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Why ain't we had a female Guest?

Art Lean

Noob
get fucked.. if they put in Pinhead and it is this version from that travesty of a fucking insult to Hellraiser I will riot!
There's been many worse Hellraiser movies once you go beyond 1 & 2.

3 was an embaressment and practically ruined the cenobites and all the lore, it was like a hair metal music video starring The Borg.

4 was okaaaay, would have been way better had it delved way more into the decadence and creepiness of Renaissance France and Angelique, and if the sci fi parts weren't so horribly cheap.

5 was really good, liked that one and I must add that Chatterer Torso and the Wire Twins are my favourite cenobites.

6 was a crap version of 5 and ruined Kirsty Cotton.

7 was rubbish other than a couple of suspenseful scenes.

8 was actually worse than 3; horrendous and takes the crown for worst in the series by a country mile.

9 was complete crap and the new Pinhead was indeed a travesty. The young 'pseudo-pinhead' actually looked way better and they should have just had another cenobite be creating him, rather than Uncle Fester who didn't need to be in it. I'll still take it over 8 though for at least being a bit truer to the lore of 1 & 2.

10 was ok, bit too cheap and grindhousey but it had some nice fresh ideas and visuals. Pinhead III was pretty good, way better than the guy from 9, it was a respectful performance.

HR22 was for my money better than 3, 6, 7, 8 and 9. It was also far more competently made than 4 and 10, though for entertainment factor I'd probably stick it at their level.

And after 11 movies of a singular villain that's had 3 actors play him, one of which was absolutely awful, with the cenobites getting cheaper and cheaper by the movie, I personally found Jamie Clayton's performance to be a much needed breath of fresh air and a fantastic inclusion to the HR universe. The movie was too generic and not remotely psychosexual enough, but at least Pinhead herself was great (and so were some of her new cenobites, who again were massively better than many of the cheapo goons of the later sequels).

Anyway given Doug Bradley's mistreatment by the studio and their efforts to push the franchise forward now it's finally got some bigger budget mainstream recognition again after years of unrelated scripts being mutated into bizarre sequels or cheap ashcan productions, I very much doubt Dimension Films and Bradley would come to any sort of agreement for using his likeness of Pinhead again for new media. I could be wrong, but I'd be very surprised.

yeah... here is another mid blowing fact for you... water is wet!

You can hate guests as much as you like by NRS themselves and this has been confirmed by reporters via stockholder meetings, THE most profitable aspect of MK is the guests DLC. Boon has even said that the guests in MK9 are the SOLE reason the studio didn't fold.
How badly was the game selling? It only had 2 guest characters, one of which wasn't even multiformat, so on PC and Xbox you only had one guest, and (irrespective of voice actor) his likeness was based on that critically mauled reboot of A Nightmare on Elm Street?
 
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Pterodactyl

Plus on block.
Not a fan of guests at all, and I know Pinhead's name has been thrown around a lot previously, but what about specifically Jamie Clayton's new female version of Pinhead? She was without a doubt the best thing in the new movie and stole every scene she was in.

This way you've got a female guest, still technically a horror icon (just a new rendition) with a long legacy, really contemporary, the movie did quite well, there's no conflict of interest in using the character in a violent setting etc, and in my opinion looked really fresh and amazing (no disrespect to Doug Bradley, the man's a legend, but those endless later sequels did the character no favours).

View attachment 19068
Oh hell yeah
 
I honestly don't see any female guest that's the same caliber as the male ones, as unfortunate as that is. Like who in the fuck is checking for Xena or Buffy in 2023? Sure Rambo and Robocop are old relics, but they're icons that're at least recognizable by name. Xena and Buffy haven't been relevant for decades

The Bride probably would be the best bet overall. There's dope female characters they could add for sure, but not many that fulfil the purpose of a guest character which is to bring mainstream appeal. Because you also have to remember, whoever you add not only has to kill, they have to be killed. They have to be torn apart and killed, screaming and crushed. People are totally fine seeing Predator or Spawn, Terminator or Rambo die
I couldn't see Sarah Michelle Gellar, Sigourney Weaver or Lucy Lawless being like "Sure I'll offer my likeness for this game where anyone could violently kill me in hilariously gruesome ways!" They can dish out violence but they have to take it too and I don't think they can.

Now as for The Bride, I could see Uma Thurman being up for that but not Quentin Tarantino because he seems the type to have no interest in Mortal Kombat. Or Videogames.
 

Afumba

Noob
Its a bit sad that ppls still debate the topic of "no guests". I hate the guests concept but guests are like MTX, they are here to stay. You can only hope it doesnt get worse and that we at least get good ones.

Referencing MK9 for this is silly too...
MK9 was not just a reboot but also a revival for MK. So thats different. Ofc they play it close to heart with characters. Now, today, MK is huge. So huge that hardcore and oldschool fans barely matter on the scope of things from a money standpoint. Even competitive peoples among all levels combined pale to casuals and "lets have a couple of weeks of fun"-Bobs. And these will more likely buy Homelander than Havik. Its not even a question.

Also no matter how good something sells they want to make as much money as possible and guests are king here. MK sells great when it comes to numbers sold, but MK characters do not compared to guests and their potential. Maybe Scorp or Sub... and even they might have it hard compared to a guests potential reach, like taping into new comminuties/fans, the awerness/hype/publicity they spread etc. At the end they dont need to hook MK fans, they already hooked them from the get go and potentially hooked them for all further stuff. Better to bait others.

My neighbor for example bought MK11 just cuz Robocop was in it. Doesnt even play fighters. Played it only for a few week tops too. Plenty of ppls like that.

Bottom line... Fact is guests have way more potential than MK chars, always will have. Just be happy that a 6 char DLC only has 3 guests cuz if they could justify 6/6 guests they would.
 

Marlow

Premium Supporter
Premium Supporter
I couldn't see Sarah Michelle Gellar, Sigourney Weaver or Lucy Lawless being like "Sure I'll offer my likeness for this game where anyone could violently kill me in hilariously gruesome ways!" They can dish out violence but they have to take it too and I don't think they can.

Now as for The Bride, I could see Uma Thurman being up for that but not Quentin Tarantino because he seems the type to have no interest in Mortal Kombat. Or Videogames.
Technically it wouldn't be up to them, it'd be up to whoever owns the copyright of the film, which is typically the producer. Unless the character from the film was first based on a novel or artistic work, in which case the copyright would typically belong to the creator.

I don't think the actors would have their own likeness rights, but I'm just a google detective on this, I have no actual knowledge of copyright law, which can be a bit of a mess.
 

Art Lean

Noob
Haha I've read that before. Think I've read and watched every single Hellraiser ranking article or video on the internet, and its amazing how much opinions can vary from instalment to instalment.

For example, on that article there (admittedly it's a bit out-dated now, since there's been 2 movies since that was published), they cheer for Hellraiser 3 in it all camp silliness (in hindsight, it actually has a lot tonally and visually in common with Mortal Kombat 3 now that I think about it, in both the good and the bad ways), whilst I hate it for that very reason. Then they absolute hate Hellraiser 5 (a lot of people do in fact), whilst I personally think it's probably the best of the straight-to-video sequels. Dark and dismal with excellent cenobites and a few utterly bonkers David Lynch-inspired moments that just add to the twisted surrealism of it. For me it was all the better for having very little Pinhead in it, whilst 3 was ruined by over-exposing him (and everything else).

I've embarressingly got the whole series on DVD and every few years (especially after a new one has come out) I do a marathon over a week or so of watching them all again, and quickly realise 2 things: 1) I absolutely love the conceptual lore behind Clive Barker's world and creatures he created, and 2) most of the movies are pretty terrible and an absolute slog to get through 11 of the damn things now.

I last tried going through them all with my ex in 2019; she was a horror hound who had strangely never watched them. We watched the first two and she absolutely loved them, I bought her a fancy Lament Configuration replica for her birthday which she proudly displayed on her desk at work... then we got to 3. I was cringing in embarressment throughout the movie and at the end she literally just said "That was awful and nothing like the first two. Oh my god I hated it. Please say they get better again after that because it's honestly put me off even wanting to watch another one."

And then a few weeks later she dumped me before we even got to Bloodlines. To this day I sometimes wonder, was it because I made her watch Hellraiser 3? :(

Sorry gone off on a tangent there...
 

Hara-Killer

Reverse Salt
cus theres a few really good female chars and male chars are better 99% of times.

Selene
Samara
Alita
Resident evil ladys
Regina from dino crisis
killer instinct ladys
samus

marvel and Dc have some good options but dont think they gonna make the cut
 

Rude

You will serve me in The Netherrealm
Mega Fox? How is that a guest? She is just some horrible actress that looks like a plastic surgery disaster?

Xena, Buffy, Becky, We should have got Ripley when we had Alien and Predator in MKx....



like?
Going pretty hard on Megan Fox, huh?

Did she fuck your mom or something?
 

Art Lean

Noob
cus theres a few really good female chars and male chars are better 99% of times.

Samara

samus
There's no way they'd put in Samara unless you couldn't perform any fatalities on her, just like with Ferra. Regardless of the fact she's an undead ghoul, they still wouldn't be able to get away with depicting brutal murders on a character that, for all intents and purposes, is still a child.

And for similar violent reasons, Nintendo would never license Samus to Mortal Kombat, even as an exclusive character for the Switch.
 

Temptress

Edenian Empress
I honestly don't see any female guest that's the same caliber as the male ones, as unfortunate as that is. Like who in the fuck is checking for Xena or Buffy in 2023? Sure Rambo and Robocop are old relics, but they're icons that're at least recognizable by name. Xena and Buffy haven't been relevant for decades
Buffy is absolutely more 'relevant' than the likes of RoboCop or Spawn to anyone that isn't pushing 40 and balding.
 
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Marlow

Premium Supporter
Premium Supporter
The problem is that these guest characters are normally pulled from high profile movie and/or comic book characters. And for a long time Hollywood and the powers that be didn't think that a female lead could carry a blockbuster film or comic book franchise. So the pool of available female characters is much smaller.

Buffy, Xena, Beatrix Kiddo are all popular characters, but in terms of valuable properties they're all pretty dwarfed by your Rambos, Terminators, and robot cops.