One local actor is about to give us all nightmares. Paul T. Taylor, who has appeared on stages all over Dallas-Fort Worth, along with a handful of movies and TV shows, has been cast as Pinhead in the upcoming movie Hellraiser: Judgment.
The 10th installment in the gory film franchise, created by horror master Clive Barker, was announced suddenly in mid-February. The news came this past weekend via Bloody Disgusting that Taylor was taking over the lead role.
Taylor is a classically trained actor who has racked up accolades in everything from Mr. Burns: A Post-electric Play at Fort Worth's Stage West to The Hot Mikado at Dallas' Theatre Three to Miracle on 34th Street at Dallas Children's Theater.
Now he's donning the movie monster's acupuncture-gone-wrong look after the previous Pinhead from 2011's Hellraiser: Revelations, Stephan Smith Collins, declined to reprise his role. Doug Bradley played the role in the first eight films.
Director Gary Tunnicliffe previously teased the casting of a new Pinhead with a post identifying the actor as “a classically trained stage and film actor who brings a great physical presence and more than a hint of Peter Cushing and Ralph Fiennes.”
Anyone who saw Taylor as the titular and terrifying Mr. Burns at Stage West will have no problem imagining him as the villain.
A Dallas actor will play Pinhead in the next installment in the Hellraiser movie franchise.
Photo courtesy of New World Pictures
A Dallas actor will play Pinhead in the next installment in the Hellraiser movie franchise.
Killer Confessions star Texas Ranger James B. Holland
A new true-crime series with Texas ties is set to premiere on the Investigation Discovery channel and HBO Max. Called Killer Confessions: Case Files of a Texas Ranger, the show stars James B. Holland, a retired Texas Ranger who solved a series of "unsolvable" crimes during his storied career.
The eight-episode series will run on Tuesday nights at 9 pm, covering murder cases that remained confounding until Holland stepped into the room.
The season will debut on January 13 with a two-hour premiere, Pathologically Evil, covering a series of kidnappings and murders that Holland solved in the interrogation room.
Each case has a Texas nexus, which allowed Holland a way into the investigation.
The show also has CultureMap ties: One of its executive producers is Claire St. Amant, a North Texas-based investigative journalist who worked the crime beat for CBS News for nearly a decade. St. Amant, who wrote a memoir called Killer Story about her days as an investigative crime reporter and producer on shows such as 48 Hours and 60 Minutes, was a founding editor of CultureMap Dallas.
Holland got his start in TV with a 2019 profile on 60 Minutes titled "The Ranger and the Serial Killer," which introduced audiences to his unique brand of interrogation tactics.
"When I met James Holland, I realized he was a walking, talking, television show. I wanted to bring his story to the screen," St. Amant says. "The stories that Holland can tell are unlike any others I’ve worked on in my career in true crime television. The way he gets into the minds of murderers and convinces them to talk is unbelievable."
With more than 25 years in law enforcement, Holland has worked on hundreds of murder cases, including serial killers, psychopathic criminals, and ritualistic dismemberments.
“I worked on the really messed up cases,” Holland says. “If they had DNA or fingerprints or anything tangible, they didn’t call me. I was the one who came in when they had nothing.”
Holland’s reputation as a serial killer whisperer brought him into investigations around the country.
“Ranger Holland had the ability to establish a rapport with suspects,” Galveston County DA Jack Roady says. “It’s not something you find in just anybody.”
Using his wits and charm, Holland convinced suspected killers to confess to their crimes and in many cases, leading him to the remains of their victims.
“I’ve spent a career hunting killers. Whatever the case, I’m not going anywhere until I get to the truth,” Holland says.
Upcoming episodes include:
"Lie, Cheat, Kill Evil." The disappearance of realtor and mother Crystal McDowell just as Hurricane Harvey hits Houston. January 20.
"Obstacles to Justice." A 20-year-old father Joseph Douglas is shot execution-style in Texas. February 10.
"A Devil Always Lies." Samantha Norton, a 28-year-old mother, vanishes without a trace in Wise County, Texas. March 10.
Killer Confessions is produced for Investigation Discovery by Bungalow Media + Entertainment and See it Now Studios. Executive producers are Bob Friedman, Alexis Robie, Claire St. Amant, Ron Simon, Terry Wrong, and Susan Zirinsky.
