Pinhead Was (Kinda) My Childhood Crush
By: Miranda Dennis
Tags: Childhood, Horror, Pinhead, Crushes, 90s

Prior to 2020, it took immense effort for me to sit and watch a horror movie by myself. Today, the events of the past year have left me a little more lax about the horror I consume on TV: Oh is this all you can provide for me? A ghost who wants to kidnap children? Home invasion at a sorority? A scary clown? Ok, that doesn’t really top a pandemic handled by an inept, cruel administration, as murder hornets lurk at the periphery, but whatever. But back then, just to get through the Netflix series The Haunting of Hill House, I demanded periodic supportive texts from my best friend, who alerted me to jump scares and scenes that would force me to leave every light on in my house.

2020’s favorite subplot: the murder hornet, photo by Filippo Turetta.

My fear of horror movies goes back to when I was three years old and unable to turn off my grandmother’s small black and white television when Nightmare on Elm Street played on basic cable. But when I was a child—in spite of my deep fear of even hearing the non-diegetic music of a horror movie preview sneaking up on me when I was just trying to enjoy a life filled with stuffed animals and tea parties—I did find a way to make peace with all the things that terrified me. I simply imagined how I could befriend my monsters.

This feels very Buddhist of me, like a precocious Milarepa facing his demons, but really, I was just employing my greatest skillset: my runaway imagination. When given over to fear, I would imagine what it would be like to befriend Chucky, the killer ginger doll from Child’s Play, or outwit Freddie himself. Soon these fantasies changed the tenor of my nightmares: if I wasn’t teaming up with members of Saved by the Bell to outrun Freddie, I was having a frenemy relationship with Chucky where he always threatened to kill me, and I laughed in his face (this would later prove useful when navigating the girlpolitik world of fourth grade female friendships).

But mostly, my involved daydreams involved Pinhead of the Hellraiser franchise.

Part of this was due to a cross-country trip I took with my mother and older sister, after a short-lived move to Nevada, back to Alabama where I had spent most of my life. My mother’s Chevy pickup truck was packed full to the camper shell with our belongings, and I was relegated to a tiny pallet behind the window, up against stacked boxes (in 1992, you really could let kids travel that way, so long as your mom shouted “duck down” when a cop drove by).

There, in the eternal backseat of a cross-country trip, I let my imagination wander. Pinhead, yes, was sinister, but he was training me, letting me apprentice, so I could learn his ways of magic, sharp objects, walking through hell. And it kept me occupied until I really started to breakdown with boredom somewhere around Flagstaff, Arizona.

The face of a child (me) who loves Pinhead. Photo by my poor mother.

This daydream narrative does not totally jive with the plot of the movies, but at that time, I had only seen clips of the franchise, mostly from the sequel Hellbound: Hellraiser II. Something about that statuesque Pinhead haunted and titillated me, so I filled in the gaps the best I could, thinking things like, “Maybe Pinhead will teach me archery.” (Pinhead, as far as I can remember, did not pick up an arrow and bow). When I told my best friend and her husband about my childhood fantasies, they kept teasing me, saying things like, “Miranda, just admit you had a crush on Pinhead and that you want him to to tie you up.” I was deeply confused why they would assume this about me. Pinhead was my friend, ok?

To better understand the feedback I was getting, I watched Hellraiser for the first time as an adult, and I learned that this is a very horny film. Apparently, everyone knew this but me. Apparently, when I said I used to daydream about Pinhead, I was essentially telling people, “As a seven year old, I wanted to hang out with a demonic entity that personified the pleasure-pain principles of BDSM.” I plan to send this to my mom, so I don’t think that I need to go into my preferences, but I will say BDSM is not part of them. That said, if someone buys me this Pinhead paint by numbers kit, I would maybe change my mind, for the right person.

Buy this kit via Etsy here. For me.

Maybe it’s time I admit that while my feelings for Pinhead were not the exact same as my big feelings I had for Elijah Wood as a child, they were in the same neighborhood. And maybe that neighborhood was dark and scary at night, but also a little beautiful. A little sharp to the touch.