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Scarlet Gospels Would be an Incredible Movie

posted 8 years ago by sinfireram
4 replies | jump to latest

Having recently finished reading The Scarlet Gospels and re-watching every Hellraiser movie shortly afterwards, I honestly believe that it would make an incredible movie, if done correctly. However, with the genre I highly doubt that a proper budget could be raised to do it justice.

Revelations was by far the worst of the franchise, but other than that one, just about all of them contribute to the mythos at least to some degree, as well as how Pinhead can toy with people. However, that being said, they did move somewhat away from the original idea (especially in 7) that they explore the senses to the extreme, into demonic cops, as has been put out in other threads on this forum.

As far as The Scarlet Gospels goes, the story of Pinhead attempting to steal Hell from Lucifer and the events that surround it are truly epic. I saw the "trailer" for Hellraiser: Origins and it definitely produced a much more grand scale than any of the previous Hellraiser movies did, and it looks like it could have even been made in conjunction with The Scarlet Gospels, even though I know it wasn't. Regardless, the grand scale of The Scarlet Gospels will not be able to be portrayed correctly mostly due to budgetary constraints.

If Judgement could be done correctly, even given its extremely generic plot, it could still end up being a good movie. I enjoyed 2, 5, and 6 the most out of the sequels, and in that order as well, and just because Revelations was done so poorly doesn't mean that Judgement will be done poorly as well. I have hopes that they will have at least learned from the previous failure and will make something of it.

All in all, The Scarlet Gospels is most certainly the sequel that Hellraiser deserves, and those of you that haven't read it definitely should. It expands so much on the power of Pinhead and what drives him as a being. However, that being said, I'd imagine that I would be disappointed in it solely because the scale could not be done properly with the money that horror movies can raise. Clive Barker is still the horror icon that he was, and has only gotten better over the years.

[–] rattlehead_1987 8 years ago

Thought the same when i read the book. I would love to see the maze where pinhead finds Lucifer. The Palace on the edge of hell.

Two parts and that would be an awesome Hellraiser movie as a whole!

[–] jerkatron 8 years ago

scarlet gospels was an absolute disaster of a book. the characters are obnoxious cliches with painfully awkward dialogue, pinhead's persona is completely changed, hell goes from the ambiguous pain-and-pleasure realm of leviathan to a tepid ripoff of edward lee's "city infernal", the plot is a meandering travelogue, and the writing is hackneyed and workmanlike to the extent it doesn't feel like barker even wrote it.

--
i SAID good day, sir!

[–] FlyingSaucersAreReal 8 years ago

Glad to see I'm not the only one who liked the Scarlett Gospels. Sometimes it felt like that!

I thought the idea of Hell sort of becoming run down and falling into disorder and listlessness after pretty much being abandoned by Lucifer was a different angle. It wasn't a great book, but there was a lot I liked about it.

Expectations were so high for it though, being Clive Barker's return to the series after all.

-Sitting on a cornflake waiting for the van to come

[–] skeletorramone 8 years ago

I thought the same thing, with all the great physical details of Hell and the cenobites within it would make a great film but the budget they would need would be too high for it to be done well (without CGI).
If you haven't read Clive Barkers recent Hellraiser comics (the road below and the dark watch) I'd recommend them, they are very similar to this book as they contain the same characters and are mainly set in Hell.
Let me know if you need a link to a torrent.