What are the Hellraiser concepts that most stand out?
A.Torres
I am fascinated by the Hellraiser mythology. I really don't know why. There
are better horror movies out there -- definitely. The novella was short and
simple and hardly dealt with the mythos.
I think my fascination comes from what can be gathered just by watching the
cenobites. It is not the mythology as it is told in the films and book -- it
is the mythos that is implied. The stories in my head, which have been
forged by Hellraiser, are what keep me in love with the story.
Just think about the concepts and imagine the storytelling possibilities;
Pleasure and Pain, the same -- No good or evil. There is only intensity,
only sensation.
The visuals of the cenobites garbed in S&M garb -- with evident body
piercing, branding and tattooing. It evokes so many primal and tribal
feelings. Exploration of our bodies, of our flesh, it is so sensual yet
frightening. Like genies the cenobites come when summoned, and bring forth
pleasure -- it is only our ignorance of the extent of pleasure that damn us.
In the first and second movies (you know, the good ones) Pinhead (god I wish
a different name had stuck) doesn't appear as a "bad guy". I love the
"demons to some angels to others" concept. He is just a follower in a
religion, a cenobite. He preaches pleasure and pain to those who request it.
No evil intent there.
One of the most obvious examples of his non-malevolence is the fact that he
ordered the cenobites not to take Tiffany -- "it is not hands that call us,
it is desire". A malevolent being would surely have torn Tiffany apart.
Evil is so "done" -- I like this concept much better.
The box -- I love the box. The idea that obsession can lead to damnation. It
almost implies that it is not what we do that damns our souls, only the
intensity which we feel. Were I gay or a murderer I would be damned in
traditional religion.
The series almost implies that I would only be damned if the intensity of my
actions were strong enough. Perhaps if I were gay and felt guilt for it or
abhorred my murderous actions if I were indeed a killer... Even If I was
over-excited by my actions, it is intensity and passion that would damn me.
Even something as innocent as opening up a puzzle box could damn one, since
the puzzle box is made so only the most obsessed can open it.
The gothic and maze like look of Hell, the Labyrinth.
It reminded me so much of a cityscape, with Leviathan casting a shadow on
everything much like skyscrapers do in our cities. I always thought of
cities as somehow perverse. If hell exists I am sure it is a city.
Perhaps the blueprints of cities itself is a form of Configuration? If you
build it they will come. Remember that cities are the nests for crime,
drugs, sex and much more.
Nowhere will you find the intensity and extremes found in the city. Poverty
and wealth,
Intelligence and ignorance, so on...
I once saw a Hellraiser comic book where hell was filled with giant file
cabinets. Inside each cabinet where people's personal hells. I loved that.
Looking for a lost soul? search for them by name -- they're in their own
personal hell, filed away for eternity...
The speeches that Pinhead gives throughout the movies, I love those.
They are almost Shakespearean to me. A well spoken and intelligent
"monster" -- who would have thought of it during the time of Jasons,
Freddies and Michael Meyers?
I apologize for the length of this email. I hardly hear from fans and would
love to, I wonder what else people see in Hellraiser.
Thank you,
Anthony Torres.
SS
> In the first and second movies (you know, the good ones) Pinhead (god I wish
> a different name had stuck) doesn't appear as a "bad guy". I love the
> "demons to some angels to others" concept. He is just a follower in a
> religion, a cenobite. He preaches pleasure and pain to those who request it.
> No evil intent there.
This is one of the great laments about the third movie, I feel. The fact
that Pinhead re-appears as a being of pure evil and selfishness,
obsessed with inflicting pain and death for no real reason. People have
tried to explain it by saying that Pinhead's human and spiritual
components were split up, leaving the reanimated Pinhead as a being of
pure evil.
> One of the most obvious examples of his non-malevolence is the fact that he
> ordered the cenobites not to take Tiffany -- "it is not hands that call us,
> it is desire". A malevolent being would surely have torn Tiffany apart.
> Evil is so "done" -- I like this concept much better.
Which is the point, really. Pinhead was never evil. The cenobites only
arrive as a result of complete obsession, even on the part of Kirsty
when she 'accidentally' opens the box in Hellraiser.
> The speeches that Pinhead gives throughout the movies, I love those.
> They are almost Shakespearean to me. A well spoken and intelligent
> "monster" -- who would have thought of it during the time of Jasons,
> Freddies and Michael Meyers?
The speeches are good, yes. I love the little bit with the female
cenobite in Hellraiser II, where she asks Kirsty if she's teasing them.
Her voice seems to have a slight phasing on it, as well, which just adds
to the whole effect.
Rataxes
In article <6dqnvc$3...@camel12.mindspring.com>, "A.Torres"
<alukar...@mindspring.com> wrote:
...
> The box -- I love the box. The idea that obsession can lead to damnation. It
> almost implies that it is not what we do that damns our souls, only the
> intensity which we feel. Were I gay or a murderer I would be damned in
> traditional religion.
> The series almost implies that I would only be damned if the intensity of my
> actions were strong enough. Perhaps if I were gay and felt guilt for it or
> abhorred my murderous actions if I were indeed a killer... Even If I was
> over-excited by my actions, it is intensity and passion that would damn me.
> Even something as innocent as opening up a puzzle box could damn one, since
> the puzzle box is made so only the most obsessed can open it.
It speaks to the addictive personality, and we all have our addictions of
one sort or another, yes? Anything which we know has drawbacks of
practicality (which *should* outweigh anything we gain) but lures us
nonetheless can become an obsession. A puzzle is particularly fiendish
since it's only reward is abstract satisfaction which slips away all too
quickly in the shadow of the next puzzle. It is way of perverting
intellectual powers by deflecting them into useless pursuits, and ever
inward. The beauty of the Configuration is it's utter geometric
simplicity which masks the diabolical possibilities. I once had a
conversation with a priest in which I posited the neutrality of any given
object. I said it is the user of the tool who exerts good or evil by it,
and no such traits were indelible to the object itself. He responded by
saying that any item which by design encourages investments of time are
implicitly drawing one away from God, since worship should be one's
primary and consuming activity. I don't necessarily agree with this view,
but it is interesting nonetheless.
> The gothic and maze like look of Hell, the Labyrinth.
> It reminded me so much of a cityscape, with Leviathan casting a shadow on
> everything much like skyscrapers do in our cities. I always thought of
> cities as somehow perverse. If hell exists I am sure it is a city.
> Perhaps the blueprints of cities itself is a form of Configuration? If you
> build it they will come. Remember that cities are the nests for crime,
> drugs, sex and much more.
> Nowhere will you find the intensity and extremes found in the city. Poverty
> and wealth,
> Intelligence and ignorance, so on...
Perhaps earthly cities are the distorted reflections of an orderly hell
(or heaven). Maybe the faulty and frail human mind has blurry intimations
of the planescapes to come, and strives to recreate them it its current
domain. Then there is the matter of symbolic architecture; I have read
theories about masonic influence on cathedrals and the representation of a
womb in the layout of the buildings. Imagine such on a city-wide scale.
> I apologize for the length of this email. I hardly hear from fans and would
> love to, I wonder what else people see in Hellraiser.
>
> Thank you,
> Anthony Torres.
At this point, the more long posts, the better, as far as I'm concerned.
This ng could use a little more fat (though less spam).
--Rataxes
sf...@scfn.thpl.lib.fl.us
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"What is there but to run? And, having run, rave?
And, having raved, ruin? What more?"
Geo.Alec Effinger
Wmvrrvrrmm
In article <1d5iu9q.1gt...@host5-99-46-29.btinternet.com>,
ssp...@btinternet.com (SS) writes:
> People have
>tried to explain it by saying that Pinhead's human and spiritual
>components were split up, leaving the reanimated Pinhead as a being of
>pure evil.
Surely some components that made up Pinhead were at least were split up this
is why Pinhead, and the army gentleman had to get back together so that Pinhead
was no longer pure evil. I'm not sure if it was a division between human and
spiritual only because I'm not sure how to describe it within those terms..
I'll say there was a division between this human and whatever the dark side of
this person was that manifested itself as Pinhead. What would we decribe this
dark side as other than a powerful shadow maybe.
I guess in showing Pinhead in his purest inhuman form, he wasn't that
interesting.
Nicholas Knutsen
Wmvrrvrrmm wrote:
The way the movie-people thought it was supposed to be, was that Pinhead is an evil
spirit that has existed in Hell for a very long time. He inhabits different humans
(both their bodies and souls) and his last "host" was Elliott (the officer)...
BTW, I don't like HR3 very much either...
Nick
--
--==--==--==--
-- Mork, Where'd you get the dead Mindys..?
-- They're not dead, Mind. It's just my personal pile of perkiness!
Visit The Forest of the Mad Doctor: http://home.powertech.no/npk/
tony flaherty
>
>The way the movie-people thought it was supposed to be, was that Pinhead is
an evil
>spirit that has existed in Hell for a very long time. He inhabits different
humans
>(both their bodies and souls) and his last "host" was Elliott (the
officer)...
>BTW, I don't like HR3 very much either...
>
>Nick
>
Mmm.
This sort of ties in with the _Bloodlines_ story, but I don't remember
anything about evil spirits or demons from hell possessing people in the
earlier films. Of course people were possessed and turned into the
cenobites but I always took this to be the box externalizing their inner
desires/obsessions, whatever :o) By really stretching it I can rationalise
this with _Hell_On_Earth_. Allthough the conversion of innocents to
cenobites goes against the earlier films. But _Bloodlines_ stretches it way
past breaking point.
BTW I actually like _Hell_On_Earth_, the last scene where you see the
building warped by the box made my skin crawl, imagine the subtle ways the
box would pervade the lives of the workers there? There would be no need
for the S&M gear, just feed the petty politics of an average office and you
would get a real hell on earth!
Wmvrrvrrmm
In article <3504976D...@powertech.no>, Nicholas Knutsen
<n...@powertech.no> writes:
>The way the movie-people thought it was supposed to be, was that Pinhead is
>an evil spirit that has existed in Hell for a very long time. He inhabits
different
>humans (both their bodies and souls) and his last "host" was Elliott (the
>officer)...BTW, I don't like HR3 very much either...
>
>Nick
Is this so. I didn't like HR3 too much either
Well, this goes to some extent the mythos that was being expressed within the
later series of the comic books to do with the character. I couldn't tell
exactly what was going on, I thought that it was something to do with
reincarnation, and so there were all these earlier incarnations of Pinhead
being shown through history, with even an aztec version of him.
I never saw Pinhead as an inhabiting spirit., I took him as an unsettled
darker half of Elliot that came through in the incarnation that had a
connection with Leviathan already likely to materialise, but if what the film
people said was true, then so be it.
And so I've read that in Hellraiser IV, Pinhead was going to turn up in the
eighteenth century but they decided not to show this as it would confuse the
audience
Adeheathen
In article <6e3bl7$qdr$1...@nclient3-gui.server.virgin.net>, "tony flaherty"
<tony.flahe...@virgin.net> writes:
>>The way the movie-people thought it was supposed to be, was that Pinhead is
>> an evil spirit that has existed in Hell for a very long time. He inhabits
different
>>humans
>>(both their bodies and souls) and his last "host" was Elliott (the
officer)...
>>BTW, I don't like HR3 very much either...
>>
>>Nick
>>
>Mmm.
> This sort of ties in with the _Bloodlines_ story, but I don't remember
>anything about evil spirits or demons from hell possessing people in the
>earlier films. Of course people were possessed and turned into the
>cenobites but I always took this to be the box externalizing their inner
>desires/obsessions, whatever :o) By really stretching it I can rationalise
>this with _Hell_On_Earth_. Allthough the conversion of innocents to
>cenobites goes against the earlier films. But _Bloodlines_ stretches it way
>past breaking point.
How about the Cenobites being aspects of Hell (or Leviathan) combined with
"willing" volunteers or people who open the box. With the Le Marchand box being
an example of " signing the contract".
Not possession as such since that really suggests some unwillingness.
I preferred IV to III.
My reasons are that if you don't get empathy for the characters then you don't
understand them as Cenobites.
In I&II the cenobites were cyphers.
The focus was on Kirsty and Julia in I
Then on Kirsty& Tiffany and Julia& Channard in II.
In III only Elliot was explained satisfactorily. (I'd have preferred Pinhead to
be less like Freddie Kreuger but the film to have dwelt on Elliot/Pinhead).
In IV the focus was shifted back to someone wilfully fighting the Cenobites.
and it was an interesting twist to the story just like in the comics.
As films are so much distorted by all the people involved, is there any chance
of an anthology of Hellraiser mythos stories ? (like the comics ?)
**************************************************************************
******************
Show me the place the paint is made that colours the world
SS
Adeheathen <adehe...@aol.com> wrote:
> How about the Cenobites being aspects of Hell (or Leviathan) combined with
> "willing" volunteers or people who open the box. With the Le Marchand box
> being an example of " signing the contract". Not possession as such since
> that really suggests some unwillingness.
Was Channard a willing volunteer, though?
He did open the box, in a sense, since he caused it to be opened, but he
didn't sit down and become obsessed enough with it to actually open it
himself by a great input of time and energy.
jade...@rocketmail.com
In article <1d5qwjb.1j4...@host5-99-61-235.btinternet.com>,
ssp...@btinternet.com (SS) wrote:
>
> Was Channard a willing volunteer, though?
>
> He did open the box, in a sense, since he caused it to be opened, but he
> didn't sit down and become obsessed enough with it to actually open it
> himself by a great input of time and energy.
>
I believe he was a willing volunteer. He was obsessed enough to know what
would happen if he opened the box himself. So he waited until he could use
Tiffany to open it for him. He was quite willing to see the wonders of Hell,
he just didn't want to deal with the pain.
J...
-----== Posted via Deja News, The Leader in Internet Discussion ==-----
http://www.dejanews.com/ Now offering spam-free web-based newsreading
A.Torres
Actually he was far more obsessed with it than anyone else -- he just didn't
have the balls to go
through with it himself. His quarters show the extent of his obsession with
all of the Configuration
models and sketches. It seems as if he's been after it for years...
SS wrote in message
<1d5qwjb.1j4...@host5-99-61-235.btinternet.com>...
>Adeheathen <adehe...@aol.com> wrote:
>
>> How about the Cenobites being aspects of Hell (or Leviathan) combined
with
>> "willing" volunteers or people who open the box. With the Le Marchand box
>> being an example of " signing the contract". Not possession as such since
>> that really suggests some unwillingness.
>
SS
A.Torres <alukar...@mindspring.com> wrote:
> Actually he was far more obsessed with it than anyone else -- he just didn't
> have the balls to go
> through with it himself. His quarters show the extent of his obsession with
> all of the Configuration
> models and sketches. It seems as if he's been after it for years...
Yeah, but he sort of cheated.
Actually, I was thinking of when Julia shoves him into the whatever it
is out in the labyrinth. He wasn't too happy about being cenobitten (new
word!) then.
Nicholas Knutsen
tony flaherty wrote:
> >
> >The way the movie-people thought it was supposed to be, was that Pinhead is
> an evil
> >spirit that has existed in Hell for a very long time. He inhabits different
> humans
> >(both their bodies and souls) and his last "host" was Elliott (the
> officer)...
> >BTW, I don't like HR3 very much either...
> >
> >Nick
> >
> Mmm.
> This sort of ties in with the _Bloodlines_ story, but I don't remember
> anything about evil spirits or demons from hell possessing people in the
> earlier films. Of course people were possessed and turned into the
> cenobites but I always took this to be the box externalizing their inner
> desires/obsessions, whatever :o)
Yeah, I think this was the meaning in the short story and in the first two
films. But then they "expanded the mythology", so as to be able to bring Pinhead
back of course. BTW, maybe I shouldn't have said *evil* spirit, I don't know.
The spirit (Pinhead) is Hell's servant so it shouldn't actually be evil, just
doing Hell's bidding, which is collecting souls and restructuring them in an
*orderly* fashion. But when Pinhead/Elliott lost his human part and Pinhead was
free from Hell's restrictions, for some reason he went evil...
BTW, the way they made it work with the end of Hellbound, was that they
redefined it a little. They said that at the end of Hellbound Pinhead and
Elliott are separated by Channard killing Elliott, and Pinhead was trapped in
"the Pillar of Souls", which is the pillar coming up out of the matress at the
very end. And of course the Pillar is the sculpture in Hell on Earth. I don't
know why it looked so different...
> By really stretching it I can rationalise
> this with _Hell_On_Earth_. Allthough the conversion of innocents to
> cenobites goes against the earlier films. But _Bloodlines_ stretches it way
> past breaking point.
Yeah, Bloodlines was completely out there. Blasphemous I would say... ;)
> BTW I actually like _Hell_On_Earth_, the last scene where you see the
> building warped by the box made my skin crawl, imagine the subtle ways the
> box would pervade the lives of the workers there? There would be no need
> for the S&M gear, just feed the petty politics of an average office and you
> would get a real hell on earth!
Yes it was a cool ending. Doesn't that building reappear in Bloodlines? (Only
saw it once, a while ago...)
For a exploration and explanation of the Hellraiser mythology, everyone should
read the Hellraiser comic books, especially The Book of the Damned I-IV (the
"companions" to the regular series). Especially Book of the Damned I, where we
find out that... Leviathan is the Father of man!!! That is so cool. You get why
It is the Father of man when you read the book. Anyway, the comic books are
based on a Hellraiser "Bible" or Grimoire rather, written by Clive and Dan
Chichester and three others of Epic Comics. The most notable thing I guess is
the whole chaos/order concept... The Grimoire was to be used by everyone doing a
story for the comic book, but it really wasn't used enough; there are a lot of
similar stories that don't take the concept any further. Some of them stand out
though... Too bad Leviathan's purpuse is rarely touched upon...
Hey, were was Leviathan in Hellraiser 3 or 4???
rantings from
Adeheathen
In article <1d5qwjb.1j4...@host5-99-61-235.btinternet.com>,
ssp...@btinternet.com (SS) writes:
>Was Channard a willing volunteer, though?
>
>He did open the box, in a sense, since he caused it to be opened, but he
>didn't sit down and become obsessed enough with it to actually open it
>himself by a great input of time and energy.
>
>
I'd say the art is in opening the box with the "right" motivation.
He may not have had the skill to do it himself, but he found a way to get it
open.
He was definitely willing.
Probably didn't expect the cheese slicer though.