Hellbound: Hellraiser II
Short description
Kirsty Cotton is confined to a psychiatric hospital following the deaths of her father and stepmother, and her account of what happened to them is dismissed as delusion. The institution's director, Dr. Philip Channard, has spent years investigating the puzzle box and the realm it opens. Convinced that he can reach that dimension, he sets in motion the return of Julia Cotton, Kirsty's stepmother, while Kirsty herself looks for a way to reach her father, whom she believes is held in the same otherworldly place.
Directed by Tony Randel, this was his first feature and the second entry in the series begun with Clive Barker's Hellraiser. Peter Atkins wrote the screenplay, Christopher Figg produced, and the picture was made by British and American companies. Ashley Laurence returns as Kirsty, with Clare Higgins as Julia, Kenneth Cranham as Channard, Imogen Boorman as Tiffany and William Hope as Kyle MacRae.
Released in December 1988, the film was a commercial success on a modest budget, taking several times its cost at the worldwide box office. On IMDb it holds a rating of 6.4 from around 61,000 votes, and on TMDB it has 6.4 from roughly 1,300 votes. A critics' score of 5.9 from 33 reviews places it close to those audience figures. Randel's later films as director include Amityville 1992: It's About Time and Ticks.
What's left behind the scenes
- William Hope recounted that when his mother-in-law and nephew were in London, they asked his permission to come to the set sometime. He didn't object, and they came on the day the mattress scene was being filmed. According to Hope, his mother-in-law was shocked by what she saw, while his nephew enjoyed it.
- Actor Andrew Robinson, who played Larry Cotton in the first installment, refused to appear in the second for financial reasons, which necessitated a rewrite of the original film script.
- The repeating sound that Leviathan makes in the world of the cenobites is the word “god” encoded in Morse code.
- Kenneth Cranham said that he was persuaded to film by his grandson’s urging.
- In the original script, Dr. Kennard was named Malahide. The surname Kennard was chosen due to its similarity to the name of Christian Barnard, the surgeon who performed the world's first successful heart transplant.
- During the filming of one scene, Nicholas Vince received a punch to the jaw. He himself insisted that his character have eyes, which caused some bewilderment among fans of the franchise and discontent. The scene in which he regains his sight was cut from the film during editing, which led to misunderstanding, as he is shown without eyes in the introduction.
- Barker revised the initial script under the influence of Tony Randel and Peter Atkins, who filmed the sequel 'Hellraiser II'. This concerned the scene where Kirsty takes the box from Julia, killed by the Cenobites' hooks. It was necessary to introduce an element connecting the series – a mattress with Julia's blood.
- According to Ashley Laurence, Clare Higgins and William Hope constantly argued over trivial matters during filming, but Ashley couldn't understand the reason for the feud. Many years later, Higgins shared the truth with Laurence: in the 1960s, they studied together, and she was in love with him, seemingly unrequitedly, and therefore deliberately acted coldly to distance herself from those feelings. When Laurence told everything to Hope, it broke his heart, as he also had feelings for her.
- Screenwriter and producer Clive Barker developed the stories of the Cenobites for the first film in the franchise, although their origins remained a mystery to audiences. He intended to show the public at least that the Cenobites were once human, and became demons as a result of their own vicious inclinations. This nuance was supposed to emphasize the stories of the characters played by Oliver Smith and Clare Higgins, and their gradual submission to the sin of lust, with Higgins' character being intended as the main antagonist of the franchise. However, Pinhead proved more popular with audiences and became the central character in all subsequent sequels.
- The script included a detailed backstory for Pinhead, played by Doug Bradley, but it was never included in the film due to budget constraints. It only shows Captain Spencer opening the box and transforming into Pinhead. The story of Captain Spencer/Pinhead was later told in Anthony Hickox’s 'Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth' (1992).
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
