Pinhead

“	We'll tear your soul apart!	„
 	~ Pinhead 	
“	No tears, please! It's a waste of good suffering!	„
 	~ Pinhead to Kirsty Cotton. 	
“	The box, you opened it. We came.	„
 	~ Pinhead's most iconic quote. 	
Captain Elliott Spencer, better known as Pinhead, is the main antagonist of the Hellraiser film series.
He is the leader of the Order of the Gash, a sadomasochistic religion whose adherents are the demonic torturers known as the Cenobites who can be summoned along with Pinhead himself via the demonic, mechanical puzzle box known as the Lament Configuration. Aside from the iron pins jabbed in his skull, Pinhead is renowned in the slasher movie genre for being one of the very few villains who is highly intelligent and eloquent.
He usually kills his victims by tearing them apart with hooked chains, but he also has an arsenal of demonic powers and is a master of torture and pain. He often prefers to drag his victims into an eternity of suffering rather than kill outright.
He was portrayed mostly by Doug Bradley, with Stephan Smith Collins and Paul T. Taylor as his stunt doubles.
== Creation and Influences ==
While designing the setting for the Hellraiser universe, Clive Barker had openly expressed great dissatisfaction with the slasher genre, claiming it to be dull and boring. His assumption was that villains such as Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees, and Freddy Krueger were not frightening since he believed them to be merely "dumb things". Barker claimed to have taken inspiration for Pinhead's overall character from Count Dracula, most notably the Christopher Lee version: "Part of the chill of Dracula surely lies in the fact that he is very clearly and articulately aware of what he is doing, you feel that this is a penetrating intelligence and I don’t find dumb things terribly scary, I find intelligence scary, particularly twisted intelligence; it’s one of the reasons why Hannibal Lecter is scary, isn’t it? It’s because you always feel that he’s going to be three jumps ahead of you."
When describing Pinhead, actor Doug Bradley compares him to Oscar Wilde and Noel Coward. When discussing the character over with Barker, Bradley was told to play the villain as he would "a cross between an administrator and a surgeon who's responsible which running a hospital where there are no wards, only operating theaters. As well as the man who wields the knife, he's the man who has to keep the timetable going.".
Barker had designed the Cenobites based on punk fashion, Catholicism, and sadomasochism. Barker drew inspiration for the latter thanks to his visits at S&M clubs in New York and Amsterdam. Pinhead had been distinctively designed to resemble African fetish sculptures, giving him a distinct shamanistic look, further illustrating his religious appearance. Initially, Pinhead was going to have navel piercings which would have implied the existence of genital piercings.
The first Hellraiser movie's credits had identified the Head Piercing Cenobite character as Lead Cenobite, a title which had been initially coined for the Eyelid Cenobite in The Hellbound Heart. Earlier drafts of the script had intended for the character to be named Priest. The name "Pinhead" was first used the Hellraiser makeup crew in charge which Dog Bradley's prosthetics, a simply means to identify the character. Barker expressed dislike towards "Pinhead" as he believed it to be undignified, an unsuitable name for an otherwise suave and refined character. Despite this objection the name had been loosely incorporated in the movie sequels, starting with Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth, in which main protagonist, Joey Summerskill, shouts out "Pinhead" to the main villain. Also of note, in the eighth installment of the series, Hellworld, the name was used to identify the main boss villain for the eponymous MMORPG, based around the Cenobite mythology.
== Appearance ==
Pinhead's unique physical description has made him a notable figure in the horror genre. Rather than a hulking brute, Pinhead is lean and thin, his musculature is that of an average soldier. While not massive, the cenobite lord is particularly tall, easily towering over his fellow adherents, as well most of the cenobite's victims.
As a Cenobite, the being which would eventually become Pinhead had undergone drastic cosmetic surgery which had stripped him of any remains of his previous mammal self. He is completely hairless, having a fully shaved head. His skin has been bleached nearly entirely white, a product of either the blue blood circulating through his veins (within the movies), or due to the white ash doused over him (within the novella). Several scars can be noticed on his chest. His namesake is derived from the complex scarification and piercing of his entire head: a heavily detailed grid which had been either sliced over his head, according to the films, or tattooed, if we look at The Hellbound Heart. At every intersection of horizontal and vertical lines there has been rammed a jeweled pin. Within The Hellbound Heart, Pinhead's tongue has been similarly decorated.
== Biography ==
=== Early life ===
Pinhead was originally an Englishman, an educated soldier by the name Captain Elliott Spencer, who fought during World War I, serving under the British Expeditionary Force, his last battle having taken place during one of the Battles of Flanders. Barker describes Captain Elliott Spencer as being an old-fashioned British intellectual. After the war had ended, Captain Spencer was left traumatized by the experience and began developing both post traumatic stress disorder and survivor guilt. He subsequently lost all faith in humanity and in God, whom he believed had failed him and everyone else.
Captain Spencer was left nihilistic and disillusioned, wandering the Earth and living a hedonistic life. He committed acts that were considered taboo by most modern society. Sometime during the year 1921, Captain Spencer traveled to British India where he discovered the Lament Configuration and bought it from its current guardian. Solving the box inside his tent, Spencer was immediately impaled by hooked chains. He was dragged into the Labyrinth and then transformed into the Cenobite Pinhead. In the decades that followed he obediently served the dark entity Leviathan as the new leader of the Cenobites, losing all memory of his past life as a human being in the process.
=== Hellraiser ===
In Hellraiser, Pinhead makes his first appearance as a shadowy figure that tortured a man named Frank Cotton in his own attic, after the latter had solved the Lament Configuration.
After tearing Frank apart in his own house, Pinhead picks up the puzzle box and uses it to teleport himself, his entourage, Frank's remains and their tools back to the Labyrinth, the attic appearing as if nothing had ever taken place to begin with.
Shortly after their departure, Frank had escaped his captors after his brother Larry's blood fell on the spot where he had died.
The blood had seemingly allowed him to reconstruct his body one layer of organs at a time. In the week that followed Frank had convinced Julia, Larry's cheating wife, into helping him gain more blood so he could obtain full human form. It was during this time that Frank continued fearing the return of the cenobites.
When Larry's daughter, Kristy, had stolen the puzzle box from Frank, she easily solved it and summoned Pinhead alongside his entourage. As the cult prepares to take Kristy away the girl convinces them to exchange her soul for Frank's, to which they seemingly accept, but only and so long as Frank himself confesses to have escaped their world. Pinhead is left somewhat skeptical and threatens to cruelly punish Kristy should she attempt to fool them. In the end, Pinhead does tear Frank apart once again, using hooked chains. Despite their earlier agreement the Cenobites - Chatterer, Butterball, and the Female Cenobite - chase after Kristy anyway, with Pinhead showing great delight in taking her to their home realm. However, Kristy successfully manages to utilize the Lament Configuration and sends the demon cult back to Hell.
=== Hellbound: Hellraiser II ===
In this movie, Pinhead's former life as a human is explored, the opening scene revealing Elliott Spencer's transformation into a cenobite.
The movie's main antagonists, the psychotic psychiatrist Dr. Phillip Channard and Julia (who was killed by Frank, captured by the cenobites and later resurrected by Channard, using the blood of one of his patients) trick the mentally disturbed girl, named Tiffany, into solving the Lament Configuration. A portal had been opened with which the Doctor and Julia used to enter Hell. Pinhead saves Tiffany from being killed by the other Cenobites, realizing that Channard had been merely using the girl as a means to solve the puzzle box and enter Hell without the fear of cenobites attacking him. Channard was eventually turned into a Cenobite by Leviathan.
Within the Labyrinth, Pinhead reunites with Kristy and expresses delight in torturing her. He is not, however, in a hurry to do so and allows the girl to freely roam the cenobite home realm. Later on, when Kirsty discovered that Pinhead had once been Elliot Spencer, she reminded him of this by showing him a picture of his past life as an army man. Reluctant at first, the other cenobites also begin remembering their own past lives, showing confusion and fear for the first time. Pinhead and his entourage defended Tiffany and Kristy from the newborn Cenobite Channard, with Pinhead using his hooks in order to restrain him. After killing the other Cenobites, Channard transformed Pinhead back into Elliot Spencer and slit his throat with one of his tentacles, seemingly killing him. Before dying, Spencer had smiled at Kristy as a sign of thanks.
After Tiffany had reshuffled the diamond shaped Lament Configuration back into its rectangular shape Leviathan is somehow forced to release countless souls from Hell and imprisons his servants (Julia included). From this point on Pinhead's light and dark sides were separated; Elliott Spencer became a benevolent spirit, while Pinhead's sadistic soul became trapped inside the Pillar of Souls alongside Julia, what appeared to be The Engineer, the Lament Configuration, several other spirits and The Puzzle Guardian in vagrant form.
=== Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth ===
For the first time, Pinhead takes on the role of main antagonist in Hellraiser III. He is resurrected when nightclub owner, JP Monroe, was bitten by a rat, his blood having landed on the Pillar of Souls. Pinhead absorbs a girl named Brittany Virtue, then fools Monroe into bringing him more victims to consume, promising the disturbed young club owner a the chance in expressing himself in the most artistic means possible, through torture. Pinhead then persuades Monroe's girlfriend, Terri, in helping him escape from the pillar and even ends up killing Monroe, absorbing enough of his energy to return to full power and escapes his imprisonment. No longer trapped inside the statue, Pinhead killed around 150 people at Monroe's nightclub, The Boiler Room.
Meanwhile, a young TV reporter named Joey Summerskill makes contact with the spirit of Captain Elliott Spencer. Having lost her father to the Vietnam War, Spencer and Joey appear together on a desolated battlefield, a manifestation of their regrets. The Captain tells Joey his origin, how he has come to be a ghost and then tasks the young reporter with retrieving the Lament Configuration and banishing Pinhead back to Hell.
Meeting at the nightclub, Pinhead tried taking the Lament Configuration from Joey Sommerskill so that he could keep the door to Hell open, but was unable to take it; the box had to be given to him willingly by another person. Pinhead had transformed the corpses of a handful of victims into Cenobites and tried killing the reporter, but she successfully banished all of them back to Hell. Later on, while disguised as her dead father, Pinhead tricked Joey into giving him the box and then attempted to transform the girl into a cenobite. He misses this opportunity as he is confronted by Elliott Spencer, who merged with his evil half. Joey is released and stabs Pinhead with the Lament Configuration (once again in the form of a lozenge) and banishes the cenobite from Earth. Having defeated all the cenobites, Joey then buries the puzzle box in the wet cement of a nearby construction site. When the building is completed it is revealed to have been bizarrely modeled in the image of the Lament Configuration.
=== Hellraiser: Bloodline ===
Pinhead returns as the main antagonist of Hellraiser IV when the demon "princess" Angelique summoned him. They planned to have John Merchant (descendant of the 17th century toymaker Phillip Lemarchand, who built the Lament Configuration) use his new design, the Elysium Configuration, to keep the portal to Hell open so that the cenobites could come and leave at their own will. However, the plan had backfired, causing an enraged Pinhead into killing John Merchant, stabbing him in the threat. Merchant's wife. Bobbi. banishes the cenobite lord, Angelique, Chatter Beast, and the Siamese Cenobite (two twin security guards transformed by Pinhead) to Hell.
In year 2127, John's descendant, Paul Merchant, summoned Pinhead with the Lament Configuration on board the Space Station Minos, which was in fact the Elysium Configuration, a machine built in order to permanently to trap and destroy the cenobites. Pinhead, Chatter Beast, Twin Cenobite, and Angelique (now a modern Cenobite) killed most of the guards, but Paul and the remaining guard, Rimmer, escaped in a shuttle. After tricking Pinhead with a hologram, Paul activated the Elysium Configuration, reflecting rays of light off of mirrors and closing the space station/Configuration into a giant Lemerchand's box. The perpetual light began to decay Pinhead, pinning him to a wall. Before it exploded, the Elysium Configuration completely destroyed, and or, imprisoned Pinhead and the other Cenobites.
=== Hellraiser: Inferno ===
Pinhead returns to extract psychological torture on a man named Joseph Thorne, who had opened the puzzle box. He does so for the reason being that Thorne is a corrupt detective who was frequently involved in drug use, sleeping with prostitutes, and beating his informant. He puts Thorne under the hallucination of witnessing the Engineer (who represents Thorne's cruelty) murder others and kidnap a child (who represents Thorne's innocence)-making him believe throughout the whole film that he had been solving the Engineer's murder cases, when in reality he had been in Hell since he opened the puzzle box. Pinhead then has Thorne wrapped in hooks, and tells him he will suffer an eternity in Hell for his misdeeds.
=== Hellraiser: Hellseeker ===
To be added
=== Hellraiser: Deader ===
To be added
=== Hellraiser: Hellworld ===
To be added
=== Hellraiser: Revelations ===
: Main article: Pinhead (Revelations)
=== Hellraiser: Judgment ===
: Main article: Pinhead (Judgement)
=== Hellraiser (2022) ===
: Main article: Pinhead (2022)
== Other Media ==
=== Dead by Daylight ===
Pinhead appears as a playable Killer in Dead By Daylight's twenty-first chapter. His in-game lore describes how the Lament Configuration entered the realm of The Entity, and that once it was solved, Pinhead came into the realm. He's voiced by Doug Bradley who had reprised his role.
His power, Summons of Pain, 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.
== Personality ==
Cold, calculating, relentless and unforgiving are the words which best describe the Cenobite Lord's behavior. As described by Clive Barker, Pinhead had been envisioned as being an insane intellectual well aware that all his actions are perverse and vile, yet goes out of his way to accomplish his deeds without ever second-guessing them. During the first movie of the franchise, when Pinhead confronts Kristy Cotton for the very first time he kindly asks her stop crying, claiming that she was wasting her emotions at the wrong moment.
As the Cenobite high priest, Pinhead has been shown to be strictly loyal to the creed and lifestyle of the Order of the Gash. While in the first film he was largely neutral, Pinhead, as the series progressed, became a more standard horror villain and murdered more frequently.
== Powers and Abilities ==
=== Natural Abilities ===
* Immortality: Pinhead is shown to be biologically immortal, he is ageless and his body never decays. It's also heavily implied that he can't outright die from physical attacks, such as getting blown up, since he can easily reform or revive himself back in Hell. Only another supernatural being of his caliber or above such as the doctor has the ability to truly kill him, as shown in the second Hell-Raiser film where his human and cenobite forms were split from each other though even then he was later able to fully reform himself via the use of a object known as the pillar of souls.
* Pain Immunity: As a master of pain and pleasure, Pinhead has subjected himself to an uncountable number of different tortures, both willingly and unwillingly. Because of the iron pins that has been nailed deep into his head, Pinhead is assumed to be in a perpetual state of pain, a pain that he has since his transformation from human to cenobite gotten used to and seems to derive pleasure from it. This allows him to endure extreme amounts of pain without slowing down.
* Superhuman Durability: Pinhead is shown to be highly resistant to physical attacks, he is able to nullify gunshots from the most powerful assault rifles (which implies he has full bullet immunity) and even futuristic energy weapons.
* Superhuman Reflexes: In the third movie Pinhead is seen catching three bullets in his mouth fired from a handgun at almost point-blank range.
=== Supernatural Powers ===
Described by Dough Bradley as stronger than both Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers, Pinhead is described as an extremely powerful being (especially while he still worked for Leviathan) and as such has several supernatural abilities at his disposal, all of them demonic in nature.
* Halysikinesis: Pinhead's signature move is his ability to mentally summon barbed iron hooks and chains out of thin air with the purpose of mutilating and/or restraining victims, often brutally pulling said victims in several directions to tear their whole body apart. These hooks and chains are subject to his total mental control and he may direct them at will, there also seems to be no limit to the amount he can summon forth. The chains are also shown to be able to puncture through both stone and concrete walls with little difficulty. Pinhead is an unmatched master of this ability and is arguably his most powerful method of attack.
* Teleportation: In both hell and the physical world pinhead is capable of teleportation, appearing out of thin air at any location as he so desires. There is no known limit to this power or to how often he can teleport, but it's safe to assume that he can't teleport over infinite distances or outside of the Lament Configuration, unless he has been purposely summoned into the physical realm. This is also how he summons his fellow cenobites.
* Conjuration: As shown in the third Hell-Raiser movie (Hell on Earth) Pinhead as well as lesser cenobites are capable of creating explosions out of thin air, at least powerful enough to destroy cars. He is also able to summon objects out of thin air which is likely how he summons forth his chains.
* Telekinesis: Pinhead has been shown to mentally shake and crack the walls of a room, fling items such as CD's and pool sticks hard enough to embed them deep in a man's stomach or skull, and even more elaborate things such as lifting all the water out of a glass and turning that same water into solid ice in the shape of his own face in order to stab a woman through her throat.
* Necromancy: Pinhead has the power to turn the dead (both human and animal) into new Cenobites.
* Telepathy: Not much is known about the extent of this power but what is known is that Pinhead is able to read the fear and sins of other beings which allows him to tell whether someone is guilty or innocent.
== Reception ==
In Wizard magazine, Pinhead gained the 9th place in the greatest villain poll.
=== In popular culture ===
Pinhead has become a relatively well known figure in popular culture, and as such has been the subject of the occasional cameo, parody and homage.
* He is spoofed in the 1989 film Transylvania Twist, in which he steps out of an Acupuncture acupuncturist's office and says, "I don't care what anyone says — this hurts!".
* During the second issue of the Spawn spin-off miniseries, The Violator, the titular villain makes an illusion to Pinhead. While describing his master, Malebolgia. as being a classical demon in appearance he briefly brings up the new age demons who have fish hooks sticking out of their heads.
* Pinhead appears in The Simpsons episodes Treehouse of Horror V and Stop, or My Dog Will Shoot!.
* Pinhead appeared in an episode of Family Guy where he unscrewed a salt shaker.
* Pinhead appears in several comic crossovers such as Pinhead vs Marshal Law: Law in Hell and Hellraiser Nightbreed: Jihad.
* He also appeared in Robot Chicken. In one episode, he got the pins in his head arranged into a mohawk. In another, he was competing in the Big Brother show alongside Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees, Michael Myers, Ghostface, and Leatherface. Michael pulled pins out of his head. Pinhead said that if he won the chance to call home on a cell phone he would have called his mother, as it was her birthday.
* A parody of Pinhead appeared in the spoof movie Stan Helsing. He wears a black Matrix style robe and he is named Needlehead. He was killed when Stan grabbed two of the needles on his head (his main weakness), disintegrating him.
* Some fans would compare Pinhead to Mesogog from the Power Rangers franchise. Both their appearances hides most of the anatomy with long black leather (with the exception of the hands and head). Their personality's both show a cold, no-nonsense demeanor and when they separate from their humanity, become more sadistic and unruly.
* A parody of Pinhead, named Pinface, appears in the first episode of sixth season of The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, voiced by John Kassir. Pinface also has a grid tattooed on his head, but with bowling pins jabbed at the intersections, his clothing resembled cenobite attire, and was summoned by Billy using a magical Rubix Cube, V-Cube 7. This character, like so many of the show's villains, harbored a personal grudge against Grim.
* The 2012 horror-comedy film The Cabin in the Woods makes on homage to Pinhead, in the form of Fornicus, Lord of Bondage and Pain, a demonic humanoid (Hell Lord) who could be summoned via a spherical puzzle box found in the cabin's basement. He is depicted as a poise man dressed in cenobite leather clothing and with circular saw blades having been stuck in his shaved head.
* Ilgishin, a villain from GARO: Makai no Hana, is depicted to be "part Pinhead" due to its host, Harima, has passion on horror films includes Hellraiser. The proof of this was in his true form, Ilgishin has spikes all over his face in the similar manner with Pinhead's.
* A parody of Pinhead known as "Nailhead" appears during Terraria's Solar Eclipse event as an enemy.
* Pinhead was featured along with other horror icons in the Halloween sale promotion for Vivziepop's Hazbin Hotel.
* In Space Jam: A New Legacy, Pinhead is seen in a crowd of Warner Bros characters taking in some cosmic basketball from the cheap seats.
== Gallery ==
== Trivia ==
* In early drafts of the crossover film Freddy vs. Jason, Pinhead was written to make an appearance at the end of the movie where he asks Freddy and Jason what seems to be the problem after they both died and went to Hell. This was later cut from the film and a new ending was added when the makers could not get the rights to Pinhead.
* Although the Hellraiser films are not slasher films, Pinhead is largely regarded as a slasher villain.
* He, alongside Freddy Krueger and It/Pennywise served as inspirations for Vecna from Stranger Things.