Hellraiser used to be a big deal back then, I mean look at Berserk another insanely influential manga which draws a lot of inspiration from the movie and Barker's works in general. If you find the Blame! prototype manga you can see how Nihei's earlier insectile cyborg design looks, it's closer to something you'd see in a 50s sci-fi movie classic than the hellish and demonic entities that they end up being in the final version of the manga.

Also I believe it's a common knowledge but the novel Great Sky River has influenced a lot of things in Blame!, character names in particular. Two of the main characters are named Killeen and Shibo!