It’s not a stretch to say that besides his Books of Blood, Clive Barker’s most recognizable work is The Hellbound Heart and its film adaptation Hellraiser. Barker loves and hates this fact, but even with its endless succession of sequels, Hellraiser has its merits.
Even as a kid, I recognized that Hellraiser had a transgressive element to it that set it apart as a horror franchise. I couldn’t say it in so many words, but the image of Pinhead broke boundaries and made the image uncomfortable to look at. This was something I wouldn’t have dared to ask my parents if I could rent or watch. Pinhead is still likely to give some kids nightmares. As an adult, I find the story as repulsive as it is fascinating. Barker created a variation of the deal-with-the-devil trope, involving S&M demons, Faustian bargains, splatterpunk sex and violence, and a dash of Lovecraftian cosmic horror.
The plots of the book and movie are mostly the same. Frank Cotton, a self-centered hedonist and criminal is jaded with the pleasures he has experienced until he hears about Lemarchand’s Box (later called The Lament Configuration). Anyone who unlocks this puzzle box will access pleasure and pain beyond human knowledge. He solves the box and gets more than he bargained for when the Cenobites appear, give him what he wants, and then tear him apart.
Fast forward, Frank’s brother Larry (Rory in the book) moves into the Cotton’s house where Frank was destroyed, along with his wife, Julia, who secretly had a fling with Frank. An accident causes Larry to spill some blood on the attic floor. Unbeknownst to Larry, Frank’s residue is in the floorboards and absorbs the blood and he is revived. Julia encounters the resurrected Frank and agrees to help him restore his body by bringing him victims. Innocent in this matter is Kirsty, Larry’s daughter (his friend and unrequited love interest in the book) and she is caught up in this madness and encounters the Cenobites herself. It's a story of unbridled lust and desire and can be read as a cautionary tale of being careful what you wish for and every action has a consequence. All the events in the book were triggered by a selfish man’s ennui.
The film’s success spawned numerous sequels, most of them horrible. The best of them was Part II: Hellbound, in which Kirsty enters Hell under the belief that she is rescuing her father’s soul, but it turns out to be a trap. Even with a limited budget, the filmmakers made the most of it, and the realm of Pandemonium is expansive and ominous, hitting the right buttons with Lovecraftian hints at worlds beyond our world.
Part III is a mixed mess involving a douchebag with a bad haircut. Part IV is better, and it provides an origin story for the box. It may not be the best of sequels but is still worth watching. The sequels that followed were direct-to-video and were mostly disasters. They may have kept the IP alive, but that’s just about it.
The Hulu release Hellraiser (2022) is a retelling of the concept. An unscrupulous wealthy man uses the box, setting up the people who solved its numerous configurations as sacrifices so that he could select a prize bestowed on him by the Cenobites that is, in reality, a punishment. The box falls into the hands of Riley, a drug addict. Because of her actions, her brother is taken by the Cenobites, and she spends the movie trying to find him. This movie is one of the better ones in the franchise although it appears that some things only happen so the story can proceed. Riley is also an irritating protagonist. Looking beyond that, the movie is an interesting interpretation of Barker’s ideas.
As far as the book was concerned, Barker took the storyline in a completely different direction with his 2015 novel The Scarlet Gospels, which tells of Harry d’Amour (Barker’s occult detective in “The Last Illusion” and its film adaptation Lord of Illusions), who has been chosen by Pinhead to bear witness to him taking over Hell in a bloody coup with plans to conquer humanity. Overall, the book was entertaining, and the protagonists are likeable and funny. The book leaves a glaring loose end, though. Pinhead impregnates a human woman with a demon, she gives birth, and there’s no follow up about the demon child. The novella Hellraiser: The Toll by Mark Alan Miller tries to bridge the gap between both books, telling what happens to the book version of Kirsty. While it is a good read, there is no rationale for why she doesn’t appear in The Scarlet Gospels, which raises more questions.
I respect Clive Barker for giving us The Hellbound Heart and Hellraiser, even if the films are uneven and the books don’t fully account for everything. When these works succeed, they do really well and sometimes offer us gems when they don’t work out. Some franchises don’t give us anything.
Written by Nick Montelongo
Even as a kid, I recognized that Hellraiser had a transgressive element to it that set it apart as a horror franchise. I couldn’t say it in so many words, but the image of Pinhead broke boundaries and made the image uncomfortable to look at. This was something I wouldn’t have dared to ask my parents if I could rent or watch. Pinhead is still likely to give some kids nightmares. As an adult, I find the story as repulsive as it is fascinating. Barker created a variation of the deal-with-the-devil trope, involving S&M demons, Faustian bargains, splatterpunk sex and violence, and a dash of Lovecraftian cosmic horror.

The plots of the book and movie are mostly the same. Frank Cotton, a self-centered hedonist and criminal is jaded with the pleasures he has experienced until he hears about Lemarchand’s Box (later called The Lament Configuration). Anyone who unlocks this puzzle box will access pleasure and pain beyond human knowledge. He solves the box and gets more than he bargained for when the Cenobites appear, give him what he wants, and then tear him apart.
Fast forward, Frank’s brother Larry (Rory in the book) moves into the Cotton’s house where Frank was destroyed, along with his wife, Julia, who secretly had a fling with Frank. An accident causes Larry to spill some blood on the attic floor. Unbeknownst to Larry, Frank’s residue is in the floorboards and absorbs the blood and he is revived. Julia encounters the resurrected Frank and agrees to help him restore his body by bringing him victims. Innocent in this matter is Kirsty, Larry’s daughter (his friend and unrequited love interest in the book) and she is caught up in this madness and encounters the Cenobites herself. It's a story of unbridled lust and desire and can be read as a cautionary tale of being careful what you wish for and every action has a consequence. All the events in the book were triggered by a selfish man’s ennui.
The film’s success spawned numerous sequels, most of them horrible. The best of them was Part II: Hellbound, in which Kirsty enters Hell under the belief that she is rescuing her father’s soul, but it turns out to be a trap. Even with a limited budget, the filmmakers made the most of it, and the realm of Pandemonium is expansive and ominous, hitting the right buttons with Lovecraftian hints at worlds beyond our world.
Part III is a mixed mess involving a douchebag with a bad haircut. Part IV is better, and it provides an origin story for the box. It may not be the best of sequels but is still worth watching. The sequels that followed were direct-to-video and were mostly disasters. They may have kept the IP alive, but that’s just about it.

As far as the book was concerned, Barker took the storyline in a completely different direction with his 2015 novel The Scarlet Gospels, which tells of Harry d’Amour (Barker’s occult detective in “The Last Illusion” and its film adaptation Lord of Illusions), who has been chosen by Pinhead to bear witness to him taking over Hell in a bloody coup with plans to conquer humanity. Overall, the book was entertaining, and the protagonists are likeable and funny. The book leaves a glaring loose end, though. Pinhead impregnates a human woman with a demon, she gives birth, and there’s no follow up about the demon child. The novella Hellraiser: The Toll by Mark Alan Miller tries to bridge the gap between both books, telling what happens to the book version of Kirsty. While it is a good read, there is no rationale for why she doesn’t appear in The Scarlet Gospels, which raises more questions.
I respect Clive Barker for giving us The Hellbound Heart and Hellraiser, even if the films are uneven and the books don’t fully account for everything. When these works succeed, they do really well and sometimes offer us gems when they don’t work out. Some franchises don’t give us anything.
Written by Nick Montelongo
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