The Hellraiser remake has been trundling along for so long now that we were beginning to wonder if it would ever see the light of day – but that's all set to change, after French director Pascal Laugier signed on to the project.
Laugier – whose Martyrs caused controversy at this year's Cannes Film Festival because of its remorseless diet of violence – is in final negotiations to write and direct the movie, which of course is a remake of Clive Barker's wonderfully scuzzy and demented 1987 Brit horror, which introduced the iconic Cenobite, Pinhead.
If all goes well, Laugier will be roughly the 781st person to board the remake since Dimension first announced it a couple of years back. But it seems that he's closer than anyone to getting it made.
He'll set about rewriting the most recent draft of the script, by Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton, who themselves retooled the script by Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo, who had also been set to direct.
They're gone now, and Dimension thinks it's found a perfect replacement in Laugier. For Martyrs is not only hugely bloody and violent, but it's also very much a spiritual/religious horror, and so he should be right at home in Hellraiser's twisted world of S&M, vengeful demons, flayed flesh and sinister puzzle boxes.
"This is a dream project for me," Laugier told The Hollywood Reporter. "I know Clive Barker's work very well, and I would never betray what he has done. Fans are expecting a definitive Hellraiser, and I don't want to take that away from them."
There are a few details that aren't forthcoming at the moment – will the remake be set in America, or Britain? (Although the original, of course, had identity issues, with several actors being overdubbed with horrible American accents to appeal to a wider audience...) What's Clive Barker's involvement, if any? And will Doug Bradley return as Pinhead?
More on this as we get it.