20 INSANE Horror Sequels We Almost Got

In 2002 the seventh entry into the Hellraiser franchise was intended to be Hellraiser: Lament, from a script penned by Hellboy co-writer Peter Briggs.

Briggs' script effectively ignored the two maligned previous Hellraisers and functioned as a direct sequel to the original four, taking place in a town called Lament which was secretly built on a giant chunk of the series' god-like antagonist Leviathan.

In the present day, a gate to Hell is opened which frees the imprisoned Cenobites, allowing Pinhead (Doug Bradley) to raise an army which brings him into conflict with the demonic Angelique (Valentina Vargas), who we last saw in Hellraiser: Bloodline.

Ultimately the script concluded with Leviathan dragging the entire town of Lament back into the abyss, and as you can probably guess, such an ambitious vision would've been crazy expensive.

And so, considering that none of the Hellraiser sequels have repeated the major commercial success of the original, it's little surprise that Dimension Films rejected the script due to its budgetary requirements.

They instead went on to produce the low-budget Hellraiser: Deader, which continued the series' trend of being quietly dumped straight-to-video and panned by critics.