Pinhead and I

Yeah, we have a history. He used to look at me from the horror section of the video store. And that section was "hidden" in a cardboard cubby house that was dimly lit to stop kids looking in there. When that became the porn section, I can't remember if it was before or after the horror section was in the main area. But he'd look at me from the shelf and I was very curious about the guy, but wouldn't get to find out anything about him for a long time.

Now I'm pretty sure I read the book the Hellbound Heart before I saw Hellraiser, because the movie was disappointing in its amendments. I felt the relationships were more interesting, i.e. Kirsty is the friend of Rory (Larry in the film) and has an affection for him and isn't his daughter, so Frank isn't her uncle. The book also is a bit more intricate in its building of the Cenobite lore. The box is the Lemarchand Configuration not the Lament Configuration. It all gets very watered down and literal, glossing over the more nuanced concepts. I get Barker wrote the script, probably to have a more mass-market appeal. But when people go on about the franchise and Pinhead, I roll my eyes so hard. Because Pinhead originally didn't go by this title, played little significance in the book and had a kind of childlike, almost babyish voice. But because his face was on that damn video cover, because he became synonymous with the franchise, because the viewers "blessed" him with the nickname, he became the pivotal character.

I believe Barker resurrected the world and Pinhead in the Scarlet Letters as a joke - a book I wasn't thrilled with. I forgot the detective Harry D'Amour was part of the Barker Universe, I'm not into the Art Trilogy given Everville bored me to a degree as well, where Harry also appears, I'm not going to read the third one now I've hit saturation point. Imajica infuriated me eventually. So I'm off the Barker bus.

But in terms of iconic horror characters, Pinhead isn't really worthy of that much hype. Somehow, they've sucked now ten movies out of the franchise alone, five of which were straight to DVD, and some of those fell victim to the "Cloverfield Curse" (this was actually way before Cloverfield), where bad scripts with no home to go to found the light by adopting the Hellraiser brand. I gave up after the fourth installment, which I have very vague memories of, as well as the third and second installments. I think all those films are kind of a weird montage in my memory where I can match the scenes to the films, but can't remember half of what really happened overall. I watched them out of curiosity, and I still try to mention how little there was of the character in Pinhead to draw on from the original book. He's kind of a parody of Pinhead in the Scarlet Letters, and probably in the other films as well. I went through a youtuber's commentaries about it, and he mentioned the Engineer, who is also an original character, so it was clear the later films tried "harder" I suppose to draw on source material elements for the hardcore fans. Visually, the book is more interesting, but the time we spend in "hell" and with the Cenobites is so limited. The book is also a novella, that was part of an anthology of horror. And it's a pretty great book, so I was expecting more from Scarlet Letters, which turned out to be a kind of caper/romp story through the greater regions of Hell, where Pinhead is hanging out making origami birds, and basically just being a downer who wants to overthrow the Devil in so many words. There's a big cliffhanger at the end but I'm not hanging out for more. This book more felt like a fuck you to the "fans" of the film who made Pinhead out to be more than what he was, like it was a cynical cash-in with a chance to also bring back Harry D'Amour for another spin as well and kill two birds a la Blood Canticle by Anne Rice, one of literature's saddest, most money-hungry tie-ins. (If you know not what I speak, Blackwood Farm and Blood Canticle were strange excuses for marrying the Mayfair Witches with the Vampire Chronicles, and it could've worked had Mona not ended up an insufferable immortal, Lestat hadn't been plagued by his own cognitive dissonance and lack of continuity and Rowan hadn't fallen for Lestat only to COMPLETELY vanish by the Prince Lestat - which I also read and more or less hated.)

The Hellraiser franchise suffered from poor titles, repetitive story lines and hopeful Easter egg-style nods to the true fans, who have basically ruined this franchise by being so obsessed with Pinhead. He doesn't really work on his own. He doesn't work with a crew or a cohort, or personal adversary, he doesn't work as a possible tortured human who turned evil, or a fallen angel type cursed to wander the real world without "sweet suffering". I'm not even sure the guy who watched the films then commented on them did much research into the books or paid that much attention to the last film, or whoever wrote the Wikipedia entry didn't, because their plot accounts did not match at all. No matter, they're trashy parts of the horror/slaughter genre. He is an icon. He has more originality that Jason or Freddy, in a way. He's supposed to be more nuanced, less pure evil and more bent on pain for pleasure's sake taken to an extreme. Frank, in the book, is warned if he chooses to follow the Cenobites into their world, there's no way out. They care more he managed to escape them than they do about his desire to come into their world. The Cenobites sort of became evil over time. And it wasn't truly a comment on heaven or hell, or religion at all. It was more subtle than that. We can have arguments about canon and I'm not here for that at all, because I'm not that well versed. I'm just here to put my point across.

Pinhead and I have a history. I was always curious about Barker's Universe, but never read the Books of Blood. Cabal's okay, and again I was correcting people over Nightbreed being Cabal as the book, because again, Cabal doesn't work as a movie title. Barker inspires me but leaves me frustrated more too. I guess he and I have a weird history too, I'll always credit him for helping my own style of writing sort of evolve into something more free-flowing and creative. But I won't forget looking at Pinhead's face, staring for a while, curious, a little scared, and patient enough to wait for when I could deal with him as a grownup. Then I was off to the kid's section to rent The Last Unicorn for the 80th time. (By rights if VHS movies stayed out in the stores long enough, our parents could've saved so much money buying these and a VCR rather than renting them out with a VCR from our local video stores).