10 Movies That Weren't Meant To Be Sequels

Hellraiser's big bad, The Hell Priest (AKA Pinhead), has remained one of the most iconic horror villains for decades, thanks to his iconic design and Doug Bradley's towering performance.

Having said that, Cliver Barker's nightmarish saga peaked after... well... the first one. Nevertheless, studios have been tossing out sequels like there was no tomorrow ever since. 

When Hellraiser reached the seventh instalment, Dimension Films eyed Peter Briggs to write the story, after being impressed by his unmade Freddy Vs Jason script. When Briggs' script was deemed too costly, the studio went with refining another script called Deader.

The plot involved an underground cult that discovered an otherworldly dimension, which supposedly contained the secret to immortality. These plot points are pretty on-brand with Barker's creation, so they were barely changed when the narrative was reworked into a Hellraiser instalment.

Interestingly, the same thing happened with the follow-up, Hellraiser: Hellworld. The two entries had to be made in Romania due to a contractual stipulation. Obviously, it'd be cheaper and faster to direct both movies in the same location back-to-back. But since script-writing takes time, the studio revised Joel Soisson's short story, Dark Can't Breathe, into Hellraiser: Hellworld and called it a day.