Analyzing Evil: Pinhead From Hellraiser

welcome everyone to the eighth episode of analyzing evil in this video we'll be delving into the sado masochistic world of pinhead from the hellraiser franchise the hellraiser franchise is vast it is not only comprised of many films but books and comic books as well even though there's quite an extensive amount of detailing regarding the character in the books and comic books this video will be covering pinhead from the medium that i believe most viewers are familiar with his film appearances now at the same time i'll also be limiting the films that i cover i've done a lot of research into this and from what i can tell the subject of hell razor cannon is hotly debated between fans some think they're all canon in their own way others think the first two were only canon or the first four now i could be shooting myself in the foot with this and i'm sure you'll let me know down in the comments if i'm totally wrong but after watching all of the films from my perspective the most cohesive timeline between films is the first three movies the third deviates a bit from the first two but you still get the feeling that this is a hellraiser movie and the fact that it brings the elliott spencer story full circle is something worth mentioning the fourth one gives us some nice insight into the creation of the box but otherwise it's far removed from its predecessors and premise and feel the rest of the films yeah they're more like movies that happen to have pinhead in them at least as far as i'm concerned i would enjoy reviewing the lore that's associated with the character from the books and comic books in a separate video and if you'd like to see a video covering that subject or even the other films feel free to let me know in the comments down below and with enough support i'll be sure to deliver on that at some point now without further ado let's get into the character first we're going to start with two constants that follow the character throughout the three films his origin and his appearance we'll start with his origin which is fleshed out in both hellraiser 2 and 3. in the opening scene of hellraiser 2 we find captain elliot spencer tinkering with the lament configuration on the floor of a bunker somewhere in india before we have time to learn anything about our deer captain he's whisked away to hell and transformed into pinhead now while this gives us a short glimpse into pinhead's past there isn't much more information on eliot spencer in this film in hellraiser 3 though we learned that eliot's reasons for seeking out and using the lament configuration was his loss of faith in humanity due to the horror he experienced during world war 1. after this he sought out the box to explore the forbidden pleasures that it housed pinhead's origin story as far as the films are concerned at least is fairly simple elliot meets box box takes elliott elliot becomes pinhead we don't get to see if elliott develops his pinhead personality over time or if upon his transformation into pinhead his personality changes immediately for the sake of the unknown we're going to assume that as soon as elliott transforms most of what was elliot is left behind and is overtaken by pinhead but not all of elliot which we'll be covering later on now for his appearance pinhead's appearance changes very little between films his head is latticed with scars that were carved into his head during his transformation as well as marked by a pen at each intersecting line his eyes are black and soulless his skin hairless and his body lie than thin he wears a long priest-like black robe with tools of torture attached to a belt across his waist and upon his chest he has two wounds cut into the robe where his nipples were the loose skin trailing down his torso nearly everything about his appearance is reminiscent of images you might find in the bdsm world his appearance does a fantastic job of conveying two things to the viewer his pins and cuts give us a masochistic feeling to his person and his soulless eyes and the tools he carries on his belt give us a taste of his sadistic side overall the creators have done a fantastic job with the design of the character and it's a perfect accompaniment to his personality and characteristics now let's go beyond his beginnings in appearance and get into the character himself beginning with the first hellraiser we establish a few things that more or less stay with a character throughout each film we learn through his dialogue that he is all at once three things a sadist a masochist and a hedonist much of these attributes can be seen in his appearance as i stated before but his dialogue really seals the deal he describes himself in the cenobites as explorers in the further regions of experience and when kirsty is crying he laments her tears as he views them as a waste of good suffering through this exposure we're led towards the conclusion that pinhead's entire reason for being is to bring pleasure through pain to himself and to his victims for some pain is pleasure but the pain he seeks to inflict on his victims is far outside the realms of anything pleasurable for most if not all people he derives all of his and his victims pleasures through intense amounts of pain and the copious use of torture and evisceration but pinhead isn't some sort of mindless monster who doles out his preferred pleasure like an animal he has something refreshing to see in a character like pinhead intelligence pinhead is eloquent and almost regal in the way that he speaks and his tone rarely wavers from civility his mannerisms are calm and measured and the way he moves acts and speaks shows us he has the confidence and conviction of a man who's righteous in his beliefs and sure in his actions this is how clive barker intended him to appear and in my opinion this makes him a far more terrifying character than he would have been if he were some drooling demon let loose from his pen really the only thing left to glean from the first film is how intense his desire to expose others to pain and pleasure is and screams when he's forced to return to hell without getting his chance to play with kirsty in the second film we find pinhead to be much the same as he was in the first a denizen of the realms of pain and pleasure who desires to bring his gifts to others though in this film we learn a bit more of his backstory pinhead isn't just a demon who resides in hell he is actually in service to a god named leviathan that dwells in a bleak labyrinthian section of hell in this film we see a bit more of pinhead sadism as he states to kirsty at one point that he and the cenobites want to experience her flesh showing that cenobites such as himself thrive on the pain pleasure and the many different ways people experience these things reveling at the chance to further their knowledge of flesh outside their own when kirsty shows him the picture of elliot spencer his long dormant human side resurfaces and he turns at this point into a sort of anti-hero saving kirsty from the chinard sonobite though elliott spencer is locked away deep within pinhead he does still exist within him and as we learn in the next film acts as a force of balance within pinhead keeping his worst excesses in check and rendering him into the cool calm mannered demon we know this is a perfect point to transition into the third film this disparity between elliot and pinhead is increasingly apparent when we encounter pinhead in the third film in this film it's revealed that pinhead is now actually split into two different entities when he is quote unquote killed by the chinard cenobyte the good part the human part of pinhead resides in limbo on a world war one battlefield as eliot spencer who has gained recollection of his life and now shows remorse for the evil he has wrought upon the world his evil pinhead counterpart now resides in the statue in jp morgan's club and has lost all semblance of his former humanity and is now hell-bent on bringing pain and suffering to the world for his pleasure before this film pinhead followed a sort of rule book that the cenobites seemed obligated to follow they didn't touch anyone who hadn't opened the box as they did not seek its contents and thus were not subject to the will of leviathan and the cenobites but now he murders wantonly massacring everyone in his path and transforming some of his victims into new cenobites his goal now is to open a permanent portal to hell with the box so he can have the entire world at his mercy this film introduces us to four new components of binheen that have now come undone without elliott's influence holding him back we see that he is an expert in temptation employing his eloquence and intelligence once again using his mastery of language to coax people into doing his will from his exchange with jp we also get the feeling that he's all-knowing or can at the very least read the minds of people as shown when he mentions shapi's parents and his knowledge of their murder at his hand in this same scene with jp we also get confirmation that pinhead is now severed from his connection to eliot spencer and leviathan through ridding himself of spencer's soul he describes himself as once being the dark pope of his god but his attachment to this god was all through eliot as elliot's soul had been bound to serve leviathan being rid of elliot though he is now no longer under any of eliot's previous obligations to serve the final thing we get to see is his disdain for god or at the very least his apathetic attitude towards him in the church scene when the priest holds up his cross he mocks the old testament saying thou shall not bow down before any graven image and melts the cross in his hands he moves up onto the days before the altar scattering across to the floor before taking pins from his head and piercing his hands to pose his jesus upon the crucifix stating i am the way lastly he performs a mock communion for the priest taking his actual flesh from his body to feed to the poor man while his status as a demon already tells us that he's an affront to god this scene establishes that he perhaps wishes to be seen as a god and that the will and rules of a divine creator do not bind him so while this pinhead is still about his pain and pleasure once severed from elliot and leviathan he is a much more conniving and maniacal megalomaniac who attempts to wreak havoc not only on the one who opens the box but the world at large between these three films i believe we can draw a pretty accurate picture of pined he's a man who gave up on humanity and desire to further his own ambitions by seeking the furthest reaches of pleasure a human could imagine through this journey he is transformed into the ultimate sadomasochistic hedonist who's given in to the desire to bring pleasure through pain reveling in the sights he has to show the victims of his charity once free of the rules that bind the synovites namely his attachment to his human counterpart and his god he brings to fruition his innermost desire to shape the world into a blood-soaked delight that he can bask in for eternity mocking god and man alike in his attempts to preside over the world as its new and most exquisite dark god of pain and pleasure pinhead is terrifying both visually and conceptually able to make anyone who watches the torment he inflicts recoil and terror and disgust and is a worthy bearer of the mantle of evil thank you all for tuning in to this episode of analyzing evil and i hope you've enjoyed if you'd like to see more of my content feel free to subscribe and please let me know what you thought of this video in the comments below and leave a suggestion for a villain you'd like to see featured in a future episode as well thanks for watching and i'll be seeing you soon

Channel: The Vile Eye

Views: 441,489

Keywords: Pinhead, Halloween, October, Horror, Hellraiser

Id: Qxn8RjB5BzM

Length: 10min 13sec (613 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 11 2020