Stephen King and Clive Barker conquered the horror genre independently, but one 1997 omnibus film sought to combine their visions. Quicksilver Highwayis a made-for-TV double-feature that highlights two lesser-known stories by the literary titans. In an era when many horror fans got their fix via Tales From The Crypt, this anthology had an opportunity to use its format to compare King and Barker’s styles. However, whether or not it succeeded in this aim is debatable.
Quicksilver Highway isn’t a scary movie in the traditional sense. There are no jump scares, boogeymen, or deep psychological terrors. Instead, the film is a campy horror-comedy that made body horror more accessible to television audiences. Like many anthologies, the film uses a framing device to connect the two stories. That framing device isAaron Quicksilver (Christopher Llyod), a traveling carnival worker who looks like a poster child for the 90s goth aesthetic. The mysterious performer tells the stories as cautionary tales to people he encounters in his travels.
The first short film adapts Stephen King’s Chattery Teeth. King published this story in 1992, and Quicksilver Highway is its only film adaptation. The framing device sets up the story by introducing Aaron Quicksilver to a young bride on the highway. When they meet, the bride is waiting for her husband to return to their broken-down car. While the bride’s husband searches for repair help, Quicksilver relays the story of traveling salesperson Bill Hogan (Raphael Sbarge).
At a roadside store in the middle of nowhere, Hogan spots a set of wind-up chattering teeth. Although the teeth are inoperable, Hogan finds them strangely charming. The shopkeep gives him the teeth, and Hogan drives into an impending dust storm with his new treasure.
Fatefully, Hogan also picks up a hitchhiker.
Things seem copacetic at first, but the hitchhiker is a vicious killer who fights Hogan for control of his van. After a near-fatal crash, Hogan ends up trapped in his seatbelt while his murderous passenger plots his death. However, the chattering teeth miraculously come to life and save Hogan just in time. This bizarre children’s toy is evil in its own way, but the film demonstrates that enemies are sometimes friends in disguise.
The anthology uses a subtle trick to tie its framing device into this cautionary tale, and audiences might miss it if they aren’t watching closely. The same actor plays Bill Hogan and the bride’s husband, Kerry. When Quicksilver finishes telling the story, Kerry’s abandoned bride discovers he’s been the victim of a car accident. Then, in a weird but funny moment, audiences see the teeth dragging Kerry’s lifeless body off the highway. Given the teeth’s apparent ability to sense evil, it appears the bride wasn’t bound for marital bliss after all.
The second short film adapts Clive Barker’s The Body Politic. While Chattery Teeth highlights an unexpected hero, this story turns something innocuous into something horrific. Clive Barker’s best-known works typically focus on fantastical creatures symbolizing specific characteristics of humanity. However, The Body Politic takes his penchant for disturbia to a new level. Instead of otherworldly beasts, the inhabitants of this tale are beset by their own hands — literally. But first, the film takes Aaron Quicksilver to the setting he knows best: a carnival tent. When a pickpocket wanders into his tent, Quicksilver takes the opportunity to tell him this tale.
The story begins with Dr. Charles George (Matt Frewer), a plastic surgeon whose hands fail him during a procedure. Although the surgery doesn’t go as planned, fans may notice a brief but memorable cameo from Clive Barker himself. Barker plays an anesthesiologist who narrowly misses a flying scalpel thrown by Dr. George’s rogue hands. Afterwards, Barker’s character removes his mask, grins at the camera, and says: “What have I ever done to you?”
Dr. George assumes this mishap is a one-time issue, but things quickly spiral out of control as his hands take on lives of their own. Whereas King’s chattering teeth are a voiceless entity, the doctor’s hands have distinct personalities. While Dr. George sleeps, “Left” and “Right” plot their escape from his body in a series of hilarious conversations. Right emerges as the leader, while Left willingly follows his plan. Unfortunately (but comically), the hands first kill Dr. George’s wife. In the end, Right severs Left from the body and entrusts him with gathering followers.
As the movie descends into chaos, Left follows Dr. George to the hospital and rallies other hands to rebel against their hosts. If Thing from The Addams Family built an army, it would look like Left’s ragtag troop of hands. However, Dr. George has one thing the hands do not: a brain. He tricks all the hands into jumping off the roof, thus ending the revolution. Once again, the film uses one actor to connect the story to its framing device. In this case, Dr. George and the pickpocket from Quicksilver’s tent are the same person. After the story, the pickpocket’s hands get him into trouble by leading him out of the tent and right into police custody.
Without question, the biggest highlight of this film is Christopher Llyod. From the dog collar to the high-heeled combat boots, the Back To The Future actor looks like he stumbled out of a Hot Topic on his way to the film set. His talent for lighthearted comedy makes Aaron Quicksilver more whimsical than scary, but this works with the horror-comedy theme.
As for the stories, Quicksilver Highway is loyal to the Stephen King source material. Chattery Teeth plays almost the same as the short story, right down to the dialogue. For example, the banter between the store owner and his wife perfectly mimics King’s written words. Furthermore, the film lifts the hitchhiker’s annoying insistence on calling Hogan “dude” right off the page. The anthology omits some of the more gruesome moments, but that’s typical of a network television movie.
In the case of The Body Politic, the anthology’s need for speed loses Clive Barker’s message. The story’s Dr. George is actually a manual laborer who spent months dealing with the revolution of his hands. Cutting the story down to fit the film’s runtime removes some compelling instances of internal struggle and puts the focus solely on the rebellious hands. The dialogue between Left and Right is nearly identical between the two works, but their escape is far more satisfyingly macabre in Barker’s short story. The change in pacing and tame depictions of violence makes the Quicksilver Highway version of this story feel much zanier than Barker’s original.
Of course, the biggest question for any anthology is: do these stories function well together? In this format, yes. Both Chattery Teeth and The Body Politic rely on giving sentience to unlikely objects and have an almost fable-like quality. The pacing in both short films is similar, although The Body Politic speeds up more as the story moves along. Both films also rely on comedic elements to lighten the mood, and both share a loose connection through their focus on detached body parts. Although, the anthology’s framing device would have been even more effective if he told both stories from within his carnival tent.
Nevertheless, Quicksilver Highway only works at the expense of Barker’s original story. In many ways, The Body Politic had to bend and stretch to fit the Chattery Teeth mold. Sure, the concept at the heart of The Body Politic lends itself to absurdist interpretation, and this section is enjoyable to watch. However, an anthology can and should have room to capture the unique tones of all of its parts. Instead, Barker’s story takes on a very different style for the sake of continuity. His fiction has a history of poor representation in films, and this anthology is yet another questionable interpretation.
On the whole, Quicksilver Highway feels more like an homage to Stephen King’s style, with some Clive Barker thrown in for novelty. Director Mick Garris is an undisputed expert in short-form King adaptations, so this should not surprise viewers. Garris also directed 1992’s Sleepwalkers, which features an original script by Stephen King and cameos from both authors. Therefore, Quicksilver Highway primarily serves as a reunion for the three filmmakers. It’s not the right horror film for audiences craving a good scare, but it provides an intriguing (albeit small) window into two of the greatest minds in horror.
There are few horror villains as instantly iconic as Pinhead, the lead Cenobite and mercilessly cold master of ultra-violent gratification from the Hellraiser franchise. From the moment he first appeared in 1987’s Hellraiser, directed by Clive Barkerand based on his short story “The Hellbound Heart,” he captured something indelible in the horror imagination. How could audiences not be enthralled by his unique fetish-wear inspired style and face adorned with pins in a manner akin to ritualistic mutilation?
As a clergyman in The Order of the Gash, Pinhead’s moral ambiguity (“angels to some, demons to others”) would eventually give way to a more staid slasher-esque malice, but the magnetism of that initial appeal was retained through Doug Bradley‘s committed performance. The newest Hellraiser reboot will bring Pinhead back from hell, this time portrayed by Jamie Clayton. It’s an exciting prospect, although I can’t help but wish for the return of the true villain of the first two films, the woman who was supposed to be front-and-center in Hellraiser until Pinhead stole the show.
The Cenobites aren’t in Hellraiser all that much. For the majority of the running time, the most enthralling antagonist of the film is Julia Cotton, played by award-winning stage actress Clare Higgins. A bored housewife who has moved with her bland husband Larry (Andrew Robinson) to his childhood home, she yearns for her former lover, her brother-in-law Frank (Sean Chapman) who went missing years ago. A sadomasochist who had grown bored with regular old kink, Frank bought a puzzle box that promised to open up a new world of unprecedented thrills. Out came the Cenobites, whose non-existent borders between pleasure and pain left Frank a bloody pile of viscera in Larry’s attic. It takes very little effort for Frank to convince Julia to help him become whole again, a process that requires multiple murders.
Befitting a Clive Barker adaptation, Hellraiser revels in depicting the ways that one can be consumed by obsessive craving. Frank’s descent into hell seems almost mundane compared to Julia’s narrative, one that is as intrigued by female agency as it is by deviant desire. It’s easy to sympathise with her at first as a dissatisfied housewife with a clueless other half whose only joy in life comes from reminiscing about an affair with a man who, at best, seems like a controlling creep. She chooses the carnal over the content, picking the dangers of Frank and all that his resurrection entails. She invites a series of gormless men to her home to pick them off one by one with a hammer, a task that becomes increasingly easy with each victim. She soon evolves from a timid figure to a power-dressing capital B Bitch, a thoroughly ‘80s woman with padded shoulders and murderous Annie Lennox styling. Her slide into villain is so seamless that it makes Frank’s derangement look like amateur hour by comparison. You wonder why she even needs Frank in the first place.
Well, she doesn’t. Frank glibly kills her off in Hellraiser’s climax in a moment of almost fleeting violence that reveals how he viewed her as an end to his vile means. But, as horror films have taught us, you can’t keep a good villainess down, and Julia made a swift and bloody return in Hellbound: Hellraiser 2. This time around, Larry’s daughter Kirsty (Ashley Laurence) is stuck in an asylum with a doctor who wants to raise Julia from the dead so that he can satisfy his own obsession with the puzzle box. Julia returns (now with longer hair and a fabulous full-length gown) and any previous qualms she may have possessed have turned to dust after her experiences in the other realm.
The Hellraiser franchise has never been as sexually voracious as its reputation (or that of Barker) suggests. The violence has always taken first place over anything more sensual, and we see this in Julia. She goes after what she wants and uses her beauty to do so but she isn’t as ravenous as you’d first think. She doesn’t sleep with any of the men she brings home to kill. Indeed, she seems put off by the entire prospect of sex unless it’s with Frank (and we never see her get it on with his skinless corpse – thanks a lot, 1980s movie standards — but there is a scene where she sucks on Frank’s epidermal-free fingers). By Hellbound, she doesn’t seem interested in sex at all. Her pleasure comes from luring in the men who see women like her as useful props. Here, she goes full fairy-tale villain, sucking men dry with a deadly kiss, taking a jab at Kirsty by calling her step-daughter Snow White, and ripping Frank’s heart straight from his chest. She goes from being eagerly dominated by Frank to all but crushing him under her heel.
The Cenobites are undoubtedly alluring, the end result of humans who made the darkest deal with forces they could not hope to comprehend. In Hellbound, we see how Pinhead came to be and the glimpse into his past grounds his ambiguous duties in something painfully familiar. Yet the first two films keenly center those who are still human, like Julia. Later movies would essentially turn the Cenobites into kill-heavy figures like Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees, that crucial foundation of mundanity stripped from the equation. Julia’s presence is potent because her trail to inescapable deviance is incredibly easy to understand.
It takes so little for one of us to succumb to the taboo. For Pinhead, the horrors of war he experienced as a soldier drove him to ruin well before he opened the puzzle box. Julia’s biggest crime before her murder spree was adultery, fuelled by a desperate urge to be more than yet another dissatisfied woman. Why be the wicked stepmother when you can be the evil queen? By the second film, she’s experienced the worst of what both worlds have to offer and she has no plans to be a sacrificial lamb. Who could blame her? As a villain, her satisfaction comes less from the almost pitiful act of murder than the glint in her eyes as she shows eager men the hell they face.
Clive Barker had plans to make Julia the recurring villain of the series but Clare Higgins knew that fans preferred Pinhead and company to her so she bowed out and returned to television and stage work in the UK. It’s a shame because the franchise never truly recovered after she was dragged into the vortex without her skin. An increasing number of boring protagonists opening the box for presumed pleasures without the hook of human allure quickly became dull. Still, Julia got the last laugh as one of the great evil queens of horror cinema. Those who take the time to revisit the realm of Hellraiser may quickly find themselves following her lead.
Horror villains that touch upon elemental fears lend themselves to endless reinterpretation. Among recent horror icons, Pinhead stands out as a character capable of reaching the greatest heights of the monster pantheon alongside icons like Dracula and Frankenstein. No matter how cheap the production is around him, Pinhead’s presence stokes cautionary fears of the dangers of excess in his audience. Even at his reputedly lowest point, 2011’s Hellraiser: Revelations, the strength of Pinhead’s concept as a character allows him to transcend the limitations of a contentious production.
Upon its release in 1987, Hellraiser proved instantly iconic. Douglas Bradley’s performance as Pinhead added an ineffable quality of malice to the outré character design of the demon devoted to pleasure and pain. Created as homage to the underground gay S&M scene in 80s London, Pinhead’s look and indulgences instilled a sheen of taboo to a genre already beset by attacks from conservative audiences in the Video Nasties era. Even after the culture milieu that birthed him passed, Pinhead lingered on, capturing the hearts of subsequent generations of genre fans. Much of the franchise’s appeal appeared to rest on Bradley’s capable performance as the spikey-headed antihero. The actor became as much part of the series’ appeal as its main antagonist.
However, as the years went on the franchise was beset by diminishing returns and faced an existential crisis in 2011. With the expiration of their rights to the character looming, the Weinstein Company hurried a new sequel into production in lieu of creating a proper remake. The film was completed in less than three weeks. The results drew the ire of Hellraiser visionary Clive Barker. He publicly and profanely ridiculed the picture. Bradley declined to return to his iconic role and dismissed the film. In his estimation, the filmmakers were not making a serious attempt to resurrect the franchise. Pinhead’s relevance faced its first real test: could the character survive the departure of the actor that made him iconic?
Moviegoers answered in the negative, revolting against what many viewed as a cash-grab. Revelations received a laughably low 2.7 rating on IMDB. The few critics that did review the film cited Bradley’s absence as a major drawback. However, many longtime fans dismissed the picture because of their outrage over Bradley’s departure without engaging with it on its own merits. While undoubtedly flawed, Revelations possesses many of the qualities that drew audiences to the franchise in the first place. Chief among these is Pinhead’s chilling presence.
Revelations screenwriter Gary J. Tunicliffe previously worked on the Hellraiser franchise as a makeup artist. Given his professional background, viewers might have expected the first-time screenwriter to focus solely on Hellraiser’s gory excesses. Instead, Tunicliffe devised a solid premise. Revelations’ scenario plays like The Exterminating Angelmeets Pinhead, which gives the monster a solid showcase for his particular strengths.
The plot concerns the Craven and Bradley families meeting for dinner to mark the one-year anniversary of their respective sons’ disappearances while on a trip in Mexico. During the course of the evening, Emma Craven discovers a puzzle box among her missing brother’s affects and unwittingly unleashes Pinhead and his minions.
As the Cenobites make their presence known, the Hell dimension’s magic cuts off communication with, and access to, the outside world. The Cravens and Bradleys’ desperation increases as the hopelessness of their predicament sets in. In true Hellraiser fashion, no victim is entirely innocent. As the families begin to turn on each other, their darkest secrets are revealed. Before a chain hook can rip apart a throat, their simmering tensions boil over, ultimately sealing their fate.
Whether this premise succeeds or not depends entirely on the menace of the Cenobites. Thankfully, director Victor Garcia chose to pour much of the film’s paltry budget into makeup effects, doing the demons justice. The harried production put every hurdle possible in the way of Revelations, and yet the pleasure demons overcome Revelations behind-the-scenes limitations to deliver the genre thrills fans’ crave.
While Revelations conjures up some of Hellraiser’s horror magic, its detractors are not entirely wrong. Inarguably, Stephan Smith Collins, the actor who stepped into the role of Pinhead, lacks Bradley’s poise and somberness. When his voice proved less-than-intimidating, another actor, Fred Tatasciore, dubbed Collins vocals to add a layer of menace. Despite these drawbacks, Collins’ turn as Pinhead still leaves an impression. His leering presence, at home among the gore-laden hooks of the Hell-dimension Pinhead calls home, hits with maximum impact when presented in the Cravens’ bourgeoisie living room. Once the blood begins to flow, Pinhead’s otherworldly presence makes the unfolding horrors linger well after the credits roll.
Therein lies the power of the Hellraiser franchise. The taboos the Cenobite represent escape from the margins of our culture and seep into our daily lives to disrupt the fictions of respectability we strive to maintain. Collins imbues Pinhead with the requisite zeal for punishment that makes the character a dark mirror of our own worst impulses. While Collins’ performance may not go down as an all-time great, it proves that Pinhead’s appeal is bigger than the actor portraying him. Fans that were quick to dismiss the picture should re-evaluate its ranking among Hellraiser’s numerous sequels. The terror of Barker’s original conceit shines through the cheap effects and amateurish production, making a strong case for Pinhead as one of the great, archetypal horror villains. Like Dracula or Frankenstein, the elemental horror Pinhead represents remains undiminished despite being rushed, monetarily restricted, and hobbled by ill studio intent.
Revelations manages to touch upon the universal fear that underpins Barker’s premise. If new iterations of Hellraiser can reinterpret Barker’s allegory in a way that speaks to our own fraught times, the franchise can free itself from direct-to-video purgatory and return to the forefront of horror cinema. Though imperfect, Revelations proves that Pinhead has the staying power of the great cinematic monsters. Even if these new reboots fail, it won’t belong before other creatives find themselves drawn to the property. Like Pinhead’s victims, the allure of Cenobites’ parable will prove too great for creators to let old demons ever die.
The 1986 Clive Barker adaptation Rawhead Rex spent decades derided by critics, and more famously, Barker himself. But the two chief complaints—that it’s a schlocky monster movie and that it lacks the socio-cultural and psychological underpinnings of the short story—don’t hold up to a critical viewing. In fact, Rawhead Rex is an excellent horror film because it works both as a B-movie creature feature and because its folk horror underpinnings suggest something much deeper.
Rawhead Rex is about an ancient god accidentally awakened by farmers in Ireland. Writer Howard Hallenbeck (David Dukes) is in the town of Rathmore researching pre-Christian sacred sites when he blunders into the resulting chaos. He’s forced to piece together the mystery of Rex’s only vulnerability by solving a riddle posed by the local church’s improperly assembled stained glass windows.
Even if you accept Barker’s complaint that all the subtext has been stripped away from his short story, you can still appreciate Rawhead Rex on a purely surface level. It’s a perfect drive-in movie about a big-ass monster who goes around tearing Irish people’s arms off. It’s a nimble 89 minutes, chugging along at the pace of a runaway train, only slowing down now and then to let Hallenbeck contemplate the windows. Ronan Wilmot as verger Declan O’Brien spectacularly overacts while Rex’s influence slowly drives him mad. “God?! Ah-hahahah! He IS God!”
It’s valid to criticize the design of the Rawhead creature. It’s overly stiff, keeping his expression frozen in a rictus of rage. And yet, what other expression would an avatar of destruction and death wear? When his eyes glow red, or when cinematographer John Metcalf captures him triumphantly backlit by the moon, you’re reminded what Rex means in Latin. He looks mighty, that massive horse noggin and frizzy metalhead mullet swinging back and forth, his teeth permanently soaked in gore. Rawhead also likes to strike in broad daylight—the boldness of his savagery itself is a bit terrifying.
Much of Rawhead’s brutality from the short story is toned down, but he still murders a child right in front of the child’s father. The camera turns away here, a classic case of the imagined being far more explicit than anything the filmmakers could get away with on screen. Not that there’s no gore—there are sufficient severed limbs and splattered entrails to satisfy Saturday night popcorn munchers. So if you’re just in the mood to watch a latex monster chomp victims 80s style, put the Jiffy Pop on the stove and fire up the Blu-ray player.
But Barker, whose opinion of the movie soured more and more over the years until he stopped talking about it altogether, felt bitterly aggrieved that the director, “didn’t give a shit about the story’s underlying psychology.” This frustration famously inspired Barker to write and direct Hellraiser (1987) himself rather than let anyone else take the reins. So we can thank Rawhead Rex (and an earlier misfire, 1985’s Underworld) for that much, at least.
Let’s back up for a minute. The producers and even director George Pavlou have outright said they were just making a monster movie. So how can I argue that it’s full of folk horror subtext? Because by taking out Barker’s overt discussions of masculine and feminine power, they made viewers dig for it and created a mysterious backstory that’s never fully explained. That ultimately becomes more compelling than the version written by Clive Barker, which was of a slasher satire with Rawhead representing negative aspects of masculinity (what we’d call “toxic”) in a grotesquely literal way. As Barker put it in a 1987 interview, “Basically, I wrote a story about a ten foot prick which goes on the rampage.” And he was mad that they didn’t make Rex resemble a penis.
Now, the monster does look a bit goofy at times, but imagine how ludicrous that would have looked? Making him massive, muscular, and driven by perpetual rage, they let him embody masculine destructiveness without him wearing a little sign on his forehead reading, “I AM A SYMBOL FOR PHALLIC ENERGY.” The viewer has to piece together Rex’s motivations from odd clues, like his refusal/inability to murder a defenseless pregnant woman after slaughtering her husband, or the way he devotes extra attention to trashing a kitchen, a symbol of domesticity and a locus of traditional feminine power.
One of the key elements of folk horror is the undermining of modern Christian values. The dawning realization that what you thought was the immovable bedrock of law and Christianity has something beneath it—something older, darker, and more powerful. Pagans! Witches! Demons! Or whatever it was that people worshipped before the Romans came along (or before the Augustinian Mission around 600 AD, anyway). “He was here before Christ. Before civilization. He was king here!” Declan screams.
Rawhead’s rampage overwhelms modern order. Not even a squad of police officers can stop him. The church has no hold on him either—Rex walks right into the chapel and attacks the Reverend, batting away objects of holy power that would stonewall your average Dracula.
In what might be cinema’s most revolting baptism scene, Declan—and then later Detective Gissing (Niall O’Brien)—becomes a Rawhead acolyte. This offers another mystery to decipher, as it isn’t entirely clear why or how certain men become Rawhead thralls. Reverend Coot places his hand on the altar the same as Declan did when he was taken over by Rex, but Coot stays true. Gissing’s partner doesn’t become a thrall, nor does Hallenbeck.
What do the thralls have in common? Gissing displays a short temper and an inflexible approach to his work. We barely meet Declan before he’s enthralled, so there’s little to go on beyond perhaps a lascivious glance with a parishioner. Toxic masculinity? Could be. Like I said, the movie leaves us on our own for much of this—to its benefit! One wonders why teen Andy—who seems perpetually angry at his girlfriend’s younger brother and relentlessly pressures her for sex—didn’t become an acolyte, as he’s clearly toxic as hell. Perhaps he would have if Rex hadn’t torn his arm off.
Gissing meets his end on his knees before Rex, crying out, “For you! For you!” even as he’s burning to death. It’s a very folk horrorish sacrifice, and a bold callback to The Wicker Man (1973).
“Death goes in fear of what it cannot be,” states the very loose translation of the Latin on the church window. Hallenbeck interprets this, finally, as Rawhead’s vulnerability to the act of creation itself, embodied by the feminine power to create new life. Rawhead Rex is an avatar of destruction. It’s all he does. It’s literally all he can do. In the pagan era, he was a god with a limited, yet potent, purview. But notice that the Christians hid away the feminine power totem as well.
Rex is finally undone by Hallenbeck’s wife Elaine wielding said feminine fertility totem. Only other Old God stuff can stop Rex, not Christianity. The ending stinger of Rex popping up from his grave is much maligned as a pointless jump scare, but let the idea play out. Rex wasn’t truly defeated because Mrs. Hallenbeck simply wasn’t feminine enough. Remember, Rex’s worldview is inherently conservative, with his version of masculinity based on violence, hunting, death, and war. By his standard, modern women are utterly corrupted by sexual and economic equality. They are insufficiently feminine to truly be his antithesis.
Rawhead Rex’s unexpected depth is the product of its own twisting genesis, the child of a script with a little too much meaning and some producers intent on carving away as much “meat” as they could shave. Maybe Rawhead is big, dumb, and blank enough that I can project meaning onto the entity when I need something more than Big Monster Go RAWR. Or maybe his vision of a savage old world ruled by unstoppable bestial fury gets under my skin. In the end, I may never know for sure if this is because it scares me or enthralls me—and which response bodes better for future fans of the film.
This post on the Friday the 13th lawsuit was updated on October 2, 2021, to reflect the current status of the Horror Inc. v Miller case. It also now includes information on the 2021 Cunningham v Paramount lawsuit.
Before Pamela Voorhees and a version of Jason that might have been an apparition graced our silver screens, writers and studios exchanged words, contracts, and agreements to create the massive hockey mask franchise we know and love. It was here that Victor Miller either penned Friday the 13th and sold it to a studio or worked on the project as their employee. This all-important fact remains unclear as the ongoing legal battle for Friday the 13th ownership trudges on.
Behind every cry for an update to Friday the 13th: The Game – from Stephen King’s hellish book idea to every scream for another Voorhees reboot – is a complicated legal battle for Voorhees ownership that could go all the way to the Supreme Court. With other franchise shakeups, like the recent filing to reclaim Hellraiser, horror fans have lots of questions as to the fate of their beloved long-running franchises, ones this article will endeavor to answer.
Sometime before the 1980 release, Paramount Pictures got their hands on the rights to Friday the 13th, releasing horror movies in rapid succession (like its cohorts in the slasher boom of the time) until eventually selling the property to New Line Cinema. The rights are now in the hands of the original film producer and director, Horror Inc. / Sean S. Cunningham. Victor Miller, the writer of the original screenplay, has evoked a 1976 slice of copyright law to get the rights to his script back.
According to US Copyright law, 35 years after the copyright is sold, one has the option to terminate the sale and have the copyright revert back to them. The United States Copyright Act of 1976 (“Copyright Act”) Section 17 U.S.C. 203 provides that:
Termination of the grant may be effected at any time during a period of five years beginning at the end of thirty-five years from the date of execution of the grant; or, if the grant covers the right of publication of the work, the period begins at the end of thirty-five years from the date of publication of the work under the grant or at the end of forty years from the date of execution of the grant, whichever term ends earlier.
SECTION 17 U.S.C. 203
More simply, an author who sells the copyright to their work can formally request a reversion of those rights (to get their copyright back) after 35 years have lapsed. This rule was added in 1976 by Congress with the intention to protect creators from unequal bargaining power. They wanted to add the termination clause due to “the unequal bargaining position of authors, resulting in part from the impossibility of determining work’s value until value has been exploited.”
In 2016, Miller, per the requirements in the law, sent notice of termination of the copyright for Friday the 13th. Unable to reach an agreement, director Sean Cunningham filed a lawsuit to deem the termination invalid.
What Argument is Cunningham Making to Keep Friday the 13th?
Cunningham submitted to the court that Miller was, in fact, an employee at the time of the writing of the script, and therefore, never owned the copyright in the first place. Therefore, he cannot ask for it back. Herein lies the key issue in the case: was Miller an employee when he wrote the script, or an independent contractor who completed the work for hire? The former would mean he never owned the copyright and has no claim to it now; the latter would mean that he initially owned, then sold, the copyright, allowing him to trigger the reversion clause.
There’s some confusion about what it means to have been an employee at the time of the creation of the work. To decide if someone was an “employee,” the courts analyze whether work completed was “work for hire,” meaning, while it was maybe completed by an independent contractor, it was directly commissioned in a way that created an “employee” like relationship.
The “employee” qualification can be applied differently for different reasons, which is what happened in the Appeals decision. The courts distinguished between the use of the WGA membership (which Cunningham argued to justify the “employee” relationship to block the termination) to allow Miller to be considered an “employee” for the sake of employment law, but not allow it to have bearing on copyright law.
What’s the Status of the Friday the 13th Litigation So Far?
At the trial level – where the facts of the case are heard in full – it was decided that Miller did own the initial copyright, was not an employee, and therefore has a claim to the copyright now. He was granted ownership of Friday the 13th. The court made a summary judgment that the facts were not in dispute, then applied the law, deciding in favor of Miller.
Horror Inc. / Cunningham appealed.
In an appeal, you are not able to retry the facts. You are only able to argue that the initial trial judge made an error of law, and present your position that, but for the error, the case would be decided differently. Thus, the appeal court is only deciding on the application of the law to the facts, as the trial judge concluded the facts are not in dispute.
Sean Cunningham and Horror Inc.’s appeal was based on their position that the trial judge erred in not considering WGA membership – the Writer’s Guild of America, the union screenwriters can belong to – when considering the “Reid Factors,” the factors that decide if Miller was an employee or contractor in the case linked above.
This was heard before the Second Circuit Court of Appeals on February 13th, 2020 and the decision was released on September 30th, 2021. The audio of the trial suggested that the courts were not buying Cunningham’s argument and are leaning towards deciding in favour of Miller. (Though anyone who’s litigated in their life knows this is never a reliable factor, judges are truly difficult to read).
The riveting audio is available here – thanks, Larry Zerner – and you can get a really exciting peek into the world of appellate litigation, otherwise known as the terrifying exercise of meticulously preparing perfect oral arguments but then getting interrupted by the judges until you run out of time.
In their decision, the court reaffirmed the trial decision and decided in favor of Miller, allowing the termination and granting him rights to the original script. There is still the ability to appeal to the Supreme Court, though scholars don’t think it will be certified and heard. Presumably, the studio will push for a Supreme Court hearing, or will otherwise work to negotiate some sort of rights split.
There was a long delay in getting this decision and there are a few possibilities as to why. Unfortunately, one of the three judges, Ralph K. Winter, passed away the end of 2020. Since the decision requires a majority vote, it’s possible that it was split and Judge Winter’s vote was in the majority. That would mean the votes are now 1-1 and the case will go undecided and need to be reheard or sent to another court.
It’s also possible the delay is because Judge Winter was the judge writing the decision (one judge usually writes the long decision and the others “concur” or “dissent.”). As our friend, Larry Zerner, pointed out, if this is the case, another judge with a hefty workload might need to start drafting a decision in Judge Winter’s stead, which is a substantial undertaking.
The other possibility is that the COVID delays have just kicked this out of priority. Court systems worldwide have had delays as a result of lockdown logistics and it’s increasingly difficult to predict timelines. We’ll just have to wait to see what’s next.
What About the Friday the 13th Video Games?
Friday the 13th: The Game has left a lot of people wondering how the game was able to launch but downloadable add-ons were halted. The simple answer is timing. The game was created and launched in May of 2017 while the rights were still securely in hands. As the battle trudges on, no more Friday the 13th media can be made. So, they can continue to exist, but not be updated.
A key element in the game that separates it from Mortal Kombat is the ownership of Jason Voorhees, the hockey mask clad slasher. Jason appeared in a 2015 DLC of Mortal Kombat X (before the notice of termination) and has not yet appeared in Mortal Kombat 11, raising lots of questions as to whether the legal battle would kill the possibility.
At this point, while the parties have yet to decide on how to split the rights, it would be risky to create any Friday the 13th franchise media that could lean on any lore from the first film.
So Who Owns Jason Voorhees?
This one’s a doozy. Those who know (sorry, Casey Becker, but you don’t know) understand that Jason Voorhees, the undead giant, didn’t exist until Part II, and the hockey mask wearing zombie adjacent penultimate version of the slasher didn’t come to be until Part III. The trial judge opted not to decide on the ownership of the character of Jason Voorhees (nor was this issue contemplated in the Appeal decision). To consider it, you have to drill down what’s in question here: the ownership of the original Friday the 13th script, not the sequels.
So what’s in the original script? Well, a lot. Camp Crystal Lake, Pamela Voorhees and her perhaps deceased son, and a zombie kid in the water that may or may not have been a dream. Speaking of dreams, this means all your fan theories about Friday the 13th canon and whether that is, in fact, Jason in the water at the end of Part I actually matter now, LEGALLY.
As it stands, the courts have not decided on Jason Voorhees as we know him, so an isolated and alienated Voorhees could exist with no backstory on his own, like he might in a Mortal Kombat game. The assumption is that now that the issue of the Part I script is decided (subject to any appeals to the Supreme Court), Miller and Cunningham will drill down into the franchise rights on their own and find a fair split. Though, since these two litigious fellas seem to be pushing towards the Supreme Court after four years of not reaching a settlement, it’s possible they’ll drag that piece of the puzzle on.
Though dragging it on could mean more time without a Jason movie, it’s a pretty nuanced issue that would be interesting to have decided by the courts. As it stands, it is unclear who would own an extended franchise based on an original sold work after this termination clause is invoked.
Will We Get Another Another Jason Movie?
Don’t hold your breath. The quickest route to a new Jason movie is if Cunningham and Miller accept the court’s decision and decide not to continue through the courts. As this will be a precedent-setting case, it’s safe to assume other studios and copyright owners have interest in the outcome, and will want this to be decided by the Supreme Court. There is no guarantee they’ll hear the case, but it’s safe to assume Cunningham will try. It’s also possible that studios and the WGA will file amicus briefs in order to pile on arguments should this be heard by a higher court.
Some further thoughts on the Victor Miller/Sean Cunningham case: People are wondering why the two can't work things out and reach a deal. Putting aside the issue of whether Victor is legally able to terminate the agreement, the remaining issues are very complicated 1/
Then the next step to a quick Jason flick is the two deciding on the ownership of Jason Voorhees. As Larry Zerner broke down in the above Twitter thread, the elements of the franchise are numerous and overlapping. Since they haven’t reached an agreement yet, we can assume there will be a messy debate moving forward. There is also the new Cunningham v Paramount case, discussed below, which is another barrier between us and a new Jason movie. This will likely come down to risk and leverage.
What Risks Are Associated With Another Jason Movie?
With the court’s decision, Miller has won the rights to Part I only, and Jason remains a confusing entity. Presumably, Cunningham will grip every remaining facet of the franchise he still holds onto. Should this remain tied up, that means no more movies, and that means Miller and Cunningham might both have cases for diminishing values.
This issue hasn’t been brought up in the case just yet, but the value of a franchise changes over time; while things are tied up in courts, a franchise owner could be losing possible value. Since the Halloween movies are making a comeback, and other slasher franchises like Scream and Hellraiser (more on that later) are making comebacks, there’s an argument to be made that Jason is more valuable now than he will be in a few years, or even that his value has already started to diminish since the beginning of this litigation.
This was explored recently in the case of a documentary being made about The Room.Tommy Wiseau sued the filmmakers of said documentary, tying the documentary up in court, killing their 2017 release date. This was a Canadian case and not exactly applicable here, but the takeaway is that the filmmakers intended to release their documentary at the same time as James Franco’s The Room drama, The Disaster Artist. At the time of that film’s release, interest in The Room was at its highest, and since Wiseau’s case delayed the release of the documentary, the filmmakers had a case against Wiseau for what they lost.
The US and Canada do differ a bit here, but the argument for diminishing value can apply. These are usually only triggered in bad faith circumstances, so it would be a difficult one to argue, though it is more and more relevant as Halloween sequels cash in at the box office.
The other risk comes to either party proceeding with Friday the 13th media using the elements they each own. As it stands, it would be risky to proceed with any media as the battle for Jason rages on, and should Jason remain with Cunningham, he’d have to produce only media that doesn’t reference any lore from Part I.
My presumption is this will all come down to a split or licensing fees. I don’t assume that Miller has any intention to spark a separate franchise arising from the results of his original script alone and probably wants to own his piece to license it out to Cunningham, who will retain ownership of the rest of the franchise (for now). But Cunningham also knows that his success or failure could result in precedent-setting cases that will shake up the ownership of lots of copyright, so there’s more skin in the game than just what Pamela Voorhees has peeled off.
What Does The New Cunningham and Paramount/Warner Bros. Suit Mean?
On January 29, 2021, The Hollywood Reporter shared that Cunningham has launched a lawsuit against Paramount and Warner Bros over the net profits of the Friday the 13th series. This suit is completely separate from the one between Cunningham and Miller, though elements of them could end up related.
This suit is only with respect to the licensing of Cunningham’s rights to the studio for the 2009 Friday the 13th remake. Cunningham is alleging that Paramount and Warner Bros used “improper deductions of fees and bonuses, undervalued licenses, an underreporting of merchandizing revenue and pay TV income, and on and on,” in calculating the amount owed to Cunningham for licenses to Friday the 13th. Further, he alleges that Paramount and Warner Bros redacted the license agreements preventing him from getting a clear picture of the flow of money, stating they “withheld documents would reveal that the Pictures’s distribution was structured to inequitably advance the interest of Defendants (the studios) and favored third parties.”
Speculating without having read the claim, it appears Cunningham is alleging that Paramount and Warner Bros engaged in “Hollywood accounting,” which lead to him not getting the fullest payout for his licensing. Cunningham would have licensed the Friday the 13th rights (as they existed at the time of the remake) to the studios for the 2009 film. Licensing agreements vary, but we can assume this one granted Cunningham a percentage of profits, which he is alleging were fudged by their accounting resulting in him getting paid less than he feels he was entitled.
What Is Hollywood Accounting?
“Hollywood accounting” is a name given to how studios often engage in creative bookkeeping to ensure their movies appear to have not been profitable. Essentially, movies are set up as corporations, and every expense can be counted as against profit. This includes things like travel, marketing, and any number of expenses a project can incur, including money paid to the studio and its executives.
This accounting can affect how agreements for gross profits are paid out. Often, cast and crew have contracts with the studio that include payment in the form of a percentage of the film’s profits. If a movie shows no or low profits, these payouts can be minimal or non-existent. It’s alleged that studios often engage in creative accounting to divert the gross to pay for things like bonuses or other studio expenses which can deem a project unprofitable. This greatly affects how much is paid out to those with profit percentages payouts in their contracts.
This has been the subject of lawsuits before. Return of the Jedinotoriously has made no profit. Famously, Peter Jackson and Wingnut Films sued New Line Cinema, along with actors and Tolkien’s estate, for their gross percentage payouts. According to New Line’s accounting, The Lord of the Rings trilogy made no profits. Similar suits were launched for Harry Potter, Fahrenheit 9/11 and My Big Fat Greek Wedding.
Cunningham is really coming for Hollywood’s jugular, engaging in precedent setting battles for copyrights and profit shares. In his newest suit, there’s more precedent and I would bet it will be settled out of court, as compared to his ongoing suit with Miller. That said, if he is passionate about the precedent setting cases in which he’s engaged, he might be motivated to take this one all the way to the finish line.
Will this Further Delay Friday the 13th Media?
It might.
This is all speculative, but Cunningham knows his legal rights to the franchise’s future are in limbo. There might have been risk in targeting the studio while the rights to make more Friday the 13th media were still in hand. For instance, Peter Jackson refused to work with New Line while his case was proceeding, and he was therefore not asked to direct The Hobbit. Since Cunningham’s rights and therefore, the franchise, are in legal limbo, he has little to lose in choosing to tackle the studio now. He’s also potentially avoiding any possible allegations for diminishing value since no one can make more Friday the 13th media right now anyway.
As far as this speaks to delay, it’s possible the studio and/ or Cunningham might not engage in any more licensing deals for the Friday the 13th rights. This could either mean further delay in getting more media, or it might have been a strategic move on Cunningham’s part to exploit the existing delay to get this matter heard. If the Miller case is resolved, I would bet the parties would be motivated to settle this matter quickly and jump on making a new film rather than it being a further source of delay.
How Does this Apply to Clive Barker and the Hellraiser Franchise?
Last month, Clive Barker, writer of the original Hellraiser, sued for a declaratory judgment that he can terminate his copyright transfer and regain the franchise.
Another thanks to our pal, Larry Zerner, who pointed out that this would only come into effect 35 years after the original 1986 sale (in 2021). Until then, filmmakers are in the clear with the rights they currently own.
As of April 2020, Spyglass Media Group is developing a Hellraiser “reboot” with director David Bruckner and writers Ben Collins and Luke Piotrowski. HBO is also developing a television series with David Gordon Green and Danny McBride (among others) who were key players in the very successful Halloween reboot. As far as these projects go, they will be free and clear if they drop before December 2021, a potential challenge given the ongoing production delays as a result of COVID-19 lockdowns.
What About Other Popular Horror Franchises?
The “what’s next?” of it all is certainly the most interesting question. What’s important to know is that this clause was written with the expressed intention of getting copyrights back to the original owners, as of right, so their success is to be expected. Cunningham’s argument, if successful, would raise a lot of issues with WGA protection of writers. It could potentially be dangerous for screenwriters, and it’s possible the WGA would step in and could look to Congress.
In 2019, Wes Craven’s estate quietly took back the rights to Nightmare on Elm Street. The Friday the 13th case decision will certainly be something studios are dancing around in a panic. Clive Barker is being represented by Marc Toberoff, a lawyer most known for representing Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster in the ongoing fight for ownership of Superman. Toberoff represented the estate of Jack Kirby in the battle for ownership of comic characters like the X-Men, Hulk, and Thor. He is also currently representing multiple estates in a termination claim as against Marvel Comics started in September 2021.
That he is notable for his successful battles for high profile character ownership suggests Toberoff foresees success with Hellraiser, and presumably, other franchises. The slasher boom of the late 1970s and 1980s is blowing through the 35-year mark. NOES has already been clawed back, but what about the rest of the slasher villains sitting in the wings itching to be rebooted? They could all be reverting to their original owners.
For us horror fans anxiously awaiting a new Jason movie, this isn’t great news. The last time Jason was on screen was over ten years ago, and with elements of the Voorhees franchise still in the air even after the impending appellate court decision, new Jason media isn’t on the horizon. For those of us who prefer legal dramas to slasher flicks, this could be a riveting battle of oral arguments, briefs, precedents, amici, and maybe an en banc. But those of us who just want to see Jason hack up some counselors, we have to believe Pamela Voorhees when she says this is Jason’s gift: he can never die.
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