Hellraiser’s new puzzle box designer unlocks its many secrets
Hellraiser, a 2022 reimagining of Clive Barker’s seminal 1987 horror classic, reconfigures the story to follow a young woman named Riley (Odessa A’zion), whose struggles with substance abuse inadvertently bring her face-to-face with hell incarnate in the form of a sinister puzzle box. Directed by David Bruckner, known for another tragedy-tinged horror film, 2020’s The Night House, Hellraiser explores contemporary ideas using elements from the 35-year-old franchise — including the original’s Lemarchand’s box.
Even those with only a passing familiarity with the franchise will recognize the puzzle box, known as Lemarchand’s box or the “Lament Configuration” in the original Hellraiser. The prop is a horror icon itself on par with the pinheaded hell priest that it conjures into reality when solved. Originally designed by the late Simon Sayce, who worked as a special effects designer on Hellraiser and its 1988 sequel, Hellbound: Hellraiser II, the box has remained more or less unchanged from its initial appearance across the franchise’s many installments.
For his own installment of Hellraiser, Bruckner enlisted the help of Martin Emborg, a game designer and concept artist at IO Interactive known for his work on the Hitman franchise and the 2017 sci-fi stealth-action horror game Echo. Emborg had to do what at the time seemed impossible: improve upon perfection.
“I was fully aware of what it meant when I was offered the opportunity,” Emborg told Polygon over Zoom. “The Lament Configuration is a horror icon. There’s not a lot of those, so it was pretty crazy redesigning preexisting stuff.” Emborg was approached early on before the film’s preproduction, just after it was announced that Bruckner was attached to direct a new
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