The Hellraiser Films and Their Legacy

by Kane, Paul

  They, too, could be described as sisters. Terri looks up to Joey and even unconsciously emulates her. Terri’s behavior after she meets Joey definitely changes; we would not have seen her reading books before, and the investigation into the Pillar of Souls gives the young girl a taste of what Joey does for a living. She tells Monroe on the phone with hope in her heart, “Joey’s going to get me a job at the TV station, and I’m meeting a lot of new people.” Even so, there are moments when Joey adopts a more maternal position. It’s obvious she disapproves of Terri’s smoking, saying, “I’m trying to quit,” when she’s offered a cigarette. She takes over in the kitchen after Terri makes a mess, and the expression on her face when Terri is about to break into the Pyramid gallery is one of concern—even though it will get her the answers she wants. This is why we get a sense that Terri is actually leaving home when she departs from Joey’s. Disappointed by her surrogate mother’s behavior, she retreats into the arms of the bad boy lover, a scenario familiar to many parents with teenage daughters or sons.

  For his part, J.P. Monroe’s resemblance to Frank is uncanny. He could almost be one of the bastard children Frank Cotton must have fathered in his travels around the world. Monroe sports the same dark hair and good looks, the same hedonist tendencies, and the same attitudes towards women. Like Frank, Monroe has bedded countless women over the years and none of them have meant a thing to him. He has used them for his own gratification, then told them to get out, just like he does with Sandy. “Who do you think you are?” she says. “I’m J.P. Monroe, right? You stupid little bitch. Gimme back my shirt and get the fuck out of my life.” But, like his predecessor, he has to turn on the charm when he wants something from a particular woman. In this film, Terri stands in place of Julia, and Monroe is able to talk her into returning to his apartment. The difference is, he doesn’t ask her to kill for him so he can be whole again. He needs to kill her.

  If we are even the slightest bit unsure about his origins we need only listen to his supplication when trying to persuade her to join him by the statue. “Come to Daddy,” he sneers. And his phallic weapon? Not the flick-knife that Frank preferred, but a large silver pistol. Terri once again becomes the Julia figure when she takes her revenge on Monroe, rolling him closer to the pillar so that Pinhead can feed on him. “Hell hath no fury,” Pinhead utters, “except for a woman scorned.” Like Julia in Hellbound, Terri delivers her reprisal for all she has endured at the hands of her very own Frank. She may not take as much delight in it, crying as she struggles to kick the prone body, but one cannot help making the comparison.

  In another reading altogether, Pinhead himself becomes the Frank figure. Imprisoned in the Pillar of Souls, just as Frank was trapped in Hell, he waits for someone to set him free. This occurs when Monroe, alone in the club and hearing a noise inside the statue, reaches inside one of its crevices (a scene, Hickox says, which was modeled on the tree beast test from Flash Gordon [Mike Hodges, 1980] where novice Peter Duncan has to play a form of Russian Roulette with Timothy Dalton’s Baron). He is bitten by a rat for his trouble, the creature’s own revenge for what happened to its cousin in the first movie, when Frank sliced it open with his knife. Here it is Monroe’s blood that wakes Pinhead, so in this sense J.P. is an imitation of poor Larry. But when Pinhead is talking him into supplying more flesh and blood, Monroe becomes Julia, sweet-talked into doing what the more charismatic figure demands.

  It could be said that Elliott is the true father figure in the film—at least to Joey. There is an ambiguous admiration between them, love possibly, which also perfectly mirrors what was happening with Kirsty and Larry. Hickox has stated outright that there’s more than a hint of this in their relationship:

  Elliott manages to bring her to his domain by entering her psychic level. Because she is concentrating on her career, Joey does not have any love interests. So Elliott offering her the task of fighting Pinhead is probably the closest thing to a love interest. He comes along and offers her responsibility, something which people have not been doing because she is a woman. In the end, he makes Joey feel useful.5

  But it’s much more than this. It is appropriate that Hickox should say that Elliott “enters” Joey’s psychic level. He connects with her on a level no one has ever done: in her mind, in her dreams, the kind of intimacy only lovers share. He respects her; he respects her abilities. This is why in the earlier draft of the script, when Pinhead and Elliott merge, Joey is taken as their bride. It is a desire that spills over into Pinhead’s consciousness as well.

  If we are to read Joey as a replacement for Kirsty, then that longing is now transferred to Joey. Pinhead recognizes the similarities himself when they first meet face to face at the club. “I’m here to stop you and send you back to Hell,” she says, which straightaway sounds very familiar. “Oh, spirited? Oh, good, oh, very good,” he finally says to cap off their exchange. Just like old times, the pleonastic banter, the sexual tension. Pinhead and Kirsty played an identical cat and mouse game in the first two movies, but he gets closer than ever before with Joey, even to the point of wrapping her up in leather bonds and suspending her from the ceiling. One imagines that Pinhead would be anything but a gentle lover.

  Finally, the Pseudo Cenobites, though the offspring of Pinhead in Hell on Earth, are more correctly the progeny of the three main Cenobites from Hellraiser and Hellbound. Immature and, as Pinhead points out, over eager, they might be a shadow of his former underlings, but they do correlate to them quite closely. Just as Chatterer preferred the hands on approach—grabbing Kirsty and silencing her in the first film—so too do C.D. and Doc. And Barbie, comparable to Butterball in size and shape, crashes through walls just like his forefather smashed through the debris of that collapsing house on Lodovico Street. Terri, who also looks suspiciously like the Female Cenobite, is just as eager to get Joey to play as her “mother” was to entice Kirsty. While the former ran her hook along the wall and made it bleed, the Terri Cenobite runs her hands over Joey’s body and burns her with lit cigarettes. Their demise is also akin to that of Barker’s Cenobites. When the puzzle box is solved at the building site, it blasts them with a beam of light—blue this time instead of yellow—which causes them to vanish.

  Alter Egos

  The last theme to consider is that of the alter-ego. Every main character, and some of the peripheral ones, in Hellraiser III has a dual identity. The Pinhead and Elliott scenario exemplifies this in the most extreme way possible, by splitting one personality into two. Elliott and Pinhead are two sides of the same coin and can’t—or shouldn’t—exist in isolation. Without Elliott, Pinhead is even more terrifying than he was before and less in control of his anger. His performance at the Boiler Room proves that he cannot restrain himself (indeed, he doesn’t want to), and his lack of patience when dealing with Joey is telling. Elliott is therefore Jekyll to Pinhead’s Hyde, a necessary part of him that needs to be returned.

  Terri, Monroe, the Bartender, D.J. and Doc are all transformed into Pseudo Cenobites, monsters that reflect what they once were. Like Channard before them, their Cenobitization contains some element of their human selves. For example, we see the barman mixing drinks behind the bar at the Boiler Room, while a sudden gush of flame erupts behind him. This translates into him spitting fire from his mouth and throwing cocktail bombs. The others we have already discussed, all changed but with something linking them to their former selves, whether it be CDs, a camera, motorbike parts or cigarettes.

  Joey’s alter ego is her dream-self. The Joey that struggles to make it through the day in the real world becomes a vision in white gliding through this other reality. Her personality changes when she makes this transition, regressing mentally to a young child (yet another trait she shares with Kirsty). But what of the means she uses to travel to Elliott’s plane of existence? Like the Lament Configuration being disguised as a puzzle box, this particular doorway is the window in her apartment. Obviously based on the mirror doorways from Cocteau’s Orphée, and continuing the t
rend of putting hands through mirrors set in Waxwork, some credit must also be given to Lewis Carroll’s famous tale, Through the Looking Glass, from 1871.6 The thematic likeness between Joey and Alice is plain. As Camille Paglia observes in her introduction to a reprinted 1990s illustrated version: “On her travels over meadows and through the woods, Alice never turns into Huck Finn, a smudged vagabond scamp. She remains the well-bred young lady, her crisp apron and pinafore undisheveled even when she falls into a pool of tears or rockets up and down, bizarrely changing size.”7

  Joey’s real-world persona might swear, get dirty and generally play dirty, but her dream self is exactly the same as Alice during her adventures. Simply compare Joey’s “walk into madness” that she makes through the window to this description in Carroll’s novel:

  “Oh Kitty! how nice it would be if we could only get through into the Looking-glass House! I’m sure it’s got, oh! such beautiful things in it! Let’s pretend there’s a way of getting through into it somehow, Kitty. Let’s pretend the glass has got all soft like gauze, so that we can get through. Why, it’s turning into a sort of mist, now, I declare! It’ll be easy enough to get through.” She was up on the chimney-piece while she said this, though she hardly knew how she had got there. And certainly the glass was beginning to melt away, just like a bright silvery mist. In another moment Alice was through the glass....8

  Joey’s apartment has, it would seem, its very own alter ego on a par with her own. And one which lets her gain access—either in bed while asleep, or through the window—to this dream-self she has created.

  13

  PINHEAD UNBOUND

  The Cult of Pinhead

  A lot had happened between the making of Hellbound and Hellraiser III. Not only had rights changed hands, directors been swapped, and the storyline altered dramatically, but the character of Pinhead had taken on a life of its own. If his popularity had increased between the release of Hellraiser and Hellbound, then by the time the cameras rolled on Hell on Earth, it was at an all-time high. Doug Bradley had been Guest of Honor at Fangoria’s Weekend of Horrors in Los Angeles in 1989—it wasn’t the last invitation he would receive—and recounts a humorous incident in his book, Behind the Mask of the Horror Actor, whereby he had to get past immigration guards in the States:

  “You’re an actor? You work in horror movies? What’ve you been in, maybe I seen you?”

  “Well, do you know the Hellraiser movies?”

  “Hellraiser? Oh man, that’s my favorite! But I don’t remember you in that.”

  “Don’t you? You know the guy with the pins in his...”

  “No kiddin’, man! You’re Pinhead.” Handshake, handshake. “Would you mind signing your autograph?”1

  A somewhat typical reaction. Bradley was being recognized on the street more and more. He found he couldn’t just walk around the dealers’ room at the convention without being encircled by Pinhead fans. But all this was something he could definitely relate to. “I’ve gotten used to being a cult figure now,” he said during an interview to publicize Hell on Earth. “All the attention came as a big surprise initially.... But I was a huge fan of horror movies before I wanted to be an actor. So I can put myself very easily into the minds of the people who’ve taken the character to their hearts.”2

  In light of this level of attention, it made sense for the filmmakers to focus on his character. Fans were demanding more of Pinhead on-screen, and additional information about his past—alluded to only briefly at the beginning of Hellbound. It was Hickox’s belief that Pinhead had been largely unexplored and underused in the first two films3 but both Atkins and Bradley were determined not to do anything that would go against the grain of the established character.

  Atkins may have joked about Pinhead turning into a slasher-style villain, but some of this did actually manage to creep in. The slaughter scene at the Boiler Room comes as close to a Freddy Krueger nightmare sequence as Hellraiser ever will, in which as many original ways of killing people as possible are dreamt up. In the Nightmare series up to that point Krueger had murdered the residents of Springwood by strangling them with their own bedsheets, trapping them inside a school bus, drowning them, and even through television. Granted, the murderous activities of Pinhead are more sadistic, but the ploys with the drink morphing into a representation of his face, the razor-sharp CDs, and hooks that no longer just rake the skin but slice off fingers do smack of slasher film lore. Pinhead may not crack jokes per se, but his answer to Monroe’s, “Jesus Christ!” is a wry, “Not quite.” He is even called Pinhead for the first time—by Joey—implying that if he is going to become a serial killer icon he will need a nickname on-screen as well as off.

  By the same token, it may not be Pinhead himself who is stalking Joey through the streets outside the club, but his creations do a very good imitation of slasher movie antiheroes, each with their own special powers, impervious to bullets, and unable to be stopped by the authorities. The fact that the location where the shooting took place was called Elm Street only adds to the irony. This is Hellraiser as an action-thriller, as a monster film, and as a gore film with set pieces to match—in keeping with its move to the U.S., where everything is done on a grander scale. It is exactly the opposite of the original film’s intent, which made it stand out from the crowd back in 1987. We talked a little about the impact of the Cenobites in chapter 3, and the fact that their limited screen presence was a prime cause of our fascination with them. That particular enchantment resulted in saturation here. Our knowledge that the Cenobites were originally human meant we were suddenly able to relate to them on a brand-new level, sympathizing with their predicament, empathizing with their pain. When applied to the Pseudo Cenobites, whom we have seen as human beings throughout the film, this effect becomes even more perceptible. They cannot scare us with subtleties, so they must rely on theatrics.

  There is also a link to be made between Pinhead and Hammer’s Dracula. As I mentioned before, Christopher Lee’s portrayal of the Count has much in common with Bradley’s. They exude fear without having to do anything at all, and when physicality does come into the equation it is sometimes to the detriment of the character. When their animalistic qualities are caged, there is more cause for alarm. Dracula, also one of horror’s most popular characters, was resurrected in film after film: from his debut in Dracula (Terence Fisher, 1958), to Dracula—Prince of Darkness (Fisher, 1966), Dracula Has Risen From the Grave (Freddie Francis, 1968), Taste the Blood of Dracula (Peter Sasdy, 1970), finally bringing the mythos up to date in Dracula A.D. 72 (Alan Gibson, 1972) and The Satanic Rites of Dracula (Alan Gibson, 1974). By the third movie in the Hellraiser saga it began to look like Pinhead would be repeating the trend.

  He was supposedly killed in Hellbound by Channard, yet he was back again in the sequel—revitalized, it has to be said, by blood. He also featured more heavily, something that the later films in the Dracula cycle did, too, banking on Lee’s charisma and screen presence. Joey even stakes Pinhead in the heart at the end of the film. This was a resemblance Bradley noticed as well, but he was quick to highlight the differences: “It wasn’t just going to be a typical Dracula sequel; O.K. so he died at the end of the last one, so let’s get him back to life in a quick pre-credits sequence and get on with it. The whole Hellraiser III plot is driven by Pinhead’s reincarnation and, in particular, resolving the conflict established at Hellbound’s climax where he’d split into two.... It’s Elliott Spencer’s story too.”4

  Herein lies the crucial distinction. By allowing Bradley to play dual parts, the movie not only catered to the fans who wanted to know more about the character, it also balanced out the time Pinhead spent on screen. It added a greater depth than one would ever get with a slasher villain, articulating and commenting on the monster within the film’s narrative itself. We were not simply presented with a beast running amok, but with the yin to its yang. The predicament Elliott finds himself in also gives the filmmakers an excuse to let Pinhead off the leash; he is no longe
r tempered by his human side. Gone are his qualities of control and mercy, if such a word can be used about a Cenobite. This incarnation of Pinhead would not have let Kirsty go quite so easily, would probably not have bargained with her in the first place over Frank. His tendency is to act first, and think about the consequences later.

  Christopher Lee as Dracula (Hammer Studios).

  Another reason why we can never write Pinhead off as merely a slasher villain is the Shakespearian-like speeches he gives when imprisoned inside the Pillar of Souls. At this stage in the proceedings he has neither the freedom nor the strength to rebel, so is forced to use the “softly, softly” approach of his former self. As Elliott warns Joey, “He can be very persuasive ... and very inventive.” These virtual monologues written by Atkins are what elevate the movie beyond the fright flick it could so easily have been. Unbound as he is, Pinhead is still Pinhead and cannot be distorted that much. Thomas Harris did this with the famous characters of Hannibal Lecter and Clarice Starling in Hannibal (1999), ending the novel with them living happily ever after together, a climax that was changed considerably when Ridley Scott made the film version in 2001. Even with these indulgences, the main crux of what made Pinhead so appealing is definitely still present in Hell on Earth.

  The Church of Pinhead