In the 2022 film, Pinhead is played by Jamie Clayton. On the decision to cast Clayton, a trans woman, as the character, the film's director, David Bruckner, explained: "We felt a kind of anticipation around the fans to reimagine the character.We knew we wanted Pinhead to be a woman.
“We were never afraid of it. We always knew that [a female Pinhead] made sense given the history of the franchise and the kinds of fans that have embraced it,” Bruckner says. “It was also a way for us to not replicate Doug Bradley's incredible, iconic performance. There had been a lot of precedent in the franchise.
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.
Because of the iron pins that has been nailed deep into his head, Pinhead is assumed to be in a perpetual state of pain, a pain that he has since his transformation from human to cenobite gotten used to and seems to derive pleasure from it. This allows him to endure extreme amounts of pain without slowing down.
In the originating story, Clive Barker's The Hellbound Heart, the hell priest is androgynous, neither male or female, but with a feminine voice. However, when Barker was filming Hellraiser (1987), he asked his friend, Doug Bradley to take on the part.
The Female Pinhead Hell Priestess EXPLORED Hellraiser Lore
Are Cenobites sexless?
The Cenobites are disfigured, sexless, sadomasochistic entities tasked with capturing whoever solved the riddle of the demonic puzzle box known as Lament Configuration and submitting them to extreme physical torture, an act meant to reveal all of the hidden pleasures of intense pain.
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 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.
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.
Even citing the origins of the original 1986 book, The Hellbound Heart, would back this up. In their introduction, the writing specifically goes out of its way at first to not assign the Cenobites a gender, with only the fourth creature finally being designated as female — "Not a he now saw: but she.
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.
The Cenobite known as Pinhead was once a human known as Elliot Spencer who was born in England during the Victorian Era in 1887. As a young adult, he would join the British Army and later serve in France during World War I.
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.
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.
Cenobites were once human, having transformed to their current state in their pursuit of gratification. Cenobites are so removed from their former humanity and so dedicated to exploring physical experience that they no longer distinguish between sensations of pleasure and pain.
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.
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.
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.
Like his fellow Cenobites, Chatterer has lost all memory of his life as a human before he became a Cenobite; Hellraiser: Hellbound indicates that Chatterer opened the box while still a young boy.
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.
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.
