#which. incidentally. is why my draft sucks and I have a week and a half left to finish it

[exopelagic]

ohhhh my supervisor is so sick of me

[reachexceedinggrasp]

Not being a fan of horror movies in general, it was on a bizarre whim (mostly driven by my curiosity about any film with such a unique imprint that it is both cult and mainstream and somewhat driven by depressive dissociation that makes me avoid doing productive things) that I decided to watch Hellraiser a couple days weeks ago (this post has been getting bigger in my drafts for a while- who is keeping time in quarantine dates are arbitrary). About which I knew nothing whatsoever except that it was the thing Pinhead was from and maaaaybe something vague about the existence of cenobites in general from having seen action figure packaging. As I gather is most non-horror people’s experience with the franchise.

Anyway, I watched it and because I am a strange obsessive person I did the thing I always do, which is compulsively seek out ways to stay with an interesting/significant film to grok it better and listen to people talk about why they think it’s good, so I learnt about the sequels without watching them. Finally relented and watched first 2 and then later 3 as I got more and more sucked in to having Opinions about this property which is so totally not my thing lmao.

Anyway, in my post-tros defiance I might have been even more primed than usual for this kind of deep commitment to my brand, but it is made shockingly easy by this series to not only root for and woobieise Pinhead, but to ship him with the main heroine/closest thing it has to a consistent protagonist and needless to say I’ve fallen into a bit of a rabbit hole.

(Yes, friends, I am now going so hard that I am woobieising and shipping an edgelord horror icon with pins stuck in his face. I who am not even a villain fucker. Allow me to reiterate that it is STARTLING how easy they make it and there’s an entirely plausible leg to stand on that both are well-founded in canon. I don’t know what I expected from these movies or that character but it definitely wasn’t this. Did not anticipate, would not have imagined.)

Enormous amounts of incoherent rambling under cut

Out of the gate, none of the Hellraiser films are exactly masterpieces (I mean, I only actually watched the first three, however all reports are that they don’t get better), but they are different and interesting. I completely get why the original is considered a classic and why there are dedicated fans who want to see it taken seriously. There’s enormous potential on the table, loads of creativity and ideas, it’s just that it was never organised into something that hung together and transcended. The first one is contained and narratively solid including some symbolic depth, the second one is an ambitious mess with no plot and which completely falls apart around half way through, and the third one is goofy/not a little bit of an Americanised dumbed-down sellout but again reasonably solid.

But it never really was or became the thing I think the biggest fans saw or remember seeing in it. I’ve run across a couple people mentioning that they went back to watch them again after years and it was a very different experience than they expected from their recollection. The aspects with the greatest popularity/longevity were very minor, almost incidental elements of the original. More hints than anything fully formed. Really, I feel like this becoming a franchise was built on two things:

1. the impressive SFX, originally used to serve resonant themes and well supported by everything around it (especially the score)- the original being just a solid little movie with a very effective hook (lol, see what I did there- hooks, cenobites, get it?)

2. Pinhead.

Well, to be fair, it’s the incredibly memorable and instantly timeless character designs of the cenobites in general, with Pinhead just being by far the most compelling and the only one who’s really a character rather than a prop. He's an extremely arresting and visually interesting figure who also had all the best lines, played by an actor with more charisma in his part than anyone else in the film, and he has an enormous weight of intrigue about him.

People really wanted to see something come of this character, something to make good on the strange gravitas he has, but then it never happened. I really think that frustration is what kept this thing going for thirty years- audiences kept saying ‘more Pinhead’ and neither they nor the filmmakers seemed to know what they wanted from that ‘more’ or how to do it. Other than the tragedy of their humanity in Hellbound (almost completely wasted- the moment of connection with Kirsty is brilliant and seems so promising, then nothing comes of it but a staggering anti-climax where they all die in seconds to beef up a new villain), the vaguely suggested idea of what the cenobites are in the original film is infinitely better than any subsequent expansion on them. Although the third movie at least leans in to the pathos and nuance of the character by expanding on Elliot Spenser (the human who became Pinhead) even while eroding it by having ‘Unbound’ (aka cut off from his humanity) Pinhead become a slasher villain.

It’s all a fortuitous accident that no one ever figured out how to respond to, since Pinhead only got all the lines and became so prominent in the first place because two of the other three cenobite actors were unable to speak in their makeup. He wasn’t even conceived as the focus among the group, he became ‘Lead Cenobite’ (his credited name) because he could talk. They didn’t anticipate the way the audience latched on to him at all and didn’t plan the things which caused it. He is so striking because his look is the most uncanny (his form is most recognisably human, his mutilations are most subtle, but that makes it all the more unsettling to see this obviously living person who has quite a soft countenance and carries himself with a sort of melancholic, kingly dignity have a bunch of nails driven into his skull) and he’s so interesting because the dichotomy of that creates an immediate implication of pathos.

And I’m now experiencing enormous frustration with something that should be fucking predictable at this point, which is the mostly male, mostly powerlevels orientated online fanbase completely missing the boat on who this character is. Totally failing to pick up what was actually compelling about him or why they think he’s awesome besides his general aura of dangerous majesty, which is basically entirely a product of the actor’s stage presence and comportment in synergy with the costume. It’s not what he does because he barely does anything until the third film (which a lot of these fans don’t like anyway). Diving into various reviews and retrospectives about the franchise, I heard so many times a dude saying he hated that Pinhead was given a backstory and especially that it was implied to be the tragic downfall of a sympathetic character. They all had the same reasoning- it’s bad because ‘humanising the monster’ is bad, as it removes their threat.

Oi yoy yoooooy. Let’s break down what’s wrong with that:

a) Pinhead (and by extension cenobites in general because they are a unit in the first film) was not the villain of the story, he’s not even a villain. Frank and Julia are the villains. When the sequel was greenlit, it was intended to be Julia’s villain origin story and she was to go on to be the big bad of the series. The cenobites are neutral and operate according to rules by which no one who faces them is wholly innocent or unwilling. The only time someone opens the box with a true absence of desire (Tiffany, who solves puzzles by compulsion not conscious will), Pinhead orders she be spared without any stipulations or exchange and leaves her to wander around the labyrinth as she pleases. But you can make a deal with the cenobites even if you’re not wholly innocent as long as you are extremely careful, because they can be reasoned with. They are like very dark Gothic faeries (or maybe genies) in the original film. They are amoral rather than being evil. It’s a very ‘careful what you wish for’ kind of situation. They are repugnant in their extremity but terrifyingly recognisable, holding up a mirror to fundamentally human vice.

The cenobites actually stand between Frank and Julia and victory over good. Pinhead saves Kirsty’s life in both the original and the sequel. These movies aren’t ever the most coherent even at their best, so it’s fuzzy, but he even says ‘this is not for your eyes’ to Kirsty before they reclaim Frank. Which implies he actually values her remaining innocence and wouldn’t have her traumatised (yes, they then go after her, I did say this movie isn’t super consistent- but one could argue they think she reneged on her deal by saying she won’t give them ‘the man who did this’- which she still thinks is her father at that point, and also that they never actually promised her anything). The cenobites aren’t here to rip up innocent victims, they expand the awareness of consenting burn outs for whom there are no other thrills left. I understand in the original novella there’s a much stronger element of ‘are you sure you want this?’ before the chains come out. Either way, the overall momentum is that they don’t do anything to people who don’t summon them or call to them in some way. Kirsty was curious and knew the box was dangerous, so there was both knowledge and desire involved in her solving it.

(BDSM is icky icky nope, one of my biggest squicks, but this movie has nothing to do with real life subcultures or the practice of real fetishes- it’s a fable about vice and how it can consume us. Frank is a sociopathic hedonist in pursuit of ultimate pleasure, Julia is so self-absorbed and bored with her life she’ll do anything to get back the thrill she got from Frank, Elliot was a soldier traumatised by WWI who turned to novel corporeal experiences in attempt to feel anything- to believe he was alive [this is implied, not fully spelled out but I am inclined to read Elliot as tragic because even Julia is a nuanced character with whom we can empathise during her downfall so it would be consistent and because he is infinitely more interesting that way]. The attractive quality of the cenobites is their representation of taboo in abstract, of liminal experience and arcane knowledge, not any expectation that one would actually enjoy having hooks through one’s face and find that appealing. To me it’s obviously not about anything so literal as something you might actually do in real life. Which is why it was silly for BDSM ‘lifestyle’ people to be offended by it or say it’s a negative portrayal. It’s not a portrayal, it has nothing to do with them. It’s not a condemnation of your gimp outfit, it’s dealing with universal primal themes with heightened stakes. One of the writers and the actress who played Julia both said the same thing.)

b) Literal monsters are never as scary or as evil as humans. It’s not the cenobites and their strangeness you have to fear most, but the very familiar and mundane sins of humanity- lust, greed, selfishness, gluttony, etc. Again, Frank and Julia are the villains. Julia is the really horrifying element of the film because she is a normal person who becomes so profoundly corrupted that she starts enjoying hammer murders for their own sake, and what makes it scary is that she is at first somewhat sympathetic. We’re with her, in her pov, for quite a bit of the film. This is the effectiveness of well-written horror (horror which creates an atmosphere of dread around a story we’re invested in rather than just throwing out cheap jumpscares and gore), it puts you in an emotionally uncomfortable position as a viewer, so that you are in a state of constant tension.

c) One of the most unique and fascinating things about these films is their surprising empathy and indulgence in romanticism. Humanising monsters and monsterising humans is the DNA of this universe and that’s exactly why the first two films stood out so much. It’s not a flaw! It’s why we’re still talking about it! If not for romanticism and pathos, it would be a boring little cautionary tale about obsession. Gothic romance and tragic monsters, grotesques, the B&tB element??? it’s all part of the backbone and is strongest in the original two films! for real!!!! all the human villains are in love. they all wax poetic about the beauty in ugliness. the heroine shows the monsters their lost humanity!! Pinhead elects to save her even before being stripped of his supernatural powers and turned physically human- meaning it’s not as simple as him being split into two halves (where only the entirely human version of him would care about her) or just human solidarity on his part. There is something personal and special in how he treats her compared to any other character who solves the box. He has always liked her.

Then these grim, bloody horror movies throw me the weirdest bone in the second and third films. So I was just interested in the first film as a notable moment in cinema and had a vague curiosity about its concepts. No actual emotions about it except as noted. I was general audience and my thoughts were basically that, although it was a fun little British horror movie with fairly strong character work, the popular appeal was almost entirely based on how cool the cenobites look. Everyone being most attracted to Pinhead because he looked coolest and he spoke and had this tremendous presence. That was where I was at as well. But my love of behind the scenes info got me watching sequels and BRO- Kirsty, the heroine, discovers a picture of Elliot in his army uniform in Channard’s collection of Research Material. She finds him familiar, pockets the picture, and at some point either then or later realises that he is Pinhead. Already my ears have perked up because the fact that she can recognise him is indicative of unexpected attention to his face on her part (because he is not easily recognisable as the same person at all).

And, armed with this picture and this knowledge, she eventually tells him who he is (the cenobites were not even aware they were once mortal and didn’t remember their human lives). He then fights on her behalf before being gradually depowered to human, sharing a moment with her as the man she freed, and finally sacrificing himself to allow her to escape. That’s movie 2.

Hell on Earth (movie 3) has the entire plot being about his humanity as essential to balancing the power/appetite of the thing he became. So now his worst instincts/pure appetite is walking free without his conscious mind to control or temper it. The ‘ordered’ part of him which followed rules and just had a job to do came from him being human. Not sure what the implications are on that, that’s the opposite to how things usually work in these stories- humans are always free will/chaos and the supernatural entities are bound by rules. Anyway. He’s separated into ‘Unbound’ Pinhead and the ghost of Elliot. 

Tragically, Kirsty is not in this movie and thus is not the one who gets to meet his ghost (which, interestingly, seems to be the complete person Elliot was in life- apparently nothing in the cenobite part of him is essential to his personality or being, Unbound Pinhead is just his physical body animated by accumulated bad juju), talk to him, and eventually restore him to one piece, but I’m still into it as a concept (and I like Joey from Hell on Earth, she’s a decent character, it would just mean so much more if it were Kirsty). Despite the rejoining scene being quite awful and then undermined as pointless because he just keeps on being evil (or maybe they haven’t fused yet and both wills are battling it out in there temporarily- did I mention these movies aren’t super coherent a few times already?), the basic idea is there. Huge thematic potential.

And I feel like the vibe of Gothic Romance was pretty blatant and intentional in Hellbound (#2) when Kirsty reminds him of his humanity. He fights and then dies for her, after all. They give him a real, full-on Hero Shot both when he fights as a cenobite and especially after he’s become human and decides to go down with a weapon in his hand. And the look between Elliott and Kirsty before he's killed contains novels imo. That five seconds is the most interesting thing in this entire franchise for me, I would absolutely not have watched more of the films or spent however long rambling here about it if not for that moment. The latest sequel which shouldn’t exist did do one great thing for the world (the world in this example being me) and that’s have him end up human again at the end. Which led to this fanfic, which is the spectacular domestic angst hurt/comfort I needed and need right now.

But Hell on Earth seems to be very much romanticising him deliberately as well. I’ve seen someone claim it was originally written for Kirsty and there would have been a ~vibe between she and Elliot, possibly a kiss. I do not know if any part of that is at all true, but I wouldn’t be super shocked if it was. It’s not implausible. In fact, I find it very plausible. That’s the size of the B&tB monstershipping bone this franchise has unexpectedly thrown me: I could believe it of them to go there. (Apparently they do kiss in a vision or something in one of the comics but the plot and characterisation of the comic continuity also sounds completely off the rails awful so I will not be reading those.)

(Sidebar: The funniest shit I’ve ever heard was from a video about the Kirsty/Pinhead(and/or Elliot) ship wherein it was noted some people object to it because of the age difference.

The age difference.

So, we live in a world where purity wankers can watch and enjoy a Hellraiser movie but are worried about an age difference being problematic. Not his being an amoral genie from the pain dimension covered in mutilations and in the habit of torturing people, but being older than her. Hellraiser has multiple skinless people, flesh vampirism, dudes getting torn apart by chains, a super molesty uncle who wants to rape his niece, murder, sadism, etc. But an age difference is problematic. And which age difference? Because I bet you three million dollars they don’t give a fuck that Elliot/Pinhead is over a hundred years old in the context of the story (he is a WWI solider who became immortal, I remind you). It’ll be about the physical age difference between the actors. Anyone who brings this shit up is always completely predictable and completely shallow. I don’t know what their age difference actually is (it doesn’t look that big lmao, it never even occurred to me to wonder), but she’s definitely an adult so there is no possible scenario in which it matters.

Honestly though. Imagine being okay with this franchise in general and then trying to play the ~problematic age difference~ card. Kirsty feeds her douche husband and four other people to Pinhead in one of the latter day DTV sequels (not literally- he does not eat people. Feel like I should note that for anyone who isn’t familiar still reading this out of morbid fascination with my descent into madness).

Okay, I looked up the actors- they’re only 12 years apart LMAO who cares. Weak.)

Speaking of which (his popularity). Why are people so down on Hellraiser 3 (Hell on Earth)? Pinhead’s OOC behaviour is explained (to the extent than anything is ever explained in this universe) and his character is actually deepened (which people complain about more than the fact that he’s unhinged and Evil McEvilface? which thing actually bothers you, I’m confused? either you like that he’s not a monster or you don’t- everyone says the first two are the only good ones but Pinhead was humanised and made tragic in the second one, he also sacrificed his life to save Kirsty and they ALSO say the third one is lame because he’s made into a slasher villain without nuance??), but I see so much complaining about the less serious tone and wisecracks etc. Meanwhile. Hellbound has even more puns/dumb villain wisecracks than Hell on Earth does.

Channard is non-stop ludicrous as soon as the tentacle attaches to his head. And Hellbound also has not one, but two big floppy anti-climaxes and is narratively entirely pointless. 3 is a much better movie. Yes, Hellbound had tonnes of interesting ideas and evocative visuals, but it doesn't actually make any sense and there's no arc for anyone. There’s no plot, there’s no conflict which gets resolved unless you count the brief moment Channard enjoyed being a classic cenobite before he was taken over by the giant prehensile penis. What the fuck was that anyway? Who knows. Nothing about it is ever explained. The tentacles were also shown pounding the nails into Elliot’s head in Pinhead’s origin montage, so one imagines it must be Leviathan. But why would Leviathan take over Channard directly and why would it cause him to become an Austin Powers villain? When the original cenobites fight him, does this mean they are rebelling against Leviathan itself?

Like, someone who thinks this movie is a masterpiece should really try to make an outline for what the fuck it’s about, because it makes no sense even on a solely thematic or symbolic level.

I think that while Hell on Earth is far, far more pedestrian than the first two films and much less thoughtful, it's pretty much on par in regard to execution. The rich atmosphere and striking novelty of the original hugely elevated it, but it's rough in a lot of ways. The bad dubbing, the weird pacing, characters behaving bizarrely to make the plot work, massive logic holes you actually notice while you're watching (if you don't notice them until the third time, then they don't matter- but if you're asking 'wait what?' and thinking about that instead of being engaged in the story then it does matter), some cheesy dialogue, some weak blocking of scenes, how blasé the cinematography sometimes is, etc. What was brilliant about it was its ideas and its visuals, what made it stand out was that it was doing something radically different than its contemporaries. Hell on Earth abandons the serious dramatic tone and becomes more bog standard horror schlock with bog standard set pieces, but its plot and mythology makes just as much sense and the production aspects are just as good or better if less ambitious and less inventive.

I don't find it worse as a piece of entertainment, just commercialised and gentrified to the original's organic auteur flavour. Clunky, creaky creative vision from an artist is preferable to a sleeker, more soulless product, but Hell on Earth isn’t a soulless product imo. It legitimately tries to do something cogent and worthwhile which shows a love of the material, it makes an effort with its characters, it just lacks in execution. It lacks finesse, strangeness, and subtlety in a really big way.

You know, the super try hard ‘I’m so edgy’ church scene (which is dumb on numerous levels), the lametastic and instantly dated ‘modern’ cenobites, the heavy metal club, the crassness of it in comparison to the more elegant, seductive qualities of the first two. etc. etc. Those things drag it down. The bungled writing and terrible visuals of the final showdown with Unbound Pinhead drag it down (I’d argue the original suffers similarly and Hellbound even more so from illogical, dorky climatic showdowns- honestly what bothers me about Hell on Earth is the goofiness of the visual more than anything else- the climaxes of the first two were dramatically empty added action where this one actually had a lot going for it, but they shot it so badly and the special effects are both badly conceived and badly executed. Why shoot Pinhead in an extreme close-up fish eye lens?? Why make a horrible blob morph?? looking regal and dignified is at least 75% of his effectiveness as a character!!). But it hangs together and flows well. It doesn’t bore me and only left me asking ‘what?’ once or twice instead of fairly regularly. In Hellbound you ask ‘what?’ approx once every other scene if you pay too much attention.

There’s no consistency to this shit. Whatever. Anyway. They’re still trying to do a remake and I’ve never heard anything so ill-advised and utterly pointless. What worked and created something special wasn’t the raw material from the story, people don’t remember the film for its plot and don’t want to see that story executed better or with ‘better’ modern effects (not that it would be better, it’ll be all CGI and have infinitely less impact- the original works because it’s visceral, tangible, fleshy). There’s only one icon from this franchise and he can’t be replaced because it was the marriage of actor and image which created him. The scripts never really understood the character’s final form and it’s already been demonstrated that anyone else in the costume looks like they’re playing dress up and is instantly rendered ridiculous when they speak.

What was needed was a better sequel with a meaningful story that did the character justice so the audience could feel satisfied the opportunity was seized and the most was made of him, and that tragically never happened. 2 and 3 make some effort, but the scripts just aren’t there. Then, no one after that ever considered trying to create closure for Kirsty or giving some kind of emotional throughline to the actual Hellraiser narrative with the only other remaining OG- the one who has the special relationship with Pinhead. Instead they just threw him into unrelated horror scripts haphazardly because people wanted to see him.

There’s absolutely no profit in going back to the beginning and starting over now, the thing that had so much potential and deserved to be explored won’t be there.

And in meaningless observations I must put somewhere lest I continue to think about them for the rest of my natural life: it’s weird that the most popular official art of Pinhead is apparently from early proof of concept photos they did when they were still figuring out the make up. I know this because he has blue eyes in it instead of the black sclera contact lenses he has in the movie. Those pictures were used for the sequel promo as well! The cover of the sequel OST is a different photo also without contacts, at least three notable posters are therefore from those concept pictures. No one who shows those photos in their videos about the series has ever mentioned this, so I feel compelled to mention it.

(I would guess it must be because they had no idea he was going to become the face of the franchise and so didn’t have other promo pics prepared/money to do a new shoot when the audience decided who the poster boy should always be. They were making the sequel before the first film even came out, so they didn’t know the reaction until production was well underway. Still, you’d think in making the film’s main theatrical poster they would have rectified this jarring inconsistency. It’s wild to me it was used not only for the original, but the sequel. It’s so noticeable! Those black lenses aren’t subtle!

Actually wait, I was going to add images here to show the nobody who will read this wall of text how noticeable it is and discovered a sequel promo pic without contacts that was definitely shot for the sequel because it has the female cenobite played by a different actress. The plot thickens on this completely trivial and uninteresting mystery no one but me will ever care about. So idk, maybe they lost the contacts? Why do I want to know? I want to know.)

Anyway look:

Super noticeable, right? His real eyes are such a pale blue, it stands out even more than it otherwise would. I was like ‘why does that famous poster image look so strange to me now that I’ve seen the film...? oh!’ and then became desperate for someone else to point it out lmao. Yes, I am crazy, why do you ask.

And the other one is that there’s something wrong with his makeup in Hellbound during the scene where he gives Kirsty the pyramid version of the box. The prosthetic is super thick/maybe not applied properly? around the jaw and it bothers me every time someone shows clips from that part.