How does the magician know that a certain configuration will give him access to what he wants? Were there cenobites in hell forever with no way out until someone learned how to create a box?
I personally saw the box as some kind of device with which you can summon demons without all the human sacrifice and hoo-hah it obviously entailed. Sure, you can summon demons, but if you can do it easier, fine. The box by itself didn't have any power - it was when combined with the dark arts that it turned into the Lament configuration.
Did Leviathan learn of the humans creating gates into hell and create the cenobites to control the gates? I'm also a little confused on how the box was used. He used it to summon a demon by chanting words. He didn't open the box, he didn't encounter the cenobites.
See above - the box itself had no power before the chants and rituals. Even then it's not certain what he used it for. Was his will/desire to create Angelique or was he aiming to get sucked into his personal hell? It's hard to tell...
Anyway, I just got to the point where Pinhead kills the guy and the wife comes in, throws the box and the box atacks Angelique with chains. The box then explodes and sucks Pinhead in...what the hell just happened?
No effing clue. I'm as much in the dark there as you - and I've seen it thrice.
Just my personal preference, I don't like Pinhead being a stereotypical evil villain. He came across as a well spoken uncaring demon. It was his job to bring experiences to people, to kill them when it was time, to give them over to become new cenobites. He wasn't walking around with his evil laugh "muwhahahah" trying to TAKE OVER THE WORLD while making eyes at Angelique!!!! I'm sure the people crafting "Pinhead vs. Jason" and "Pinhead vs. Mike Myers" petitions absolutely love the new approach.
I totally agree. However 'evil' Pinhead at his core is, at least he's a jerk you can respect. He's well-spoken and seems to be fairly fair (in the first two movies, anyway. What with the deal with Kirsty concerning Frank - and Kirsty showing him his own picture and him turning human again). I didn't like him at all in 3 (except for one phrase, which was in the church, after putting the pins through his hands) or 4. But then again, he sucked more in 3 than in 4.
The cenobites knew they had control over a person and would play with them if they desired ("explore, we have eternity to know your flesh"). I enjoyed the first two where the cenobites came in response to someone having desires and the will to search them out. The first two were more personal films, affecting a small group of people. I think it is a hack device when the writer has a situation where the hero is the only person who can save the world.
I have a distinct feeling you haven't watched Hellraiser 3.. Am I correct? Because I'll be referencing stuff in the coming paragraphs to explain stuff you should've been able to link together had you watched 3...
How long did Chanard study and work before he was able to access their dimension? He couldn't even do it himself, he had to wait until he was fortunate enough to find the puzzle solving girl. In this film we have a businessman open it as he is trying to get some action, and the wife opens it in seconds when the beast corners her.
The greater the desire, the easier it is. It comes naturally. It's not about knowing, it's something that simply comes to you - and lo - your fingers move along the circle, and you make the gestures necessary. I think it's very difficult to say whether situation A or B is more fit for the Lament Configuration to be opened easily or with difficulty - as we don't know how it works.
Another issue I have is with Merchant in the space station using a remote controlled robot to open the box. I wouldn't have done it just because the CGI looks bad, but another reason would be because it doesn't necessarily make you safe. In part 2 Pinhead could tell that it wasn't the girl with the desire even though she was the one who opened the box.
Correct. But even in that situation - he came, knew that Tiffany, while physically calling him, wasn't the one who had the desire to do so. When Merchant called him through the robot, Pinhead immediately understood the situation and called Merchant out. So what exactly is your point here? Sure, Merchant shouldn't have been safe - pinhead should've been able to burst through the wall or make it slide open with eerie light - but it's not as if Pinhead clobbered the poor robot and then left, his mind eased.
Another thing I didn't get was the focus on the puzzle maker's bloodline. It may have just been created for this film, and it could have been there in the first films and just not explored. The demon Angelique was alive before the time of the first movies. During the period there were members in the toymaker's line, and it isn't until the present day that she decides to go after them.
The idea that I got from the movie was that she'd simply forgotten about it. Be honest, it's been awhile, and she hasn't been allowed to do much other than what that french idiot wanted. When he denied her too much, yeah, he was killed, but why was that? Because she found out about the toymaker bloodline once again, and she wanted to find him, to figure out what he had to offer. She had a fascination with him, but up until that point had been under control of the frenchie.
I also don't understand why Pinhead is the only Cenobite to come through when she has the guy open the box. Where are all the others, if Pinhead is back why not some others.
It's weird... In 2, all the cenobites we knew and loved had been killed. When Pinhead returned in 3, he was alone from the start. He got some new cenobites - but even he himself said that they were weak compared to his old compatriots. It isn't too big a jump in imagination to figure that they're simply not there anymore. How they managed to return in 5, I don't know, but then again, chatterer had become torso boy, and the wire twins were there. Like, wow.
Also, there must have been more encounters with people who opened the box than are shown on film. With the number of boxes, you can be sure there are encounters happening between the times in the films that weren't depicted.
Agreed. What if the robot had opened the puzzle box and pinhead would've been off annoying people on Hawaii? He can't be everywhere all of the time. Sure the toymaker would get his attention, but there's no guarantee he's not chasing another of the Merchant line that the main protagonist knows nothing of.
Leviathan could have replenished the ranks.
Leviathan? Hrrm. At the end of 2, Kirsty changed the configuration of both the Lament configuration itself, as well as Leviathan. It's possible that Leviathan wasn't what it used to be after that. All evidence from the movies seems to show that Hell is a goshdarn mess nowadays.
Another thing, the twin cenobite was created during the present day and we also see him in the future. Didn't anything happen between the present and the 22nd century? Personally, I don't like the concept of Pinhead creating cenobites. While it is possible, and he may have authority, it seems like something better handled in hell.
See above - if Leviathan would've been able to, Pinhead wouldn't have. In 3, there were NO cenobites. He had to make them all himself. You mention something about how Pinhead managed to come back after 2, but as mentioned - I'll get to that later.
In the second film we see the tentacles of Leviathan creating Pinhead. There is also the reported scene that was cut where the Chatterer undergoes surgery and is given eyes.
Leviathan is the god of Hell. If there are no cenobites other than Pinhead (who came back to (un)life through other means than his "god"), what does that say about leviathan's current status? Out of order, as far as I'm concerned :)
I'm currently near the end where the setting is inside the space station. Is anyone else disappointed by the idea that Pinhead would be in a space station stalking soldiers who really don't have any connection to him at all? The concept is that an evil has been released and it is up to one special man to stop it...oohhh, sounds like...a whole bunch of other movies.
True. He should've gone for Merchant from the start. Though - cenobites like play. They've always liked play. Who's to say they weren't just in a playful mood?
He is eventually tricked by a hologram and ends up looking like an old fool. Poor old Pinhead, not familiar with the latest tech, has he even heard of the internet?
Most importantly, if he can discern between she who has opened the box and he who has the initial desire, he should be able to discern between he who is real, and he who exists out of swiftly moving bolts of light.
In the end, Pinhead dies, so what? he has died before. Even if it is permanent, so what?, he is only a servant. He was easily done away with by Chanard (anyway, how did he come back from that...) when it suited Leviathan to have him replaced.
First off - about Pinhead dying. Somebody mentioned that they, with pinhead dead, killed off any form of sequels. I don't agree. Pinhead dies "in the future", therefore there's more than enough time to figure out movies that aren't in the future, and therefore have Pinhead in them.
And finally - how Pinhead came back to life. Pinhead was killed at the end of 2, by Chanard, mostly due to him returning to normal (human state) after being shown a picture of his original self. As you've seen 2, I assume you know the dilly-o. When the movers, at the end, came to pick up the matrass in house Chanard (which was the one Julia had bled to death on), one was sucked in, and a big pillar came out, turning round and round, with chains, horrified faces and pieces of bodies stuck higgle-dy-piggle-dy on the sides. This meant that some form of the cenobites still lived. What it was, was explained in 3. The "statue" is purchased by JP Munroe, a messed up loser who owns a 'goth' club called the Boiler Room. He likes it as a 'thematic' piece and puts it in his club. At some point, he accidentally breaks the statue, creating a hole. Sticks his hand in, rat inside (wtf?) bites him, he bleeds onto the statue, it awakens the head honcho of the cenobites, pinhead. Pinhead tells him that he can make all of his dreams come true.
Any viewer now goes "uhuh, yeah, right. pain is pleasure, and all that, huh?" but of course, JP does it. You can figure out the rest by yourself.
To sum up my thoughts a bit; I want to ask if anyone can anyone honestly defend this movie from any angle? Just viewing it as mindless entertainment, I didn't find it to be engaging or scary.
I don't defend movies. I enjoyed it, but thought it to be weak compared to the first 2. It's loads better than the third though. A cenobite that burns people with cigarette butts? Euh, no thank you.
Viewing it as a film based on the Hellraiser mythology, the movie seemed to ignore the conventions of the first two films which I feel would have ruined it for me even if I had been entertained by the end result.
What conventions, really? There's pinhead - people die - stuff happens. The only difference is that pinhead dies. Wait, he does that in 2 as well... Random people are killed? Wait, happens in 1... Hrrm, really... *thinks* It's in space? Well, part of it - but if you really look at the hellraiser 'mythology', I think you'd agree that place means nothing when it comes to demons. The toymaker storyline? An enjoyable look into how the lament configuration was created - nothing more - nothing less.
The behavior of the characters, their motives, and the dealings with the box seemed wrong. The whole premise is crap. Assuming a cenobite can be killed off permanently, killing Pinhead would accomplish nothing.
Watch hellraiser 3. You wouldn't be saying and of this stuff if you had. Honestly, if there's one Hellraiser that does everything wrong - it's Hellraiser 3. Hellraiser 4 is oscar-material compared to 3. 3 is so bad I wouldn't let my enemies watch it. Though 3 has the wicked scenes with Douglas Bradley playing his human counterpart. It's a shame everything around it is concocted, convoluted crap.
A better way to stop the cenobites from crossing over would be to find and destroy all of the boxes. (I may be off on this part) The film plays it as if only one box was made (which is wrong), but there are more than one in the film. Maybe the guy on the space station made one from his ancestors plans in order to lure Pinhead out. Why would he even need to destroy Pinhead if there were no remaining boxes which people could use to call him?
Personal vengeance - a feeling of never being safe unless something is done about it. Genetics? Some kind of heritage? The plans'd been there forever, but none of his ancestors had been able to make it work. A feeling of expectancy? Like he had something to live up to, simply by being a merchant? There's possibilities everywhere.
The history it added was also crap. Some guy we are told is a great magician asks a local toymaker to make him a box and it is done. How does the magician know about the configuration? What are the origins of it?
The box is a vessel, the incantations and rituals the flesh. If the box had been merely made - and the magician had stayed out of it, it'd been nothing but a nice little puzzle box. The box was given life by the magician through dark arts.
Even if the boxes were all destroyed, I've always assumed that there were ways to access the dimension (hell) for people who had the desire and the will to do so (although I speculated earlier that people being able to access hell might be a new phenomenom brought about by the invention of the box). There may have been ways that people who dealt in the occult had stumbled on before the first box was created in the 18th century.
Uhuh, I agree. But like I mentioned, I perceive the box(es, by the way) as nothing but other ways of getting there. They're not a new phenomenon, they're not the only phenomenon, they're simple one of them. One of the most accessible, which probably explains why they're still so popular under those who want to experience the most of pain :p
I would have rather watched a movie involving Pinhead in his own personal hell. He might have been banished there by Leviathan for some reason.
If Leviathan isn't gone, of course. And it wouldn't be Pinhead there, it'd be as Captain Elliot-Spencer.
In his hell he is tormented. While in this place he is given some reason (plot device) to tell his story (either as a demon who has existed before the man whose body he occupies, or just as that man who is a cenobite and has knowledge about the place where he exists).
Pinhead is the demon created when Elliot-Spencer was taken by Leviathan when he was in need of cenobites. Elliot-Spencer was fit to be a good demon - and therefore taken. Pinhead wasn't some kind of entity that took control of the dear old Captain, he was the result of him. Watch number 3, there's a nice scene at the end where Elliot-Spencer and Pinhead duke it out - which once again shows that the probability of you not seeing 3 is fairly high.
I see 4 as a worthy addition to the series. 1 was exquisite - so I'll leave it as that. 2 was worthwhile, and explained more about the whole Hell deal, but left quite some unclarity about the future of Hell, Leviathan and the cenobites. 3 was crap as a movie, but as an installment into the series, it explained a lot of things. On one hand I think it was force-fed, but on the other it does give an insight into Pinhead and his human side - the battle between his demon, and his human.
Thinking about this also makes me wonder whether the battle between his human and demon side (guess which one loses...) has anything to do with Pinhead being even a bigger jerk in number 4... Though - in number 5 and 6, while with limited screenplay, he's once again the soft-spoken, truth-speaking tormenter you can't help but adore.
4 is not bad. It provides a look into the history of the saga. And whether it works for you is a personal thing. It's Hellraiser, and both you and I have over-analysed it :P
Seriously though. Have you seen 3? (which is like, the red thread of my entire response ;)
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