How Rick & Morty Already Parodied Hellraiser (Kind Of)
Rick & Morty’s fifth season spoof of Hellraiser won’t be the first time the show has mocked Clive Barker’s infamously gory horror franchise.
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Rick and Morty’s season 5 trailer offers a glimpse of a Hellraiser parody from the series, but this isn’t the first time the cult show has parodied the ‘80s horror franchise—sort of. Premiering in 2013, voiceover artist Justin Roiland and Community co-creator Dan Harmon’s anarchic animated comedy Rick & Morty is an Adult Swim sitcom that chronicles the surreal adventures of the titular duo, a scientific super-genius and his well-meaning grandson.
The series has never shied away from spoofing genre fare, with Rick & Morty’s early seasons featuring plenty of horror parodies while later seasons saw the eponymous pair satirize everything from Game of Thrones to Ridley Scott’s Alien prequel Prometheus. This looks set to continue with the show’s upcoming fifth season, as a recent trailer for Rick & Morty season 5 features what looks like a spoof of British horror author Clive Barker’s famous ‘80s horror franchise Hellraiser.
However, it may surprise some Rick & Morty fans to discover that this season 5 outing isn’t the first time the series has parodied Hellraiser. The original 1987 horror, based on Barker’s story “The Hellbound Heart,” made Pinhead and his Cenobite lackeys slasher icons and earned itself a string of sequels, and was spoofed by Rick & Morty as part of series of stop-motion animated shorts created by UK animator Lee Hardcastle. It’s tough to call it an “official” Rick & Morty parody, though, as while the shorts were commissioned by Adult Swim, the series it is from is also literally entitled ‘The Non-Canonical Adventures of Rick & Morty.” So, while Rick & Morty often mocks canon and continuity, it’s fair for fans of the series to question whether the series has technically parodied the franchise before.
In any case, the series of stop-motion animated tie-in shorts feature a slew of short movie parodies wherein Rick, Morty, and the rest of the Smith family take on the roles of famous ‘80s horror villains and victims. Originally released in October 2016 to coincide with Halloween, the first of the spoofs sees Rick & Morty recreate the iconic 1982 sci-fi horror The Thing from Halloween helmer John Carpenter. Since then, “The Non-Canonical Adventures of Rick & Morty” has gone on to include parodies of Halloween, Ghostbusters, Aliens, and The Fly among many others (with the latter being the second time the show has spoofed body horror legend David Cronenberg’s work after the season 1 outing “Rick Potion #9”).
With each segment lasting only a few seconds, it is an undeniably impressive achievement that Hardcastle is capable of capturing the campy ‘80s horror style of the original movies in the duration of an Adult Swim bump. The animator’s brief Hellraiser parody casts Rick as Pinhead, Morty as Chatterer, Summer as franchise final girl Kirsty Cotton, and Jerry as the depraved Uncle Frank, and sees Jerry advancing on Summer until he’s distracted by the presence of Rick and Morty’s creepy Cenobite villains. It is a cute nod to the series and one of Hardcastle’s many fun genre parodies starring the pair, but here’s hoping that Rick & Morty season 5 does more with its Hellraiser spoof than this brief earlier (non-canonical) outing.
Link Source : https://screenrant.com/rick-morty-hellraiser-parody-explained/