My own Hellraiser Prequel (A Fan Treatment)
Hello Friends:
Now that a new Hellraiser sequel is being filmed by Gary Tunnicliffe under the name Hellraiser: Judgement, I thought I could share here an old fan treatment I wrote for a prequel (I know, I know) to Hellraiser (it would also be directly connected with the to the Hellbound Heart novella through multiple references).
I never gave the treatment a title, and this is over 10 years old, so forgive any errors/typos you may find on it, because English is a second language to me. I gave it a quick editing, but apart from minor formatting/punctuation changes, it’s posted below verbatim from over 10 years ago.
It involved Kircher of course, and I wanted to add something a little less familiar to what readers might expect traditionally from a Hellraiser movie, so I had the action take place in China and added a Chinese cenobite called Geong Si, borrowing heavily from Chinese folklore and Taoism. So, here it is:
HELLRAISER PREQUEL.
Three men enter a London pub to meet with a fourth man, KIRCHER. It is 1976. They’re talking about a LAMENT CONFIGURATION which has just surfaced in Asia. Few there know what it is, but the news comes out nevertheless.
JACK KETCH, JOE SILVA, and SOROKINE are enticed by KIRCHER to travel to Beijing and acquire the box, for it is surely the doorway to pleasure and power they’ve been searching for years. They had already heard about LEMARCHAND’s Box of Sorrows before, and were eager to explore its intricacies. Especially KIRCHER, a long time researcher of all instances related to it.
They travel to Beijing, only to find that the very next day KIRCHER has left the hotel and disappeared. The supposed contact which would lead them to the box’s current owner, fails to show up at the meeting as well. Suspecting that their partner is trying to hold out on them and get the box for himself, they quickly set out to look for him.
Meanwhile, some strange killings happen in the city, which the Communist authorities claim to be related to a Cult of the Rising Sun, of Niponic origin.
Suspecting that it might have something to do with the box, they trace the source of these strange happenings to a village a few miles to the east of Beijing. They now believe that KIRCHER has gone crazy and is, in his frenzied search for the box, trying to pry information using violence.
They finally find their supposed contact in a opium-room, much the worse for nightmares which have assailed him ever since he laid eyes on the Lament Configuration. He tells them that he met KIRCHER, and that he was paid generously for the information of the current box owner’s name and also for his silence. The three are about to accost him, but the owners of the opium-room throw them out; in the confusion, a knife is drawn and the contact is murdered, still with his pipe in his mouth.
They escape the opium-room before the authorities run them in, silently cursing KIRCHER. They know he’s hiding in there somewhere.
JOE SILVA stays behind, and investigates some rumours that he overhears from two old men who run the opium den whisper to one another outside the building. He hears that the killings are somehow related to only one man, but not Kircher; this is claimed to be LAO-JUN, (followers of the Tao consider it to be an emaciation of the Primordial Chaos) accompanied by various Gui (the Chinese term for the spirits of the dead, formed of the negative yin components of the po souls after death).
The 3 decide this was nothing more than supersticious nonsense, and continue to search for KIRCHER. Eventually, he finds them.
They confront him and ask him for the lament configuration, and he gladly gives it to them, claiming he already got what he wanted. The three tie him up, suspicious of his strange carefree attitude, and emaciated features: He wears dark Chinese-style clothes now and has shaved his head and is growing a beard, looking like a Taoist monk.
As they tinker with the box he remains silent, when asked of any clues as to how to open it. They eventually beat him, to no avail. After a few frustrating hours, it is JACK KETCH who finally succeeds in opening the Lament Configuration.
The CENOBITES arrive then, a triad: PINHEAD, the CHATTERER and a third cenobite: GEONG SI.
Of course, they are immediately put in check by the chains that bind them together. KIRCHER laughs maniacally: They have dared to pursue the road to Leviathan’s domain, now there is a price to pay.
Their desires are superfluous now, they are told: their conscious mind could never put into words what their flesh truly wants. The members of the Order of the Gash will quench that thirst.
In the end, KIRCHER is left behind amidst the remains. He is a PUZZLE GUARDIAN now.
10 Years later, we see him talking to FRANK COTTON. He’s telling him how to deal with the CENOBITES… (he tells him all the things that are narrated in the Hellbound Heart novella) how to greet the cenobites, the plate of dove’s heads, the flower petals on the boards, the sublime enlightnment they will bring, beyond his wildest dreams. They read BOLLINGBROKE’s diary and the books on GILLES DE RAIS. He finally asks him if he feels he’s up to the task of walking that road to pleasure, seducing him, enticing him into wanting the box.
Frank’s eyes answer before his voice: ‘Yes‘.
‘Good’, he replies. ‘When you have disciplined yourself and have enough to pay the price I told you, there is someone in Beijing I want you to meet.‘
He’s not selling him the box himself, but through an old man. The same OLD MAN that we see in the beginning of Hellraiser in a Chinese quarter asking “What’s your pleasure, Mr., Cotton?“
THE END
This sounds pretty cool. Do you have a concept drawing of Geong Si?