Described by Doug Bradley as stronger than Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers, Pinhead is an extremely powerful being with supernatural abilities. His preferred method of attack is to summon hooks and chains that mutilate victims, often tearing them apart.
Pinhead is decent, but he's not even the most powerful horror movie character in his own franchise. This is Doctor Channard, the main antagonist of Hellbound: Hellraiser II.
Humans can actually kill and vanquish Cenobites if they possess holy, magical weapons or an artifact, like in the case of Dr Paul Merchant who permanently kills Pinhead and all his Cenobite cohorts using the Elysium Configuration.
Top 10 Most Powerful And Creepiest Cenobites From Hellraiser Movies – Explained
Who is God of the Cenobites?
The Cenobites are a monastic order in service to their god Leviathan. Leviathan rules an extra-dimensional realm called The Labyrinth. In the movie it is depicted as a giant living Lament Configuration, but presumably a god can take many forms.
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.
The original book that it's based on, The Hellbound Heart, was suggestive of a female Pinhead, and the comic books also explored the idea. There's also plenty of fan art, wonderful works that all theorized the possibility of Pinhead as a woman. So it only felt appropriate to us.
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.
Freddy himself is a dream demon that has the power to change things in his realm. The fight really depends on whose realm the battle takes place. If the fight was fought in Hell there would seem to be an advantage on Pinheads part, but if the fight took place in the dream realm Freddy would have the advantage.
Spanning several generations, this final bloody entry in Clive Barker's horror tour de force acts both as prequel and sequel to the original Hellraiser films.
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.
Can Michael Myers beat Pinhead? He could probably beat the snot out of Pinhead if he ever got his hands on him, but the demon's supernatural abilities would probably get him before he got the chance. The only upper hand Michael has is in the limitations of Pinhead in terms of resurrection.
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.
Hellraiser was initially banned in Ontario by the Ontario Film and Video Review Board. By a 3-2 majority vote, the film was deemed "not approved in its entirety as it contravenes community standards". It was banned because of its "brutal, graphic violence with blood-letting throughout, horror, degradation and torture".
When a person solves one of the many boxes (Carborro, the Lament Configuration, etc), a small group of Cenobites arrives. If Leviathan, god of Hell, believes the person is worthy to become a Cenobite, they are taken to Hell to be made a Cenobite in a Cenobite Transformation Chamber operated by the Engineer.
The future segments of the film reveal that Pinhead is finally destroyed in the year 2127 by Dr. Paul Merchant, another descendant, who uses a space station to complete the "Elysium Configuration", capable of closing Hell's gateway for good.
Hellraiser's Pinhead is seemingly eternal in the movies, but in Clive Barker's 2015 novel The Scarlet Gospels, the iconic villain was killed off. Amusingly enough, it was never the plan for Pinhead to become such a pop culture presence, or for him to even be called that.
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.
According to an interview in the book Taking Shape II, the Michael Myers (AKA The Shape) cenobite would have had his mask permanently affixed to his skin and had his arms replaced with knives.
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.
