Cenobite Hell Priest, Pinhead (Jamie Clayton) is played by a woman, the protagonist, Riley, is a drug addict instead of a sex addict, the iconic puzzle box now has six configurations and a spring-loaded blade, and solving it requires sacrificing five lives. When Pinhead lets Riley get creative with her choice of sacrifice, however, the line between artistic license and out-and-out rule-breaking gets a bit blurry.
In the final act of the 2022 Hellraiser, Pinhead lets Riley choose Chatterer, a Cenobite, as a sacrifice instead of a fellow human, breaking a major franchise rule: the Cenobites are impartial. Like the best cosmic horror, the Hellraiser movies treat the villains as ambivalent. They are neither for nor against their victims; they’re simply doing their cosmic bidding. The horror lies in the inevitability of what solving the Hellraiser puzzle box sets in motion. By letting Riley bend the rules of the game, Hellraiser not only subverts that sense of inevitability, it turns Pinhead from an agent of cosmic order to something altogether messier and more human.
Why Pinhead Breaks the Rules by Sacrificing Chatterer in Hellraiser 2022
While the sacrifice of Chatterer may break a major rule of the Hellraiser franchise, it doesn’t betray the reboot’s internal logic. In press rounds for Hellraiser, director, David Bruckner and actress, Jamie Clayton have described the new Pinhead as playful and curious. Indeed, when Riley chooses Chatterer as sacrifice by pricking him with the puzzle box’s blade, Pinhead looks amused, as if impressed by Riley’s cleverness and creativity. Her willingness to break the rules is in keeping with her curious, playful nature. Of course, this still doesn’t jibe with the idea of Pinhead as less villain than force of nature, but the new Hellraiser may have an answer for this, too - an answer ed, in fact, by Hellraiser canon.
Past entries in the Hellraiser franchise have alluded to the Cenobites’ origins. Pinhead, it turns out, was once a WW1 captain named Elliott Spencer. The Cenobite known as the Doctor was once Doctor Philip Channard. 2022's Hellraiser leans into the human-origin idea even more, showing antagonist, Roland Voight, being turned into a Cenobite in the film’s final act. Thus, while the Cenobites may exist as cold interdimensional beings in their current state, it isn’t too much of a stretch to think they could still possess traces of playfulness, curiosity, or other human traits. Moreover, while some viewers have questioned Pinhead’s willingness to turn on her fellow Cenobite, and Chatterer’s willingness to accept his fate, Cenobites being created from humans would explain both his disposable nature and his readiness to escape bondage.
The Chatterer’s Death in Hellraiser 2022 Was a Franchise First
The Hellraiser franchise features no shortage of creative kills, including of the Cenobite-on-human, human-on-Cenobite, and human-on-human varieties, but Chatterer’s death in Hellraiser 2022 represents the franchise’s first Cenobite-on-Cenobite killing. To some viewers, this lowers the stakes by giving would-be victims an all-too-easy out. All a character would need to do to survive a future franchise entry would be to lure the (mostly) slow-moving Cenobites with the puzzle box and stab them with its retractable blade. On the other hand, by ditching the older films’ sense of inevitability, the reboot paves the way for future Hellraiser movies to be less predictable, more tense, and, like the new Pinhead, more playful.
