#38. "Hellraiser: Bloodline" (1996, Yagher)
By Eivind Langdal
14th January 2010

“Directed by Alan Smithee”. Can a film open with four worse words? If you are confused at this very moment, allow me some time to explain. Alan Smithee is not a real person. Since the release of the western Death of a Gunfighter in 1969, it has been the only employable pseudonym for directors who are members of the DGA. Filmmakers from David Lynch to Dennis Hopper have used it, usually because some of their films have been reedited by others than themselves to such an extent that they didn’t feel the finished product was in sync with their visions.

Hellraiser: Bloodline, the fourth film in the saga of Pinhead, was directed by Alan Smithee. It was actually directed by a man called Kevin Yagher, who found his vision of the film to be one not shared by the producers. Much of it was recut, and new screenwriters were brought in to meet the producers demand. The result is the film now available on DVD. The original version does not exist, although a draft of the original script can easily be found online.

It’s hard to discuss films directed by Mr. Smithee in terms of whether or not they stand up to each director’s original vision, mostly because of the simple fact that we rarely get to see the original versions. If it’s a special cut for TV, it’s possible, as we can compare what we’re watching on screen with the version in our shelves, but for the most part, we have to let our imagination fill in the missing pieces. If that isn’t sad, I don’t know what is.

The irony here is that Hellraiser: Bloodline doesn’t feel like an Alan Smithee film. Sure, it’s not a masterpiece, but compared to the previous installment in the saga (the horrendous Hellraiser: Hell on Earth), it’s quite watchable. For starters, there are no Cenobites here throwing CDs or making stupid camera puns. Secondly, Pinhead feels less like a cartoon villain and more like a full-fledged antagonist, which is quite an interesting observation to make, as the third film actually deepened his character somewhat and made a heartfelt attempt at hinting at his inner humanity. In Bloodline, whatever trace of humanity he has left in him is hidden deep within. Surprisingly, it works. Doug Bradley, the man beneath the pins, has really grown into his role.

While Hellraiser: Bloodline is not as finely tuned as the original installment in the series; it betters both the second and third film. In fact, it makes a genuine effort to widen the universe of Pinhead and his cohorts. In fact, it could almost be called “The Godfather: Part II of horror films”, as it acts as both a sequel and a prequel to the previous films. It starts in the distant future, where we met a man called Paul Merchant, who has taken control of a space ship in order to trap Pinhead once and for all. However, before he gets that far, a crew of soldiers boards the ship and captures him.

The soldiers don’t believe Merchant when he tries to protest, which is kind of to be expected, considering that tales of demons and hell are usually hogwash. However, one of them, a woman named Rimmer (in her defense, it’s her surname) is willing to listen, and so the story begins. Most of the film consists of Merchant telling his story, a device also employed in a film you might have heard about: The Usual Suspects. The story told in this film isn’t as interesting, but then again, few are.

It begins in Paris in the late 1700s, when an ancestor of Merchant, the French toymaker Phillip L’Merchand, builds the mysterious box (best known as the “Lament Configuration”) that has the ability to summon demons from Hell. He doesn’t know of the powers it holds, though he gets a pretty clear idea when he delivers it to his client, an aristocrat named Duc de L'Isle, who uses it to summon a demon into the body of a woman named Angelique. The aristocrat is later murdered by his servant, Jacques, and so begins a long struggle between Angelique, who is immortal, and the L’Merchand family, who survives through generations and finally meet Angelique again in the present time when an American descendent of the toymaker, named John Merchant, uses his forefather’s architectural blueprints to build the structure that was seen at the end of the third Hellraiser film.

The film is never confusing with its complex timeline, and although it sometimes feels like it doesn’t know which parts to emphasize, it is never as disjointed as the Alan Smithee moniker would have you believe. While the ambitions of the film aren’t equaled by its production values, they are strong enough to warrant the film as one that is worth seeing for anyone interested in the mythology of the series. Pinhead doesn’t deepen as a character, but the rest of the universe is expanded. Perhaps that’s why much of the film is set in space? They do, after all, call that too the “universe”.