visits her in the hospital and is, unknown to him, taken hostage by the Cenobites who Kirsty can see but he cannot. When they sneak her out of the hospital however it was they did it (I think they used the portal Kirsty opened to transition her out of the hospital), he finds her gone and takes the puzzle box for himself. He then makes his way to Larry and Julia's house and, however ineffectively, helps her battle Frank.

*I liked Kirsty's "what took you so long" take-down of the Cenobites. She's been at their mercy for a time, but now that she's fulfilled her end of the bargain, she can (to an extent) give them the what-for. And the Cenobites actually explain their rationale.

*There's no Puzzle Guardian character, whom I thought didn't really add to the story and whose sudden transformation into a dragon at the end of the film ate up money that could have been better spent elsewhere.

The Bad

*Some of Larry's discussion with the workmen goes on for a little too long. He doesn't really need to explain everything about his family situation to them. The workmen are also blatantly rude to him. Maybe British movers are a rougher crowd than I'm used to, but mouthing off to the guy who signs your checks is not a good idea no matter where you live.

The Verdict

Had Barker went with this, Hellraiser would have been an even better film than it already was. 9.0 out 10.

Book Review: Sherlock Holmes and the Servants of Hell (2016)

I first became interested in the Hellraiser horror franchise when I was in middle or high school, although I lost interest for a long time. Over the last few months my interest has been rekindled--I watched the original Hellraiser for the first time and read the novel that inspired it, The Hellbound Heart. At some point along the way I saw that Rebellion Publishing had a Hellraiser/Sherlock Holmes crossover entitled Sherlock Holmes and the Servants of Hell coming out.

So how was it? Let's see...

The Plot

Sherlock Holmes, the world's greatest detective, and his physician partner John Watson are called into action when a libertine disappears from a locked room. Their investigation draws them deeper into London's underworld, where the powerful and influential cast aside their Victorian uprightness indulge in a plethora of perversions. They discover the machinations of the mysterious "Order of the Gash" and a mysterious puzzle box.

Soon Holmes and Watson find themselves faced with a foe not of this world that deals in fates worse than death...

The Good

*As I mentioned earlier I've been interested in the Hellraiser universe for a long time. Crossing it over with the realm of Sherlock Holmes is pretty creative. Someone who solves the box and is taken by the Cenobites sets up a classical "locked room mystery," especially since a philosophical materialist like Holmes is not likely to consider a supernatural cause like, well, a gang of extra-dimensional BDSM enthusiasts who drag people through portals opened by a supernatural Rubix cube.

(Wow, I just made the whole franchise seem really ridiculous, didn't I?)

*I was able to read the novel in a few hours on the elliptical and it made my exercise time go by pretty quickly. It's an absorbing read and a fairly quick one. Definitely very entertaining, which is why we all read books in the first place.

*Author Paul Kane has clearly done his research into the Hellraiser franchise. This is not really a surprise considering he'd written The Hellraiser films and Their Legacy and had the assistance of Barbie Wilde, who played the Female Cenobite in the first two films and wrote the introduction to the book. In particular he's clearly studied The Hellbound Heart, since he knows the smell of vanilla accompanies the Cenobites and those who seek their attentions sometimes offer their dove's heads and their own urine. A character is very strongly implied to be the ancestor of Clive Barker's occult detective Harry D'Amour, who appears in some of Barker's other works before facing off against the nefarious Pinhead in the recent Scarlet Gospels. The acknowledgements section at the end of the book reveals influences from anthologies of stories set in Barker's universe written by other authors as well. The climactic battle even draws on both Hellbound: Hellraiser 2 and Hellraiser 3: Hell on Earth.

*Per the above, Kane knows not to bring in Pinhead. Pinhead would have been "born" in the 20th Century and this far too early for him. However, Hell had servants well before Pinhead, so he's not really needed.

*Sherlock Holmes' deductive talents are on full display in this one. He deduces several interesting facts about one Laurence Cotton and his second wife Juliet (more on them later) upon meeting them and he's able to discern the presence of the Puzzle Guardian vagrant and just how those who've gone missing after the solving the box died. Kane has written in the Holmes universe as well, including stories in The Mammoth Book of Sherlock Holmes Abroad and Gaslight Arcanum: Uncanny Tales of Sherlock Holmes.

*I was initially displeased to see characters from earlier Holmes works popping up, but Kane makes the whole situation work out and paves the way for a very entertaining climax.

The Bad

*The author's knowledge of the Hellraiser universe proves to be a bit of a creative crutch when Holmes and Watson first begin investigating. The first missing person is a mischievous "Francis Cotton" and the people who seek out their help are his brother Laurence and his new wife Juliet, who live on Lodovico Street in London. Laurence has a daughter named Kirsten, with whom Juliet doesn't get along. Does this sound a bit familiar? It's the triangle of Larry, Frank, and Julia from the first Hellraiser, transplanted into the late 19th Century.

However, another missing person is one Lt. Howard Spencer and he has a son nicknamed Ellie, whom Watson thinks will go into the military for all the wrong reasons. The implication is that this is the young Elliott Spencer, who will someday solve the puzzle box in India and be transformed into Pinhead.

If the story had been a pure prequel to The Hellbound Heart, this would not have been a problem at all, and if Kane had just transplanted the tale of the Cotton family for a 19th Century reboot, I might not have liked it but I wouldn't have been that upset. However, the prequel and the reboot aspects sit uneasily side by side. And since Hellraiser is not public domain like Sherlock Holmes is, Barker and friends have to have approved this.

It would have been better if Holmes and Watson merely met the ancestors of the Cottons--perhaps they had a boarder in the upper room of their Lodovico Street house who disappeared? It might be a nice hat-tip to the mythology.

Per my point about the Cotton family reprise, some characters' fates in hell are more akin to the torments depicted in in Hellbound: Hellraiser 2 than The Hellbound Heart. For example, Barker's original novella implied those taken by the Cenobites experienced "pleasures" more physical than psychological that reduced Frank Cotton to a mutilated mess and bore at least a passing relationship to sex. The punishments of Francis Cotton, the elder Spencer, etc. are more psychological and spiritual in nature. Furthermore, they stem from the idea of the Cenobites dispensing justice upon the wicked, as opposed to Barker's original vision of them as a band of amoral experimenters in pleasure and pain. That's something that appears in the later Hellraiser films (especially the awful direct to video ones), but not in The Hellbound Heart or the original Hellraiser. The idea present in The Hellbound Heart that the damned, when not "enduring pleasure," are able to see into the worlds they've left behind is abandoned entirely.

So is this a prequel to The Hellbound Heart and some of Barker's other works, the Hellraiser film series, or both?

*Some of Watson's actions after the climax of the novel don't fit in with his character, don't fit in with the existing Hellraiser mythology and might not work with the Holmes canon overall. I'm not going to go into detail for reasons of spoilers.

The Verdict

An interesting book and a fast read besides. 8.5 out of 10.

Book Review: The Hellbound Heart (1986)

I've recently become interested in the Hellraiser franchise after many years, writing a review of the first movie and how I would have done the movie. The first movie, for those not familiar with the franchise, was inspired by the novella The Hellbound Heart. Recently my friends James R. Tuck and Danielle Tuck started a new podcast and they gave a glowing review to The Hellbound Heart. Danielle strongly recommend I buy it, so here goes...

The Plot

A solid but boring man named Rory (Larry in the film) and his bored wife Julia move into a house previously owned by Rory's late grandmother and now jointly owned by Rory and his brother Frank. Frank, however, has been missing for some time. A selfish hedonist, Frank had grown bored with the usual debauchery and sought out a certain puzzle box rumored to contain wonders and pleasures beyond human comprehension. Unfortunately, he should have been careful what he wished for, because the demonic Cenobites' idea of pleasure and his don't really overlap.

Freed from Hell by an accident--albeit as a skeletal skinless monster--Frank manipulates Julia (with whom he had a brief affair before her wedding to Rory) into murdering people for him to feed on and regenerate his body. Unfortunately for him, Rory's friend Kirsty is onto them...

The Good

*Barker is very good at writing vivid, descriptive scenes. The story opens with Frank solving the mystical puzzle box has a lot of really good descriptive imagery, including a bare light-bulb pulsing with the mournful toll of the bell that heralds the Cenobites' arrival. Another scene from Frank's point of view in which he recounts his year of sensual torment at the Cenobites' hands is also well-done.

*The multiple scenes from Frank's point of view confirm my earlier observations from my film review. Frank is so totally depraved that even a year of torment in Hell by beings he summoned thinking they'd bring him new extremes of pleasure hasn't turned him from his course. Rather than being sobered by the experience and wanting to turn over a new leaf, Frank definitely intends to resume his immoral lifestyle once he's freed. And some of his thoughts toward Julia suggest that the whole "pleasure that becomes pain and pain that becomes pleasure" that this story's Hell is full of have given him some ideas about what to do with her.

I'm reminded of the distinction commentators on 2 Corinthians 7:10 make over "godly sorrow" vs. "worldly sorrow." Frank regrets his bad decisions that lead to him being kidnapped by a bunch of extra-dimensional leather freaks but has no sorrow for his bad behavior generally. This behavior, among other things, caused great grief to his parents, included him cuckolding the brother from whom he was once inseparable, apparently caused him to run up a lot of debt, and even involved smuggling heroin and doing "small favors" to get his hands on the puzzle box. These "small favors" are implied to be immoral or criminal in nature, but he doesn't regret those even though he clearly regrets getting involved with the Cenobites. He is clearly, totally 100% selfish.

*I saw many scenes, concepts, etc. that I recognized as the nuclei of scenes from the movie. Obviously they'd be there since the movie is an adaptation of the book, but Barker, who was in charge of the whole movie, was able to develop his imagery, story, ideas, etc. more fully.

*The book introduces the idea that the prisoners of the Cenobites are aware of and interact with each other. Frank apparently learned of the possibility of escape from "whispers" of other inmates. I don't remember this in the original film, although you see a bit of in Hellbound: Hellraiser II (the only sequel Barker was involved with).

*At 164 pages long, it's a pretty quick read.

The Bad

*Some of the scenes are far more bony and could easily be elaborated on. This is especially disappointing considering the vivid description he employs elsewhere in the story. Contrast the opening damnation of Frank Cotton with Kirsty's initial confrontation with the Cenobites in the hospital. The former scene is very vivid and well-described, but the latter is, well...

“You can’t do this,” she insisted. 

It moved toward her nevertheless. A row of tiny bells, depending from the scraggy flesh of its neck, tinkled as it approached. The stink it gave off made her want to heave. “Wait,” she said. 

“No tears, please. It’s a waste of good suffering.” 

“The box,” she said in desperation. “Don’t you want to know where I got the box?” 

“Not particularly.” 

“Frank Cotton,” she said. “Does the name mean anything to you? Frank Cotton.”

The Cenobite smiled. “Oh yes. We know Frank.” 

“He solved the box too, am I right?” 

“He wanted pleasure, until we gave it to him. Then he squirmed.” 

"If I took you to him . . .”

"He’s alive then?” 

“Very much alive.”

"And you’re proposing what? That I take him back instead of you?” 

“Yes. Yes. Why not? Yes.” 

The Cenobite moved away from her. The room sighed. “I’m tempted,” it said. Then: “But perhaps you’re cheating me. Perhaps this is a lie, to buy you time.”

“I know where he is, for God’s sake,” she said. “He did this to me!” She presented her slashed arms for its perusal. 

“If you’re lying”— it said—“ if you’re trying to squirm your way out of this—” 

“I’m not.” 

“Deliver him alive to us then . . .” 

She wanted to weep with relief. 

“. . . make him confess himself. And maybe we won’t tear your soul apart.”

Compare the above, in which I only got the vaguest notions Kirsty was frightened or the Cenobite was something terrifying, with the movie adaptation below. The Cenobites make their appearance at around five minutes in...



The movie scene displays Pinhead in his dark grandeur and shows Kirsty's visceral terror. The sequence in the books is so monotone, especially in comparison.

*It has some of the same flaws of the film, including a lack of on-screen confrontation between the undead Frank and his brother.

*The e-book is rather expensive for a novella, around $6 or so. I've gotten full-length novels like Marko Kloos' FRONTLINES novels Terms of Enlistment, Lines of Departure, and Angles of Attack for a fair bit less. Is Barker's talent worth the higher price? It's good, but worth that much? The Hellbound Heart isn't even a full novel.

*I liked the film's dynamic of Kirsty as Larry's daughter and Julia as her stepmother better than Kirsty as a platonic friend of Rory (who seems to have romantic feelings for him) who doesn't like Julia. Kirsty knowing Frank as her uncle is a lot less forced than Kirsty having met Frank during the preparations for Rory and Julia's wedding four years before. The familial dynamic also makes Frank even more revolting, as in the films he seems to have incestuous intentions toward his own niece.

The Verdict

Generally good and a worthy seed for which the very creepy tree known as the film Hellraiser grew. However, it's not as good as its reputation, even though it does have a surprisingly high amount of reread value.

8.0 out of 10.