Hellraiser: Revival's directors say Sunny's death is not a punishment for BDSM

Clive Barker's Hellraiser: Revival opens with Aidan and his partner Sunny, a couple drawn to BDSM, finding a puzzle box. Solving it calls the Cenobites. Sunny is torn apart and sent to hell. Aidan then makes a deal with one of the demons to bring her back.

Rock Paper Shotgun asked whether that death reads as a punishment for the fetish. Game director Emil Esov and narrative director Antony de Fault reject that reading. As they put it, Sunny does not die because the pair practices BDSM. In a sense she chooses the step, and the couple is pulled toward self-destruction. What the game treats as harmful is the unhealthy way of chasing that desire, not the desire itself. Other characters get calmer scenes built on mutual consent.

The directors also say they balanced the camera on purpose: women's pain and men's pain, women's pleasure and men's pleasure, with female and male bodies held in frame about evenly. At the time of the interview the release was set for 8 October 2026. The conversation is on Rock Paper Shotgun.