What the hell is going on at the end of the new Hellraiser ?
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Warning: This article contains spoilers for Hulu's Hellraiser reboot.
Inspired by the complex, questions-raising mythology created by Clive Barker in his 1986 novella The Hellbound Heart, the Hellraiser films have never been your run-of-the-mill horror flicks. David Bruckner's reboot (on Hulu now) is no exception and its conclusion may leave some viewers scratching their, hopefully pin-free, heads.
Has Odessa A'Zion's heroine Riley really consigned her brother to hell and herself to a lifetime of regret? And what exactly is the fate of Goran Visnjic's now flayed villain Voight? We're here to break things down.
Spyglass Media Jamie Clayton in Hulu's 'Hellraiser' reboot.
Let's tackle Voight first. At the end of the film, Jamie Clayton's Cenobite "Pinhead" grants Visnjic's character the gift of "power" as a massive chain slams through his torso and carries him off from his mansion to the heavens (or, more likely, the hells).
"Perhaps we were wrong about you," Pinhead intones. "You've never sought sensation. Your whole life, every conquest, all your pleasures lie in power… For your efforts, we offer the Leviathan Configuration... Our power lies in dominance, in the sovereignty of anguish and now it will be yours to wield... Oh, yes, we have such sights to show you."
Spyglass Media Goran Visnjic in 'Hellraiser' (2022).
We next see a naked and hairless Voight being flayed and having pins inserted into his body while staring at what appears to be a supernatural presence. According to Hellraiser lore, the Leviathan is a god who is responsible for creating Pinhead and his pain-loving colleagues. It is likely this deity who is responsible for Voight's transformation and it is also likely that they are turning him into a new Cenobite.
This theory is backed up by both the fact that it is Pinhead and his crew who have "power" and by the realization that Voight's skin has become his new clothing. In Barker's franchise-inaugurating 1987 film Hellraiser, the Cenobites are clad in leatherware, a clothing choice inspired by the writer-director's own visits to S&M clubs. In the new Hellraiser, however, these supernatural creatures are essentially clothed in the skin of their own, painfully-modified, bodies.
"The black leather [was] a direct BDSM reference," says Bruckner of the original Hellraiser. "Our attitudes to that have changed over the years. That conversation's pretty above board now and it's far more acceptable. It's hardly the kind of transgressive underbelly that it might have been in '87 if you're trying to scare suburbanites out of their socks. It felt like what to me was in the spirit of Hellraiser was a degree of invention and a commitment to showing them something that they haven't quite seen before. We had this idea of, what is leather, if not a simulacra of skin and flesh? What if the flesh was so tailored? What if you took body mod out of a particular earthly subculture and pushed it in ways that we've never seen before? Could you reference the originals but show us something that was wholly fresh and disturbing? So, in a lot of ways, the Cenobites, they are their own leather. Once we landed on that, we just thought, there's a path forward here, there's something really really interesting here. When I showed Clive the designs he said it was a welcome departure and got behind it completely."
Spyglass Media Group Odessa A'zion as Riler in 'Hellraiser' (2022).
Riley's decision to leave Brandon Flynn's poor Matt languishing in hell is easier to unpack. A'Zion's character by this point is aware that, while Pinhead and the rest of the Cenobites may technically tell the truth, they are also tricksters and accepting any gifts from them is bound to end badly. However, the impulsive Riley is clearly torn up about her decision which, together with the transformation of Voight, would seem to set up a sequel. Certainly, Bruckner is enthusiastic about the notion of making a second film if Hellraiser 2022 proves a hit with audiences.
"Look, should the fans and the movie gods allow, I would love that idea," says the filmmaker. "Hellraiser is a unique challenge for a group of filmmakers because, you know, it could be a guy in a mask, but it's not, it's inter-dimensional demons that shoot chains at you from an endless labyrinth. It's complicated and not just conceptually but also logistically. I feel like I speak for our whole team, and this is everything, the SFX, the VFX, the production design, we learned a lot on this and I think it certainly is tempting coming out of it to think we'd have an amazing grip on it going forward, should there be an energy and an appetite for it."
The new Hellraiser is now available to watch on Hulu. See the film's trailer below.
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