A take on Clive Barker’s 1987 horror classic where a young woman struggling with addiction comes into possession of an ancient puzzle box, unaware that its purpose is to summon the Cenobites, the villains of the franchise.
The Hell Priest
Pinhead is the main antagonist of the Hellraiser franchise and is probably the most popular. Known for having pins that have been driven into his head.
While a captain in WWI, he served as a charismatic and eloquent leader with compassion for his men. After suffering a mental breakdown, however, he lost faith in the human race. He’s terrifying because he’s fully aware of what he’s doing.
His power is the summons of pain, it allows him to spawn chains that can slow down and pursue survivors. Survivors must then find and solve the Lament Configuration to stop the chains.
In Hellraiser III, Pinhead was a purely evil demon of chaos, a result of the loss of his human side in the previous film.
Bored by the mundanity of his existence, having solved the mysteries of the flesh, the iconic killer hatches a plan to claw his way free from Hell. Pinhead decides that he wants to permanently return to his human form and seek spiritual salvation.
Chatterer
He is a Cenobite, an order of extra dimensional sadomasochists who experiment in extreme forms of hedonism. His name comes from the constant clicking of his teeth, his only means of communication. He serves the Cenobites’ leader Pinhead.
As a pre-teenage boy, Chatterer, known as Jim, frames his mother for the murder of his abusive father and is sent to an orphanage, where he and the other adolescents are taught that they will be useless to society.
After “pleading” with Pinhead (in the form of clicking his teeth), Chatterer is torn apart by a series of hooked chains, and is presumably killed for good.
Butterball
An original member of Pinhead’s group, Butterball didn’t have a big role in the movies he appeared in. However, his background was extended in the comics and his personality was further developed. Though considered a low rank, Butterball is actually quite intelligent and is considered the smartest Cenobite in the group.
While not as strong as the others, he stood with them as they faced off against Dr. Channard to defend Kristy and Tiffany. He was the second Cenobite to die from this standoff and wasn’t revived later on, unlike Chatterer and the Female Cenobite.
Female Cenobite
Is another Cenobite in Hell’s Army, commonly partnered with Pinhead. She was once a sin-obsessed nun, who opened the lament configuration. She has a large gash in her throat, pulled back with wires, causing her to have a whispery, raspy voice. She was killed by the doctor cenobite in Hellbound, but was brought back to life along with Chatterer in the comics.
The Surgeon
Deacon Vrainian was a skilled surgeon. As his reputation grew, so did he fame. But when he inadvertently killed his wife during a surgical procedure, he lost everything, including his sanity. After his wife’s death all he wanted was to shut out the noise. His answer came in the form a small wooden box etched in brass, and when he solved the Lament Configuration Pinhead appeared before him, offering the means for him to forget, an offer he accepted without hesitation.
The Beast And Torso
Torso is a cenobite with the likeness of Chatterer, none of his facial features can be seen, apart from his mouth which has been stretched apart by hooked chains and small squinty eyes, though this is mostly covered. His face appears to be twisted and mutilated to look similar to Chatterer’s burn scars. As his name suggests, he is missing his entire lower body. A section of his bare spine protrudes from where his lower body was removed. He also has pale white skin covered with a mass of mutilating cuts.
The Chatterer Beast was created to be Pinhead’s Cenobite pet in Hellraiser: Bloodline. He took the form of a monstrous hound made entirely of the flesh of tortured humans in the Chatterer cenobite’s image. Pinhead fed him a live pigeon once in the film.
The Twins
The Wire Twins are Leviathan’s sisters of tormented pleasure. Two human twins were turned into Cenobites after they stumbled across the Labyrinth. Their unending existence is now spent sharing the sadomasochistic pleasures of Hell.
The Siamese Twins Cenobites (sometimes called the Bloodline Twins) are cenobites unlike any others seen before, save for cenobite pets, that have been merged together forever. They originated as two twin brothers’ security guards for a lament configuration museum and in the 1990s, they unwittingly walked in on Pinhead having a conversation with Angelique, and Pinhead joined their bodies together forever. Together the two combined brothers’ accompanied Pinhead on many journeys and in the end died alongside him.
There’s a few others like Camerahead and CD, all made to look incredibly evil. The series includes a total of 10 movies dating from 1987 to 2018.