FanCam: Hellraiser - What's Your Pleasure? (2015)

Continuing the Clive Barker theme, FanCam takes a look at another Hellraiser fan film. This one is called Hellraiser: What's Your Pleasure? and makes the decision to include a version of the beloved Pinhead character among it's Cenobite roster. H:WYP is smart, though, as are the filmmakers behind it and that potential deflating moment of seeing your Hellbound Hero as portrayed by Leon, the guy that lives down the street is mitigated. This is a little gem, right here. If there was a Pleasantly Surprised Configuration for the puzzle box, then I would have just solved it.


Hellraiser: What's Your Pleasure? was directed by Darren Orange (rhyming with nothing... sorry), and written by Orange, J. A. Dohm and Matt Forbeck. With an 11-minute running time, these guys manage to pack a bunch in. We have our box opening sacrifice, Kim (Ashley Turkowski) getting a mysteriously cube-shaped gift from a well-worn Nick (Jon Goldstein). She promises to open it up later. Oh, and in some genuinely creepy moments, Kim is stalked by a homeless dude (Lucas Thompson). So, as you probably have guessed, Kim opens the box and is confronted by four Cenobites after her bedroom full-on opens up into the Labyrinth. That was cool. One of those Cenobites is Pinhead (played by Harold Dennis, who has an IMDb list a mile long). Dennis manages to give us that Bradley-esque voice and movement, but we never see Pinhead's face... it is all on Kim, with multiple hooks and chains, and over the lead Cenobite's shoulder.

This brings us to the film itself. If it has a flaw, it is in the sound. The production sound was probably spotty and the ADR and foley work really came of as amatuerish. Not a deal killer on FanCam. That leaves the BEST part. This little film was cinematic! Sean Czaja is credited as the cinematographer and he did a great job. It feels like a film, there is depth of field, camera movement, cinematic language... it looks great. That really makes the film. Despite the off sound and largely wooden performances, this is beautiful looking film. Steve Verdino is credited as the effects guru on this show and, once you see Kim's fate, it is well-deserved.

Kudos, Orange and company... they have such sights to show you.