Poche Pictures
e-mail: rich@pochepictures.com
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| "HellBent” is a fan film based on the Pinhead Hellraiser series. A few years ago I had made a fan film based on John Carpenter's Halloween series which became a hit on YouTube. This is a follow-up of sorts, as Pinhead was the British boogeyman answer to America's Michael Myers during the 1980s. Hellraiser caught my eye as a kid because it was different from the slasher fare at the time. Slasher movies had fallen out of favor by 1987 and Hellraiser provided a breath of fresh air with the supernatural creepiness of Pinhead. Frankly, I was never a big fan of the slasher genre as a young horror fan. I could take a shooting but not a stabbing. My preference for horror was limited to John Stanley's Creature Features broadcasts in the San Francisco Bay Area. This meant I watched a lot of the old Hammer Studio movies and Hellraiser seemed a direct descendant of those movies, particularly the ones with demonic overtones. My late uncle Ben got me hooked on Creatures Features when I was a kid. It was a big deal to stay up late to watch the horror movies deemed “too scary” for prime time television. Hellraiser was one of my uncle Ben's favorite movies so in a way this is also an homage to him. “That was delicious,” I remember him saying after we watched it for the first time. I've never read the story on which Hellraiser is based although I've watched all the movies. I did read “The Damnation Game” by Clive Barker. That remains one of the better horror novels on the 1980s that I've read. The short we produced is in line with the Hellraiser/Clive Barker ethos. What I wanted was a kind of hybrid supernatural horror/film noir story. The plot centers around three prostitutes, all of whom have fallen on hard times. Cindy, however, gets hold of a Lamarchand box. The box provides her and her clients with unspeakable pleasures. Word soon gets out that Cindy can provide the hottest sex in town. Her two prostitute girlfriends get curious then jealous, plotting to steal away the box. The box changes hands numerous times with the adage 'a luxury once tasted becomes a necessity.' Once the girls taste the pleasure the box can provide, they absolutely have to have it. Until Pinhead arrives.... So instead of having the same film noir fare of people fighting or scheming over money this is a plot which has the characters trying to steal the Lamarchand box. Each of the women have different motivations just as they have different reasons why they all got into prostitution. They each see something to gain in the possession of the box and are all willing to pay the ultimate price in order to achieve their ends. And like an old school film noir, sex and greed ultimately lead the protagonists down a dark path of murder and self-destruction. |
