I don’t think it’s going out on a limb to say that any creative endeavor has been influenced by what came before. The first caveman to put charcoal on his cave wall was influenced by something he saw or experienced. The second caveman to do it saw how much attention the first caveman got, and decided that he too wanted to live the life of a caveman rock star.

Any influence can steer the direction of a new creative work, but a creative individual will take that spark and forge it into something entirely new. The end result is often surprising, not only to an audience, but to the creators themselves, because their experiences and talent differ from those who came before, so their individual expressions will vary widely as well.

Let’s take The Matrix, for instance. It’s a very influential film created by a pair of very talented sisters who let their obvious love for science fiction, anime and John Woo explode onto the screen in a decidedly unique style. But they did it in such a unique style that those influences were apparent, but never overshadowed their own work. They weren’t copying, but they were expanding on what had come before.

And speaking of The Matrix, let’s look at another title that I believe was an influence, albeit an indirect one, and that’s Hellraiser.

Now I agree, that sounds like a reach. After all, the two films share nothing in the way of intent or subject matter, and it’s possible that the Wachowskis had never even seen the film before working on The Matrix. And even if they had, there’s little in Clive Barker’s classic horror movie that would serve to inspire the direction of their own film.

So what’s the connection, you ask? Well that goes back to a little role-playing game called Kult.

Kult was originally produced in 1991 by Gunilla Jonsson and Michael Petersén in Sweden, and appropriately enough gained somewhat of a cult following around the world. Unlike Dungeons & Dragons, characters in Kult wrestled not with orcs and goblins, but with an existential crisis of existence as the world they lived in was revealed, layer by layer, to be a lie.

Combining Gnosticism, splatterpunk and good old-fashioned horror, Kult has garnered enough of an audience over the decades to keep coming back into print with new editions even though it has never achieved anything like the mainstream popularity of D&D or Vampire: The Masquerade.

Still, an RPG where reality is not what you believe it to be sounds like it’s in the same ballpark as The Matrix, doesn’t it? Even if one utilizes supernatural elements and the other leans into science fiction. And the rumor is, the Wachowskis were involved in the Kult LISTSERV back in the day, which wouldn’t come as a surprise since they were role-playing game enthusiasts.

But how does that tie into Hellraiser? Well, Kult, like other creative endeavors, took its influences from a variety of sources, and one of those influences was definitely Clive Barker. And of the Clive Barker works that Kult embraced, Hellraiser was foremost among them. In Kult there are beings known as Nepharites, who were a very, very close analogue to Barker’s Cenobites, especially in the early editions of the game.

And in 1991, with Barker’s popularity exploding, that would have been a major draw for fans looking for a horror RPG. In fact, Kult was often described as a “Clive Barker RPG” in shorthand descriptions for years afterward. That’s not a completely correct description, as Kult’s influences are vast, but I’m betting that short descriptor did as much to sell the game as did it’s several not entirely undeserved controversies, and made it more marketable than it otherwise might have been.

So, yes, that’s how Hellraiser influenced The Matrix, at least in my humble opinion. It’s not a direct line of influence like, say The Hidden Fortress and Star Wars, but then again, Kurosawa’s film wasn’t the only thing that left an impression on the creative mind of George Lucas…

But that’s for another article.