So the point of “Hellraiser” is to understand three things:Your actions have consequences. They can be good or bad and can affect people in good or bad ways. The first thing you never do is do something without thinking about what could happen.
Unlike most horror franchises, Hellraiser is not the story of a solo slasher killing people off one by one. It's about a group of demonic creatures called the Cenobites from another dimension who are simply searching for carnal pleasures in other realities.
Voight's transformation could be seen as a metaphor for the corrupting nature of power or the cycle that turns victims into persecutors. But in a literal sense, within the lore of Hellraiser, what's happening is clear enough: We're being shown the origins of the hellish creatures that plague Riley throughout the film.
The Lament Configuration Box is a cubic puzzle that people need to solve to summon the Cenobites. Since the Cenobites come from a dimension of unbounded pleasures and pain, people solved the Lament Configuration Box hoping to experience things unknown on Earth.
What Is The Point Of Hellraiser? Themes & Inspiration Behind Hellraiser
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.
Pinhead is one of the leaders of the Cenobites, said to be humans who were later transformed into demonic creatures blindly devoted to the practice of experimental sadomasochism. They exist in an extra-dimensional realm that is Hell or one of many versions of Hell that co-exist.
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.
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.
1987's Hellraiser was writer/filmmaker Clive Barker's most famous creation. His macabre tale of demonic creatures ("Cenobites") who come for people's souls to take them back to an eternity of sadomasochistic pain became an instant horror classic.
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.
Judgment is the first Hellraiser film to include heaven in its mythology. According to Tunnicliffe, he took influence from The Scarlet Gospels, stating "I am in no way religious, but if you are writing a story that acknowledges the existence of Hell, then you have to acknowledge the existence of Heaven.
The first four movies in the Hellraiser franchise are already in consequential order, based on order of release. The movies that follow can be enjoyed as individual “standalone” films, with the central concept of the Cenobites and the puzzle box known as the “Lament Configuration.”
The angel Jophiel is a character introduced in 2018's Hellraiser: Judgment. Once the angel who guarded the Garden of Eden, it was she who banished Adam and Eve from Paradise after their fall from grace. She is introduced as a minor antagonist; manipulating events upon God's will.
According to Hellraiser lore, the Leviathan is a god who is responsible for creating Pinhead and his pain-loving colleagues. It is likely this deity who is responsible for Voight's transformation and it is also likely that they are turning him into a new Cenobite.
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.
He usually kills his victims by tearing them apart with hooked chains, but he also has an arsenal of demonic powers and is a master of torture and pain. He often prefers to drag his victims into an eternity of suffering rather than kill outright.
All Cenobites would appear to have great knowledge of both pain and pleasure, making them masters of both physical and psychological torture—this coupled with their supernatural abilities serve to make Cenobites arguably amongst the most frightening and dangerous of all demons in fiction.
After killing J.P. and releasing Pinhead, Terri was turned into the Cenobite known as Dreamer. It was one of the worst Cenobite designs, particularly because Dreamer had no real powers in comparison to her brethren. She was also far more human in appearance than the rest, which didn't add much to her own malevolence.
Candyman is a Cenobite. Both stories which Hellraiser and Candyman are based off of are by Clive Barker. Each character only causes mayhem when they are summoned. To top it off all they know after their deaths are pain and pleasure.
Pinhead decides that he wants to permanently return to his human form and seek spiritual salvation. But first, he must find a suitable replacement and enact a damnable game of chess with the only victim who'd ever bested the Cenobites - Kirsty Cotton.
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.
Each configuration has a name that represents a different desire: Lament ("Life"), Lore ("Knowledge"), Laudarant ("Love"), Liminal ("Sensation"), Lazarus ("Resurrection"), and Leviathan ("Power").
Edward, then, is a Cenobite, which is why he has scissors instead of hands, he's so pale, and he wears black leather clothes that look very similar to the ones the Cenobites usually wear.
