Hellraiser ending: The director explains how they did it

Hulu’s new Hellraiser The film made its way onto the streaming platform this week, bringing Pinhead back to life with new joys of pain and pleasure.

The rebooted horror film arrives just in time for the Halloween movie season and continues a storied tradition of Pinhead of bringing pain and pleasure to people’s lives. Jamie Clayton walked us through what it takes to become a Hellraiser and the intense makeup and prosthetics process to get into Pinhead mode.

But what about that shocking ending? We spoke to director David Bruckner and Clayton about how it came about and what it means.

[Ed. note: This post contains spoilers for the end of Hellraiser 2022.]

Image: Spyglass Media Group

In the final sprint of Hellraiser, protagonist Riley and her friends have made their way to the estate of reclusive billionaire Voight, closely followed by the cenobites. They set up shop and blocked Pinhead and her buddies until it turns out that (1) Voight is still alive (despite having a giant nerve-wracking machine sticking out of his torso, my favorite part of the movie) and (2) Riley’s boyfriend has those worked for Voight all the time.

There’s a whole sequence that goes on between Voight, the cenobites and Riley’s friends, but we don’t want to talk about that here. We’re here to talk about what happens next – Voight gets his “reward,” which is a gnarly display of skin abrasions in a gleaming white space that turns him into a cenobite himself. It’s one of the most memorable and harrowing sequences in the film.

According to Bruckner, a number of practical elements were used to construct the sequence. That Hellraiser Team created a skin suit and built a “real torture table” by using monofilament fishing line to pull the suit’s skin apart.

“No CGI gore,” claims Bruckner. “We insisted.”

New pinhead Jamie Clayton recalled Bruckner addressing this early on.

“He told me he wanted to make a lot of the effects practical,” says Clayton. “And then I [uncontrollable laughter] You did it!”

Image: Spyglass Media Group/Hulu

According to Bruckner, advances in technology have made such techniques more viable, using light touches of VFX to enhance prosthetic work and other practical effects.

“It felt like there were new opportunities along the way,” says Bruckner. “Part of the spirit of the franchise is to show them something they haven’t seen before. And so it felt more in tune with that spirit to allow us to invent and imagine.

“Cenobites are generally naked, they don’t have to wear any clothes, they are somehow beyond all these earthly concerns and just lost in their quest for experience. The meat is trimmed and folded to look almost like clothing. We would say that in a way they are their own leather. And so you only need a bit of expansion to bring it to life, but it’s all handy too. It’s all real light falling on prosthetics. And we only improve it in small steps.”

But why end Hellraiser in this manner? It’s simple, says Bruckner — it fits the spirit of transformation and change inherent in the series (and the Cenobites).

“To have that [Voight’s] destination plays with the irony of gifts, the joys of Hellraiser,” says Bruckner. “The cenobites invite you to a party you may not wish to attend. [It’s] the irony of ‘you’re gonna love this’ and you think I don’t know if I will love this! It felt easy [like] just the right place to leave it.”

It was quite an experience witnessing on set, as Clayton can attest.

“On the days that all seven cenobites worked, each one was covered in blood or lost an arm or had their skin cut off [flayed],” she says. “Those days were tremendous. And they did all of that. All of that happened before our eyes.”

Hellraiser is available for streaming Hi.