Baskin Director Can Evrenol Pitched a ‘Hellraiser’ Reboot!

by | Mar 30, 2021

First screened at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 11th, 2015, Baskin is a shocking Turkish horror film that has many parallels with Hellraiser II. It’s of no surprise to hear that director Can Evrenol was actually approached to pitch a Hellraiser reboot to the folks down at Dimension Films, shortly before the films world premier.

Baskin marks Evrenol’s directorial debut, with the film being based on a short film of the same name. The film was independently financed and shot in Istanbul by MO Film and was picked to premier at the 2015 TIFF. It seems that the films reputation spoke for itself, as Evrenol’s was approached by Dimension to revive it’s flagging Hellraiser franchise, even before the films release. 

Chatting with the folks over at the The Rotating Chair podcast, Evrenol spoke about his pitch and how he planned on opening the film. 

Right before Baskins worlds premier in Torronto, XYZ cam to me, the sales agents said “Dimension wants to talk to you about a Hellraiser remake.” We came up with this beautiful opening, we see a statue, a Simerian statue, and it’s face is just like BOOM with a sledgehammer, and it’s broken. We see ISIS vandalizing a museum, an archeological museum. They start killing people… and there’s this other guy who comes in and kills all the ISIS guys. He was one of them and he used them to get into this archeological thing. He opens this door and they go down somewhere, and there’s a sarcophagus. He opens it and in it is a torso… with chains connected. And he says “Hello Dad”. And he breaks the skull like breaking an egg. From the head he brings out the cube… the box!

Despite his creative ideas on the film, the studio decide to go in a different direction. 

We storyboarded this and brought it to Dimension… they listen to my pitch and then nothing came out of it. 

Dimension Studios released the flop Hellraiser: Judgment in 2018, which did little to help the already struggling franchise. But it’s not all doom and gloom.  As of late 2020 though, Clive Barker has regained control of Hellraiser thanks to the same U.S. copyright law employed by Friday the 13th writer Victor Miller, which states that any writer can file a motion to regain control of his/her property after a period of 35 years. 

Barker has not messed around either announcing a reboot by V/H/S and Southbound director David Bruckner, and a TV series by Halloween reboot director David Gordon Green. Sadly, it looks like we will never see Can Evrenol’s version of Hellraiser, but he has hinted that he may well reuse some of his ideas for a Baskin sequel. 

You can watch the entire interview over on The Rotating Chair’s Youtube Channel, on the video below, or you can catch their podcast.

 

Credit to Holiday G for the scoop on this item. Cheers Buddy!

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Let us know your thoughts  in the comments below or on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram! You can also carry on the convo with me personally on Twitter @Lallen_UK

Stay in, Stay Safe, Love Horror!

 

 

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