Interview conducted via Email in 2003 by Levi Tinney.

Interviewer: Do you know how much your script was altered to incorporate 
elements from Hellraiser? Is it a substantial change from your original 
work or is just a few added scenes? 

Neil: As a requirement of the Writer's Guild, whenever a script is produced 
and other writers participate, the guild requires that a copy of the final 
shooting script be sent to all participants and a listing of the final 
screen credit as well, so I have read the final shooting script, which I 
assume will bear pretty close resemblance to the final film. 

In addition the script being changed to incorporate the Hellraiser 
mythology, it was also changed in locale from the lower East Side of 
Manhattan to London and Romania. Most painfully of all, the second writer 
felt the need to "sex up" my scare sequences with "boo" moments that they 
did not previously possess because I think such moments suck. 

In broad outline, much of my script is still there. How much of it will 
manage, given the changes in locale, given the accompanying changes in tone 
and dialogue necessitated thereby, given the changes in the scare sequences, 
will actually manage to make it to the screen -- it's hard to say. I frankly 
have little hope. 

Interviewer: Did Pinhead replace a previously existing character or is a 
completely new addition? 

Neil: Pinhead has been brought in as an additional character. As in most 
recent Hellraiser movies (from what I hear - I haven't seen them) -- he does 
not have a large part. 

Interviewer: Have you seen any of the other Hellraiser movies? 

Neil: Yes. I've seen all of them up until the one where they went into 
space -- I think I pretty much gave up on the series at that point. I pretty 
much give up on a horror series when they go into space. 

Interviewer: Have you had any contact with the film-makers whatsoever? 

Neil: None whatsoever. The script, as I indicated, came by way of a WGA 
requirement. I haven't spoken to anyone at Dimension in years. Nor, frankly, 
do I want to. 

Interviewer: Thank you for your time.

Neil: You're very welcome. I hope you understand that I'm not knocking you 
as a fan of the "Hellraiser" movies, but I simply cannot be enthusiastic 
about the process that transformed my script, which had nothing whatsoever to 
do with Hellraiser or the Hellraiser universe into a direct-to-video 
Hellraiser movie. I think, frankly, it was a shocking pissing away of a very 
good script. 



2004 The Hellbound Web