We’ve known for a couple weeks that the Hellraiser remake had new writers, but Variety has finally confirmed it. Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan will do the page one for Dimension and Clive Barker. If Feast remained their primary credit that would be one thing, but I’m wary of any duo responsible for scribbling two of the Saw flicks (4 and 5, in this case), even if Lionsgate’s series is currently the easiest paycheck in cinemas.
Why am I bothering to report this at all? Two reasons: Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo. I really liked their move Inside when I saw it last September, and though I haven’t yet seen it again, it’s really risen in my estimation since then.
(The flick is getting dumped to DVD by Dimension, but at least you’ll be able to see it.)
I think they could be exactly the right people to make Hellraiser fun, sickly and horrific once again. Had my interview with them not been lost to a recorder malfunction, you might have read how they envisioned Inside‘s ostensible protagonist as the villain, and how they relished the awful, awful stuff Beatrice Dalle was so happy to commit in the film. That makes them aces for the retelling of the Cotton family saga; if they were doing the script I’d be all over this. In the meantime I’m willing to be cautiously optimistic based on their involvement.