While the novella describes the Cenobites as being sexless (their mutilations having made their gender uncertain and their voices being indistinguishable), the movie is far more explicit as to each member's gender, mostly due to the actors playing each character.
Each of the four primary Cenobites from The Hellbound Heart were featured in the film, with appearances based upon their descriptions in the book. The first Cenobite became Butterball, the second Pinhead, the third Chatterer, and the fourth The Female.
Not only have the Cenobites completely mutilated themselves, but they'll do worse to anyone who summons them. Much like Frank, the Cenobites are predators, using their puzzle box to lure victims with the false promise of sexual rapture, but in the end, it's all about the Cenobites fulfilling their own pleasure.
In The Hellbound Heart, Pinhead is described as an androgynous being with a feminine voice. In 1987's Hellraiser, the character is portrayed by English actor Doug Bradley, who went on to reprise the role in seven subsequent Hellraiser films.
In in the original text, the Cenobites are unnamed and are described as asexual beings who have been marred and modified so horribly, they bear little resemblance to the human form. Barker is surprisingly vague in describing the Cenobites in great detail.
10 Absurdly Enchanting But Deadly Female Cenobites From Hellraiser Universe - Backstories Explained
Is Freddy Krueger A Cenobite?
Freddy is a member of the Cenobite council and the rival of Laughing Jack. He is also the most feared and dreaded enforcer of Zalgo, even more so than Pinhead. Freddy is played by Robert Englund.
For one, Barker portrayed all the Cenobites as androgynous demons in his prose, with none having an apparent binary gender identity. In today's terms, they would probably be best described as gender-fluid.
In The Hellbound Heart, Cenobites are described as androgynous, and Pinhead is said to have a feminine-sounding voice, which was used as inspiration to cast Clayton as the character.
The use of nails and pins evolved out of one of Barker's short stories called The Forbidden, which featured a board hammered with nails at specific intersections of laid out squares. This aesthetic would resurface for the Pinhead character years later.
For Bruckner, the decision has its roots in Barker's work, as The Hellbound Heart “was suggestive of a female Pinhead, and the comic books also explored the idea.” Bruckner also points to fan art of female and non-binary versions of The Priest as sources of inspiration. “We were never afraid of it,” he declared.
In the mythos, only those who are so obsessed with solving a puzzle that can open a gateway (or 'Schism') can be considered. Those who have a taste for the outermost reaches of human experience and have no moral limitations for what they will do to achieve those desires would even be considered to become a Cenobite.
However, when opposed, the Cenobites were not above using terror to pursue their prey and they were always portrayed as sadomasochistic—meaning that they enjoyed both inflicting pain and receiving pain. Athough not truly malevolent, the Cenobites of the first film were nevertheless merciless forces of nature.
The Cenobites are extra-dimensional beings who are mutilated and brainwashed into torturing humans for all eternity in the Labyrinth. All Cenobites were once human, with the exception of Angelique, the daughter of the demon god Leviathan.
The most straightforward is to reverse the Lament Configuration. In doing so, it will send him back to his world. Pinhead also abides by a strict code, and if a person summons him because they were forced, he won't go after the victim.
Its plot involves a mystical puzzle box that summons the Cenobites, a group of extra-dimensional, sadomasochistic beings who cannot differentiate between pain and pleasure. The leader of the Cenobites is portrayed by Doug Bradley, and identified in the sequels as "Pinhead". Hellraiser was filmed in late 1986.
Merkova is a cenobite that appears in the Hellraiser comic series, primarily the ones about the Harrowers, she is the cenobite love interest of Pinhead, as shown in the series they care very deeply about each other.
He even speaks to this neutral aspect of his character when he tells Kirsty that he and the other Cenobites are "Demons to some. Angels to others." Therefore, an encounter with Pinhead is akin to being caught in a natural disaster - neither evil nor good.
Pinhead is one of the leaders of the Cenobites, formerly humans but transformed into creatures which reside in an extradimensional realm, who travel to Earth through a puzzle box called the Lament Configuration in order to harvest human souls.
Hellraiser has since become a queer horror classic for numerous reasons, according to Riley Wade of Horror Obsessive. The work's gay author/director has been hailed as a master of the counter-cultural “splatterpunk” literary genre.
While Cenobites tend to be obsessed with masochism and even practicing it to extreme lengths, Pinhead despises such obsession and tends to make himself as professional as he could be, in front of fellow immortals or mortals.
However, 20 years after her first encounter with the Cenobites, Kirsty agrees to take Pinhead's place in Hell as the Hell Priest after losing everyone she's ever cared about - becoming a Cenobite crafted based on his original style, and the new favorite of Leviathan.
