Behind the Couch

2000 Dir. Scott Derrickson When he discovers and opens the Lament Configuration at the scene of a gruesome crime, shady LA detective Joseph Thorne finds himself embroiled in a series of sinister occurrences and hellish encounters with the demonic Cenobites. Presiding over events is a mysterious, omniscient figure known only as The Engineer… After Hellbound , the rights to Clive Barker’s burgeoning series were acquired by Dimension, then a sub-division of Miramax, specialising in genre films. They produced and distributed Hell on Earth and Bloodline , but after the troubled production of the latter, Dimension wanted to reinvigorate the franchise and take it in a new direction. Enter Scott Derrickson and Paul Harris Boardman, whose somewhat daring script essentially ignores the previous films and establishes a whole new set of rules for the series. Inferno acts as a stand-alone instalment; set after the events involving the descendent of John Merchant in Bloodline , but way befo...