#Lemarchand's box

[risunsky]

I had some fun pushing the concept a bit further.

I don't usually use the logo in my fan art, but this time I wanted to see if it looked good.

(please don't call the bot by saying "I want this on..." yk.. thanks)

[crazybeardtale]

Merry hellmas

[gentlymorbid]

I have such sights to show you

[machetelanding]

[nerael]

[swdefcult]

[sharkchunks]

From an Amazon Q&A on a Hellraiser style puzzle box

[creachercrunch]

my bass teacher saw my vest and went woag. sick as hell. can i take pictures of it to show my wife. and i went sure yeah i made most of these patches myself and i made some of the buttons too! and he might ask me to make patches (and buttons!) for him 👀

[flamingothing]

i am putting characters on my webbed site. hell yeah

[iconuk01]

The six stages of the puzzle box from Hellraiser 2022 as designed by Martin Emborg, (and drawing inspiration from the original 1980′s LeMarchand Puzzle Box designed by Simon Sayce)

A new twist on the original is that instead of a box which solving opens the gates to the realm of Leviathan and the Cenobites, now the puzzle has six seperate forms which means that... well you’ll have to see the movie to find out more about what that means!

https://hellraiser.fandom.com/wiki/Lament_Configuration#Hellraiser_(2022)

[risunsky]

Papa Cenobite

If you're wondering why, it's because you haven't had the pleasure of browsing through a certain reliquary on a certain website where we discovered that there was a papal outfit all leather and buckles with a big Hellraiser vibe. Papa never wore it but it does exist. A few months ago I'd thought of a Hellraiser Ghost crossover, but it was just a design from the Lemarchand's box. So even if it was done in a hurry, this design is a better idea. I just thought, replace the black make-up with flayed skin and tadah.

[madame-mortician]

Key differences between the Hellraiser book and movie!

So I’ve probably mentioned this before, but I’ve read the original novel the Hellraiser film was based on, and it has a lot of key differences from the film. It’s not that the film was supposed to be upgrading the original story, just telling a slightly different one but both are written by Clive Barker so it’s not like the film purposefully changed things due to different staff, anyways to the list.

In the film, Kirsty is the teenage daughter of Larry Cotton, and the stepdaughter of Julia, though she isn’t that close to her due to them being wed after Kirsty was already grown. In the novel, Kirsty is the same age as Rory (Larry’s original name) and is not related to him, or Julia. In the original story, it’s shown she had a crush on Rory, hence her close relationship with him, but she never shoots her shot because he married Julia, who she also isn’t close with, in the novel.

In the novel, the Cenobites are more morally good than in the film. In the film's opening, once Frank opens the Lament Configuration, he is instantly torn apart and dragged to Hell, with the Cenobites being very willing to take Kirsty as well. In the novel, when Frank uses the Lemarchand Box (another name change) the Cenobites appear before him and talk with him, asking repeatedly if he consents and explaining vaguely that he’s not going to get what he thinks. Only after he consents do they begin to torture him. In the film, after Kirsty gives Frank to the Cenobites, they betray her and go after her, in the novel they tell her to leave when they go after Frank, and they never pursue her after Frank’s taken, not going back on their deal.

The film ends with the Eremite grabbing the Lament Configuration and preparing to sell it to a new victim, however, the book ends differently. In the book, he doesn’t appear until the very last scene, where he gives Kirsty the box and she comes to the conclusion that she is now the keeper of the box, and takes this role wearily. Whether this implies Kirsty herself became an Eremite or she’s just supposed to protect the box from curious fingers, it’s up to your interpretation.

Speaking of the Eremite, his lack of appearance in the novel means the film and novel start with different contexts. In the film, the Eremite sold the box to Frank, designed as a trick which he falls for, making him out to be a rather villainous figure. In the novel, Frank heard of the box through word of mouth and presumed the box brought pleasure, which was half true. Then he specifically sought out the box and was told exactly what would happen. So the film starts with Frank having no clue what awaits him and being killed for it, whilst the novel starts with Frank having literally set up a shrine for the Cenobite's arrival. That said, the Eremite does appear briefly at the end of the book, though in the novel he is implied to be the Engineer.

In the movie the Lament Configuration is a puzzle box with golden designs etched into it, making it rather regal-looking and not too hard to solve. In the novel, Lemarchand’s Box was pitch black and in its default form it had no shadow or light reflections, and thus you couldn’t really see anything on it to help with solving it. When she completes the first step to open it, she sees weird reflections on the box’s face, showing presumably lost souls, Kirsty recognises Julia and Frank's faces, but notes she can't find Rory's. The novel box was so hard to solve that it took hours for both Kirsty and Frank to solve it.

The Cenobites were described differently than they appear in the film. In the film, there was Hell Preist, with the pins in his head, Deep Throat, with the fucked-up throat, Butterball, the fat one, and Chatterer, the one with the weird teeth. (Also the Engineer but he’s not that important.) In the novel, only really two of them are described, with it being rather vague. There’s one with jewelled pins in their head, and bells in their neck that sound like Church bells when they approach, which is obviously the novel version of Pinhead. There’s also a female Cenobite who, like all the other Cenobites, appears androgynous and sexless, however, she can be recognised as a female because she opens her coat to reveal her p_ssy. She’s essentially the original Deep Throat. Butterball and Chatterer could very well be here, but the other Cenobites are described only as sexless, androgynous, things with disfigured flesh strewn about and fixed as oddly fashionable. This means if you want an accurate depiction of the book Cenobites, the 2022 film designs are the most accurate. In the film it was obvious Pinhead was a male, along with Butterball and Chatterer whilst Deep Throat was female, which is another difference since again, the novel had them all be genderless, except for the female one.

Since Kirsty is not related to Larry/Rory, she also isn’t related to Frank. In the film, she recognises him as her sleazy Uncle, and it’s implied he might’ve been predatory towards her, but in the novel she barely knew him but was always attracted to his brother Rory. The line "Come to Daddy" is said in both, but the context is again, different. In the film, Frank said it to trick Kirsty into thinking he was her dad, Larry, but in the novel, since they have no relation, he was just being a creep.

In the film when Kirsty escapes Frank and Julia, she wakes up in the hospital and after solving the box she walks into Hell and is tormented by the Cenobites. In the book, she also wakes up in the hospital, but after solving the box, one of the Cenobites (I believe it was Pinhead) appears before her, and she strikes the trade, with it being calmer than in the film scene. Also, it is shown that only she can see the Cenobite, as a staff member enters and doesn’t see the Cenobite, which implies only people who solved the box can see Cenobites, meaning Julia never saw them.

Back to that Cenobite I failed to discuss earlier, the Engineer is rather different in both stories. In the film, it’s a weird, grotesque monster thing, which appears very briefly but in the novel it appears in a wedding dress and veil, which Kirsty mistakes for Julia’s corpse, implying it looks humanoid, however when it unveils it is shown to be a blinding light, so it's true form is unknown. It’s also implied that the Eremite who appears in the novel's last scene is actually the Engineer, which is very possible.

A small one is the novel takes place in England whilst the film is set in America. This was mostly done to boost sales, though they went even further as to dub over some of the British accents.

In the film, Kirsty has a boyfriend who assists her, though he’s a very one-dimensional character and not very memorable. He’s just kinda… there. In the novel, he doesn’t exist because half of Kirsty’s character is that she had a crush on Rory.

The movie got a load of sequels, most being shitty slasher flicks, with only like… 3 of them being decent. The direct sequel, Hellbound: Hellraiser 2 is a direct follow-up to the film, continuing Kirsty and Pinhead’s story and not being based on an existing novel. In 2015, however, a sequel to the original novel was released, nothing like the films before. The basic gist of the sequel novel is that Pinhead wants power and becomes like, a horrible villain more akin to fucking Thanos than to movie Pinhead, but is stopped by another Clive Barker character, a detective named Harry D’Amour. Honestly, the book (titled The Scarlet Gospels) doesn’t sound the best, it gets super religious and I mean SUPER religious, but hey, whatever, it’s unique I guess.

[gentlymorbid]

My collection is complete!

[1cebittentwicehigh]

We have such sights to show you...

As I keep acquiring more, LeMarchand's boxes continue to astound and confound me...

Perhaps you can solve the puzzle?

[bracketsoffear]

Pig (Roald Dahl) "A short story about a cookbook writer, Lexington, who was raised by a strictly vegetarian aunt. After his aunt's death, he seeks to expand his culinary horizons, first by tasting pork for the first time and then going to a factory tour to see how meat is processed. Unfortunately for him, the slaughterhouse he goes to appears to specialize on processing meat of the "long pig" kind…"

The Hellbound Heart (Clive Barker) "Frank Cotton is a hedonistic criminal selfishly devoted to sensual experience even if it harms others. Believing he has indulged in every pleasure the world can offer, Frank obtains the Lemarchand Configuration, a puzzle box said to open a "schism" or portal to an extradimensional realm of unfathomable pleasure ruled by beings called the Cenobites. Solving the box, he is confused and horrified when the Cenobites – horribly scarified creatures whose bodies have been modified to the point that they appear sexless and in constant pain – arrive. Frank still eagerly accepts the offer of experiences he has never known before, and the Cenobites take him to their realm, where they subject him to total sensory overload and he realises their devotion to sadomasochism is so extreme and their personalities so removed from humanity that they no longer differentiate between pain and pleasure and have no care to ever stop even if their subject no longer wishes the experience.

Sometime later, Frank's brother, Rory, moves into the home in England with his wife Julia. Unknown to Rory, Julia had an affair with Frank a week before their wedding and has lusted after him since. While in the attic, Rory accidentally cuts his hand and bleeds on the spot where Frank was taken by the Cenobites. The blood, mixed with semen Frank had left on the floor before he was taken, opens a dimensional schism. Frank returns, his body now reduced to a desiccated corpse by the Cenobites' experiments. Julia later finds him and promises to restore his body so he can truly live and they can be together. Julia seduces men at bars and kills them in the attic, where Frank feeds on their corpses.

Rory's friend Kirsty encounters Frank, who attempts to kill her. Kirsty grabs the puzzle box before fleeing and later accidentally opens it. The Cenobite intends to take Kirsty now that it is here, but she then reveals Frank is alive on Earth again. Though skeptical that one of their experiments could have escaped, the Cenobite is intrigued. It agrees that if Kirsty leads them to Frank and he confirms his identity, they will take him back and perhaps leave her alone.

Rory and Julia claim they killed Frank but Kirsty realizes the man she is speaking to is Frank wearing Rory's skin. Another altercation ensues, during which Frank inadvertently kills Julia. Kirsty then baits Frank into admitting his true name out loud. The Cenobites appear, ensnare Frank and return him to their realm, telling Kirsty to leave. Downstairs, Kirsty sees Julia's disembodied head calling for help. The leader of the Cenobites, a being called the Engineer, then appears and seems to take away Julia as well before briefly bumping into Kirsty. After leaving the house, Kirsty realizes the Engineer gave her the puzzle box to watch over until another seeks it out."

[idreamtofmanderleyagain]

To be honest I can't fully remember if I saw H4 all the way through beginning to end...presumably I did, at one point, see all 8 of them (9 and 10 dont count and you cant make me) I am pretty sure...but...there's something so cringe about this one that I just can't bring myself to do it again. H4 to me is what H3 is to other people. It's odd to me that many claim to prefer this one to 3.

Literally aside from Angelique and a smattering of decent Pinhead lines, there's just...nothing about this movie that really grabs me. Pinhead is truly OOC, the plot bores me and it jumps back and forth through time, smugly presuming I will be riveted enough to follow it. It has none of the fun, goofy charm of H3, but all of it's clunky, bizarre cinematography and insistence on making Pinhead look and feel hammy and ridiculous in the closest close ups it can get.

It's a movie that pretends to want to be intelligent and complex, but it also really wants to justify creating some kind of weird fight scene with Pinhead but knows it cant because it would look stupid, so it mostly makes things explode around him while he Big Angy Manly Screams. It just likes to rattle him around like a little angy hamster being shook in a plastic ball. It's so dorky.

I feel like people are so obsessed with seeing "the movie that might have been" in this thing mainly because Doug and Valentina are carrying something that is and always has been broken - in all versions. Every fanfic remake so far has been more competent and engaging than what we have.

This is a movie that is basically insisting on being more about it's own bad lore more than it is about people. It's not really about Angelique's experiences, because it doesn't care much about her and basically throws her out. It's not really about Lemarchand and his descendants, because it breaks the movie into three pieces for that, giving them very little room to thrive in their own right. These characters are all just ingredients in the dish that is the plot.

I actually even think this version of the Lemarchand backstory serves to remove the mystery of the box.

I can't be the only one who thinks the gore in the sequels of this franchise is actually more on the side of ridiculous rather than cool or disturbing.