History Film / HellRaiser

* BodyHorror: Frank, remaking his body from blood and flesh of others.

* EvilFeelsGood: Frank's motivation.

* FanDisservice: Julia having sex with Frank [[spoiler: while he's wearing the skin of her husband.]]

* ParentalIncest: The lurking phantom of parental incest is all over the first two films. "Come to daddy" and all that. There's no evidence that it actually happened, but the idea is pretty firmly put into viewer's heads, [[spoiler: particularly when Frank - already established as not above sleeping his sister-in-law - attempts to rape Kirsty - his niece - while wearing her father's skin.]] Incidentally, that was a line taken directly from the novella where Kirsty is twenty-six and a friend rather than the daughter. Doesn't make it any less creepy though.

* TapOnTheHead: Half the horror comes from averting this trope. [[spoiler: Murders are by smashing someone on the head with a small hammer, and the first blow NEVER works.]]

* OhCrap: Kirsty gets this reaction [[spoiler:upon hearing her father say, "Come to Daddy" and realizing who it really is.]]

* BittersweetEnding: End of the first film. [[spoiler: The Cenobites have been defeated and Kirsty has escaped the flaming wreckage of her father's home with her boyfriend. But her father is dead, the puzzle box still exists, and Kirsty is forced to spend the sequel trying to escape the Cenobites.]]
* BlueAndOrangeMorality:
** The novella and the first movie or so. The Cenobites inhabit a dimension of pure pleasure... only their idea of "pleasure" is so far removed from what is "normal" that an ordinary human would consider it weirdly discomfiting at best, agonizing torture at worst. The Cenobites don't consider their victims to be victims at all: they're giving them [[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor what they think they want.]]
** Those who use the box with better understanding are people who are addicted to the extremes of sensation, both pain and pleasure, and often blurring the line between the two before ultimately erasing it completely. The Cenobites are effectively priests of an S&M religion.

* BondageIsBad: A popular misconception of the Cenobites. The first film portrays them as amoral, if extreme, SenseFreak types.
* BookEnds: [[spoiler:The film ends right where it started, with the Chinese man selling the retrieved Lament Configuration to another unwitting explorer of the boundary between pleasure and pain, just as he did with Frank.]]
-->'''[[spoiler:Salesman]]:''' [[spoiler:What's your pleasure, Sir?]]

* EldritchAbomination: The first movie treats the Cenobites as such.

* EvilIsNotAToy: Frank Cotton releases four demons with the magical cube, which looks quite like some toy. They don't exactly reward him, although it's technically neither a reward nor a punishment. The Cenobites' job is to bring the summoner to the heights of "pain and pleasure", at least in the first film. The summoners never really understand what they're getting into.
* EvilUncle: Frank. Obviously sucking the life out of people to restore yourself is pretty damn evil. He later tries to rape his own niece, after having a lengthy affair with his sister-in-law.

* ForWantOfANail: A rather literal example. While moving furniture, Larry cuts his hand on a protruding nail and bleeds all over the floor. It's this blood that Frank first uses to reconstruct his body and return to the world of the living. If not for that stupid nail, Larry, Julia and Kirsty might have just gone on living in the house, and Frank might have stayed in Hell.

* ItGetsEasier: Julia starts off reluctantly killing a man to restore Frank's body. The subsequent ones are easier, but for a while she still pleads for her husband's life. [[spoiler:By the end she is completely calm and at ease when Frank kills Larry and steals his skin.]]
* LouisCypher: The Chinese merchant at the beginning and the locust-eating hobo are both faces of what is implied to be the devil, or at least, ''a'' devil.
* OhCrap: Kirsty gets this reaction [[spoiler:upon hearing her father say, "Come to Daddy" and realizes who it really is.]]
* ParentalIncest: The lurking phantom of parental incest is all over the first two films. "Come to daddy" and all that. There's no evidence that it actually happened, but the idea is pretty firmly put into viewer's heads, [[spoiler: particularly when Frank - already established as not above sleeping his his sister-in-law - attempts to rape Kirsty - his niece - while wearing her father's skin.]] Incidentally, that was a line taken directly from the novella where Kirsty is twenty-six and a friend rather than the daughter. Doesn't make it any less creepy though.
* PeekABooCorpse: Played about as straight as possible in the first film.

* TapOnTheHead: Half the horror comes from averting this trope, in much of the first film. [[spoiler: Murders are by smashing someone on the head with a small hammer, and the first blow NEVER works.]]
* SelfConstructedBeing: The plot of the first movie as far as Frank Cotton was concerned.
* SheIsAllGrownUp: This was Frank's reaction to Kirsty in the original.

* SlasherSmile: The Chatterer. (not that he can really make any other expression).
* SupernaturalProofFather: Larry was never fully aware of what Julia was doing until the end when [[spoiler:Frank kills and then skins him.]]
* TooDumbToLive: [[spoiler:Larry]] from the first film. Paying so little attention to your house and to your wife's strange behavior can get you killed.
* WhereTheHellIsSpringfield: Larry refers to the city they've moved to as Julia's "turf" yet the residents have an odd mixture of both American and English accents. One person is seen wearing a New York Yankees ballcap
** Gets more confusing in the first sequel, where Kirsty has been moved to a (presumably nearby) mental hospital, but now ''everyone'' is American except for Dr. Channard and Julia.
** Clive Barker mentions in the DVD commentary that the movie was initially overtly set in London, but the studio offered an increased budget if the film was changed to be set in America to capitalize on the stronger horror market in the US.

Somewhere in the orient, the hedonistic Frank Cotton acquires a puzzle box from a mysterious Chinese man. At his home in London he eventually figures out the configuration, before he is is dragged off by unseen forces. Some time later, his brother Larry and Larry's second wife Julia visit the house, and with Frank seemingly gone, decide to move in. By accident some of Larry's blood is spilled on the floor in the attic, and Frank rises from the dead as a skinless undead human. He tells Julia (with whom he had an affair in the past) that he has escaped from a dimension ruled by beings called Cenobites who merge the boundaries between pleasure and pain, and convinces her to keep it a secret from Larry and find men for him to feed off on. Meanwhile Larry's daughter Kristy discovers the puzzle box, and comes face to face with the Cenobites, who are interested in getting Frank back to their realm.

** In the book, Pinhead is present but is not the lead Cenobite. The female Cenobite, the Chatterer, and the Engineer all have more prominent roles, but the film adaptation prevented this. The Chatterer could not speak (and the actor could not see), the Engineer was demoted and completely remade to the point of being unrecognizable, and the female Cenobite--while capable of speaking--had makeup that severely limited the actress' head and facial movements. Though fixed by the sequel, these problems meant Pinhead took point. Now he's the face of horror films in western civilization.

* EvilUncle: Frank, obviously sucking the life out of people to restore yourself is pretty damn evil.

* ParentalIncest: The lurking phantom of parental incest is all over the first two films. "Come to daddy" and all that. There's no evidence that it actually happened, but the idea is pretty firmly put into viewer's heads. [[spoiler:Well, aside from Frank not being above sleeping with his brother's second wife. Even if he's not Kirsty's father, though, the implications as her uncle aren't much better.]] Incidentally, that was a line taken directly from the novella where Kirsty is twenty-six and a friend rather than the daughter. Doesn't make it any less creepy though.

* BittersweetEnding: End of the first film. [[spoiler: The Cenobites have been defeated and Kirsty has escaped the flaming wreckage of her father's home with her boyfriend but her dad is dead. Also the box she tried to destroy is saved and she spends the rest of the series trying to escape the Cenobites.]]

* ThrowItIn: Andrew Robinson thought "Jesus wept" sounded so much cooler than the scripted line "Fuck you". He was right.

* WhatCouldHaveBeen: The music for the first film was originally done by Coil (they were hired by Creator/CliveBarker after he listened to one of their albums and nearly got sick due to how brutal their music was) but the studio ended up rejecting it due to its content. Their score ended up getting released separately and Christopher Young did the score that ended up in the film (which launched his career as a composer).

** In the book, Pinhead is present but is not the lead Cenobite. The female Cenobite, the Chatterer, and the Engineer all have more prominent roles, but the film adaptation prevented this. The Chatterer could not speak (and the actor could not see), the Engineer was demoted ans completely remade to the point of being unrecognizable, and the female Cenobite--while capable of speaking--had makeup that severely limited the actress' head and facial movements. Though fixed by the sequel, these problems meant Pinhead took point. Now he's the face of horror films in western civilization.

** In the book, Pinhead is present but is not the lead Cenobite. The female Cenobite, the Chatterer, and the Engineer all have more prominent roles, but the film adaptation prevented this. The Chatterer could not speak (and the actor could not see), the Engineer was completely remade to the point it's unrecognizable and demoted and the female Cenobite, while capable of speaking, has makeup that severely limited the actress' head and facial movements. Though fixed by the sequel, these problems meant Pinhead took point. Now he's the face of horror films to the western civilization.

** The novella and the first movie or so. The Cenobites inhabit a dimension of pure pleasure...only their idea of "pleasure" is so far removed from what is "normal" that an ordinary human would consider it weirdly discomfiting at best, agonizing torture at worst. The Cenobites don't consider their victims to be victims at all: they're giving them [[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor what they think they want.]]
** Those who use the box with better understanding are people who are addicted to the extremes of sensation, both pain and pleasure, amd often blurring the line between the two before ultimately erasing it completely. The Cenobites are effectively priests of an S&M religion.

!!This film provides examples of:

''Hellraiser'' is a 1987 horror film directed by Creator/CliveBarker, [[TheFilmOfTheBookbased on his novella]] ''The Hellbound Heart''. It is the first film in the ''Franchise/{{Hellraiser}}'' series.

''Hellraiser'' is a 1987 horror film directed by Creator/CliveBarker, based on his novella ''The Hellbound Heart''. It is the first film in the ''Franchise/{{Hellraiser}}'' series.

* TheFilmOfTheBook

!This film provides examples of:

%%* EvilUncle: Frank.

%%* SupernaturalProofFather: Larry.

Somewhere in the orient, the hedonistic Frank Cotton acquires a puzzle box from a mysterious Chinese man. At his home in London he eventually figures out the configuration, before he is is dragged off by unseen forces. Some time later, his brother Larry and Larry's second wife Julia visit the house, and with Frank seemingly gone, decide to move in. By accident some of Larry's blood is spilled on an old matress in the attic, and Frank rises from the dead as a skinless undead human. He tells Julia (with whom he had an affair in the past) that he has escaped from a dimension ruled by beings called Cenobites who merge the boundaries between pleasure and pain, and convinces her to keep it a secret from Larry and find men for him to feed off on. Meanwhile Larry's daughter Kristy discovers the puzzle box, and comes face to face with the Cenobites, who are interested in getting Frank back to their realm.

* WhatCouldHaveBeen: The music for the first film was originally done by Coil (they were hired by CliveBarker after he listened to one of their albums and nearly got sick due to how brutal their music was) but the studio ended up rejecting it due to its content. Their score ended up getting released separately and Christopher Young did the score that ended up in the film (which launched his career as a composer).

* BookEnds: [[spoiler:The films ends right where it started, with the Chinese man selling the retrieved Lament Configuration to another unwitting explorer of the boundary between pleasure and pain, just as he did with Frank.]]

''Hellraiser'' is a 1987 horror film directed by ''Creator/CliveBarker'', based on his novella ''The Hellbound Heart''. It is the first film in the ''Franchise/{{Hellraiser}}'' series.

''Hellraiser'' is a 1987 horror film directed by ''Creator/CliveBarker'', based on his novella ''The Hellbound Heart''.

[[redirect:Franchise/{{Hellraiser}}]]

[[quoteright:350:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/CenobyteSquad_3857.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:Angels to some, Demons to others.[[hottip:*:From left to right: Butterball, Pinhead, The Female, and The Chatterer]]]]

->''"No tears, please. It's a waste of good suffering."''
-->-- '''Pinhead''', ''Hellraiser''

A 1987 film based on CliveBarker's novella ''The Hellbound Heart'', ''Hellraiser'' has gone on to spawn eight sequels (only one of which - the second - Barker was directly involved with) as well as an upcoming remake. The series has at its heart a puzzle box known as the Lament Configuration, which when properly solved summons the Cenobites, a cadre of sadomasochistic {{Humanoid Abomination}}s. The mascot of the series is the only recurring Cenobite after the second film, the iconic Pinhead, played by Doug Bradley. He was given a choice, when filming the first movie, to play either the Cenobite or a workman who showed up for all of ten seconds - bet he's happy he went with the Cenobite.

Because it's a CliveBarker production, expect much BodyHorror and gleeful blurring of the line between FetishFuel and FanDisservice.

'''Films of this series include:'''
* ''Hellraiser'' (1987)
* ''Hellbound: Hellraiser II'' (1988)
* ''Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth'' (1992)
* ''Hellraiser: Bloodline'' (1996). Last theatrically-released entry.
* ''Hellraiser: Inferno'' (2000)
* ''Hellraiser: Hellseeker'' (2002)
* ''Hellraiser: Deader'' (2005)
* ''Hellraiser: Hellworld'' (2005)
* ''Hellraiser: Revelations'' (2011)
----
!!This film provides examples of:

* AboveGoodAndEvil: The Cenobites, usually, there was Pinhead's little descent into ChaoticEvil in ''Hell on Earth''.
* AllThereInTheManual: Blurbs on the packaging of several of the minor Cenobites' action figures give them backstories.
* AnswersToTheNameOfGod: This exchange from ''Hell on Earth'':
-->'''J.P. Monroe''': "Jesus Christ!"
-->'''Pinhead''': "Not quite."
* ArcWords: "Hunt the Engineer, and the Engineer hunts you."
** "Come to daddy."
** "What's your pleasure, sir?"
* ArtifactOfDoom[=/=]SummoningArtifact: The Lament Configuration. Leads to an OhCrap moment at the conclusion of each of the first several sequels.
* AscendedExtra: In the book, Pinhead is present but is not the lead Cenobite. The female Cenobite, the Chatterer, and the Engineer all have more prominent roles, but the film adaptation prevented this. The Chatterer could not speak (and the actor could not see), the Engineer was completely remade to the point it's unrecognizable and arguably demoted to a BigLippedAlligatorMoment when it does appear, and the female Cenobite, while capable of speaking, has makeup that severely limited the actress' head and facial movements. Though fixed by the sequel, these problems meant Pinhead took point. And now he's pretty much the face of horror films to the western civilization.
** Butterball had some lines in the original script, as well, but due to the makeup preventing the actor from speaking, his lines were either cut or given to the female Cenobite.
* AscendedMeme: The "Lead Cenobite" of the first film was given the nickname of Pinhead by the film's fans. In the second film, Pinhead became his official name, and remained such through all the other sequels.
* BeatStillMyHeart: The second and fourth films.
** Also the first. [[spoiler:Frank's heart is still there, after all.]]
* BedlamHouse: The Channard Institute.
* BeingTorturedMakesYouEvil: The cenobites are an extreme example of this. They've been quite literally turned into monsters by years of hellish torment. Also Frank, debatablely. Even if he was a scheming jerk as a human, he didn't turn into a sadistic, vampiric killer until he had spent years in hell with the Cenobites.
* BiggerBad: Leviathan, the God and creator of the Cenobites. It only appears in ''Hellbound'', but is featured with much more prominence in the comics.
* BigNo: The ending of the fifth film.
* BittersweetEnding: End of the first film. [[spoiler: Kirsty is safe. The Cenobites have been defeated, and she has escaped the flaming wreckage of her father's home with her boyfriend... doesn't make her dad any less dead]].
** [[spoiler:And the box she tried to destroy is promptly saved. And she spends the rest of the series trying to escape the Cenobites.]]
** This is one interpretation of Inferno. While it can be argued [[spoiler: that he's stuck in a GroundhogdayLoop forever]], it can also be read as him [[spoiler: escaping his IronicHell via suicide, jolting him back into the real world, but knowing that he'll be haunted by his HeelRealization forever]].
* BlondesAreEvil: Julia.
* BlueAndOrangeMorality: At least in the novella and the first movie or so. The Cenobites inhabit a dimension of pure pleasure...only their idea of "pleasure" is so far removed from what is "normal" that an ordinary human would consider it weirdly discomfiting at best, agonizing torture at worst. The Cenobites don't consider their victims to be victims at all: they're just giving them [[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor what they think they want.]]
* BodyHorror: So much.
* BondageIsBad: A popular misconception of the Cenobites. The first film actually portrays them as amoral, if extreme, SenseFreak types.
* BoomHeadshot: Kirsty's MO in ''Hellseeker'' (though in a few instances, it appears to have been a CoupDeGrace).
* BreakoutVillain: Pinhead, big time.
* BroadStrokes: WordOfGod has stated the Boom! Studios comics will essentially be taking this approach to the post-''Hellbound'' sequels.
* BrotherSisterIncest: Steven and Emma in ''Revelations.'' [[spoiler: Subverted; it's actually her missing boyfriend wearing her brother's skin.]]
* CallBack: ''Revelations'' to the first film in many scenes. Niko is essentially a younger Frank, and even his first opening the box is a visual callback to Frank doing the same. [[spoiler: As is Niko stealing someone else's skin.]] There's even a callback to the original novella when someone looks up the word 'Cenobite' in a dictionary and reads the actual definition aloud.
* CameBackWrong: While most of the Deaders in the seventh film just look like disheveled people with some injury relating to their death, Marla looks like an outright rotting zombie, apparently her lack of faith in Winter being the cause of this.
* ChekhovsGunman: Probably just a coincidence, but at one point in ''Bloodline'' its mentioned John has a brother, and at the end of ''Deader'' its revealed Winter is descended from Lemarchand...
** The strange hobo from the first film.
* ChuckCunninghamSyndrome: Kirsty boyfriend, Steve.
* CoolestClubEver: The Boiler Room from ''Hell on Earth''.
* CrossMeltingAura: Pinhead melts a cross and badly burns a priest.
* CreepyTwins: The Siamese Twins from ''Bloodline'' and Wire Twins from ''Inferno''.
* CuteMonsterGirl: Marla (depending on how rotten she is in a particular scene) in ''Deader''.
* {{Cyborg}}: Most of the ''Hell on Earth'' Cenobites.
* DarkerAndEdgier: Yes, [[SerialEscalation even for a series that started off the way this one did.]]. The fifth (''Inferno'') and sixth (''Hellseeker'') films don't have the {{Gorn}} from the other films and are more psychological, dealing with characters who have become ensnared by the box. Instead of immediately getting dragged in and ripped apart by Pinhead and his cronies, they live out a personal Hell with manifestations of their wrongdoings tormenting them. [[DownerEnding No happy endings are to be found here]]. At the end, Pinhead, who acts more like a judge, gives a HannibalLecture and drops a LaserGuidedKarma bomb on our JerkAss protagonists.
* DarkIsNotEvil: More evident in the first two films, in which the antagonists are invariably human and the Cenobites, despite being DemonicInvaders, are clearly only an interested third party and in fact assist the protagonist in both films. Pinhead even explicitly describes his group as "angels to some, demons to others" in the first film.
** Even more so in the novel, where (except for the [[MindRape soul rape]] you forever thing) the Cenobites are [[AffablyEvil quite amiable]], and do not renege on their deal with Kirsty as they do in the movie.
* DarkWorld: The implicit setting after a character solves the puzzle box but before they're taken to the Labyrinth: the surroundings change to become deserted, blood-drenched and adorned with chains.
* DealWithTheDevil: Kirsty makes one with the Cenobites in the first and sixth films.
** When it comes right down to it, that's what the whole series is about. The pursuit of ultimate pleasure or forbidden knowledge, wherein the seeker places their trust and fate in the hands of unknown entities of supernatural origin. And the Cenobites deliver. It's just that, in true Deal With The Devil style, the ultimate pleasure that the seekers ''get'' is not usually the kind they ''want''.
** Played with in ''Revelations:'' [[spoiler: Niko tries to make a deal with Pinhead like Kirsty did, but Pinhead takes one look at the person he wants to trade for himself and realizes she's the kind of person who will open the box of her own accord one day, thus making her worthless as a trade.]]
* DeathByMaterialism: Everybody just has to have the Lament Configuration.
* DevelopmentHell: The remake was stuck in it for a long, long time.
* DirtyCop: Detective Joseph Thorne in ''Inferno''. He cheats on his wife with prostitutes, neglects his family, brutalizes his informant, steals evidence, does drugs, frames his partner...
* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: The female Cenobite inserting her fingers into her own exposed trachea in the first film - among innumerable other examples likely to make you ill.
* DoomedByCanon: ''Hellraiser: Bloodline''. You know that the past attempts of the Merchant family are completely useless throughout the entire film. If they weren't, then Dr. Paul Merchant would not have still been trying to undo his ancestor's mistake at the film's start.
* DownerEnding: [[spoiler:Amy Klein]] may not have been taken by Cenobites, but [[spoiler:she's still dead, though]].
* DrunkOnTheDarkSide: [[spoiler:Dr. Channard]], after becoming a Cenobite.
* EldritchAbomination: Leviathan. Also, possibly, the Engineer.
** The first movie treats the Cenobites as such.
* MrFanservice: Pinhead's human self, Captain Elliot Spencer... and probably Pinhead himself.
* ExpandedUniverse: A surprisingly large, detailed one.
* EverythingsBetterWithPrincesses: Angelique.
** [[SubvertedTrope Angelique is the princess of HELL.]]
*** Further subverted. [[spoiler:After she fails to corrupt the modern descendant of Lemarchand, Pinhead takes her to Hell with him and remakes her in his image. The next time we see her, she's just another Cenobite in his retinue.]]
* EverythingSoundsSexierInFrench: Angelique originally had a really hot accent. It [[ExecutiveMeddling was cut]].
* EvilFeelsGood: Frank's entire motivation.
** [[spoiler:Channard]]: "And to think... I hesitated."
* EvilIsVisceral: Uses this trope in the extreme.
* EvilUncle: Frank.
* EvilLaugh: The Channard Cenobite from ''Hellbound'' had a weird one, while Pinhead also gets one in ''Hell on Earth''.
* EvilVersusEvil
* EyelessFace: The Engineer in ''Inferno''.
* EyeScream: The Butterball Cenobite has his eyes sewn shut; Chatterer, meanwhile, usually has ''skewers'' through his. Also, one of the nightclub patrons in ''Hell on Earth'' gets hooked right in the eye. Finally, the Wire Twins in ''Inferno'' seem to be lacking eyes.
* FanService: As the series went on, there seemed to be more and more topless women just for the sake of having topless women.
* {{Foreshadowing}}: Emma making out with her brother in ''Revelations'' [[spoiler: even though it turns out not to be her brother later on hints at what Pinhead's opinion of her will be.]]
* FilmOfTheBook: The first film.
* FinalGirl: Played straight in the first three and ''Hellworld'' only.
** Especially subverted in ''Hellseeker''. [[spoiler:Kirsty lives, but she's murdered people to escape this time. Since her husband went to Hell partly due to his desire to murder her, this implies she's finally condemned herself.]]
* ForWantOfANail: A rather literal example in the first movie. While moving furniture, Larry cuts his hand on a protruding nail and bleeds all over the floor. It's this blood that Frank first uses to reconstruct his body and return to the world of the living. If not for that stupid nail, Larry, Julia and Kirsty might have just gone on living in the house, and Frank might have stayed in Hell.
* FrickinLaserBeams: Show up quite often, and not just in the film set in space.
* GainaxEnding: ''Hellworld'', and all the made-for-video sequels to some extent. Before that, the second film, with many a movie critic complaining that the climax didn't make sense. At the very least, figuring out what the Leviathan Configuration does, and what happened at the end [[spoiler:when Tiffany resolved it]] will take [[WildMassGuessing some guesswork]] on the viewer's part.
* GoingForTheBigScoop: Joey in ''Hell on Earth'', Amy in ''Deader''.
* GoodCopBadCop: The two detectives from ''Hellseeker''. [[spoiler:Subverted. They're the same entity, torturing the [[VillainProtagonist villainous protagonist]] throughout, and a callback to the question of whether the cenobites are angels or demons.]]
* {{Gorn}}
* HannibalLecture: As time went on Pinhead became more and more prone to these.
* {{Hellhound}}: The Chatter Beast from ''Bloodline''.
* {{HellSeeker}}: There are several characters with this mindset, and for some of them it even kind of works out: they're turned into cenobites, and enjoy it.
* HeWhoFightsMonsters: [[spoiler:Kirsty]] in ''Hellseeker''.
* HeyItsThatGuy: Viewers may recognize Kirsty's father as [[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine plain, simple Garak]].
** Also, in ''Hellbound'' we have Lt. Gorman from ''[[{{Alien}} Aliens]]''.
** ''Hell on Earth'' has [[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine Jadzia Dax]].
** One of the Wire Twins in ''Inferno'' is on ''DealOrNoDeal'' as one of [[LovelyAssistant The Lovely Assistants]].
* HoYay: In ''Deader'', Winter resurrects his followers by pretty much making out with them.
* HooksAndCrooks: Cenobites attack their victims with hooks on chains.
* HumanoidAbomination: The Cenobites.
* IncomingHam: "The box. You opened it. We came."
* InfantImmortality: Somewhat averted. [[spoiler:The Chatterer's original, human form is briefly revealed in one scene to be a young boy.]]
** Plus the Hell Baby, one of the props in Hell on Earth, with its eyes and mouth showed up. Possibly averted because it started as a doll, but it was thoroughly alive by the time Pinhead had been through the club.
* IntercontinuityCrossover: The comics had the series crossover with the Marshal Law and the Nightbreed.
* IntrepidReporter: Joey from ''Hell on Earth'', for a wannabe example.
* IronicEcho: When Frank accidentally stabs Julia in the first film, he states that it's "nothing personal, baby". In the second film, Julia throws that line back at Frank when she quite intentionally (and quite literally) rips his heart out.
* IronicHell: Often. Prominently with Frank's own Hell in ''Hellbound''.
* ItGetsEasier: Julia starts off reluctantly killing a man to restore Frank's body. The subsequent ones are easier, but for a while she still pleads for her husband's life. [[spoiler:By the end, though, she seems completely calm and at ease when Frank kills Larry and steals his skin.]]
* LargeHam: Pinhead and the Channard Cenobite.
* LeaningOnTheFourthWall: The sequel ''Hellworld'' involves the fans of a cenobite-themed online group/game apparently also called "Hellraiser". This leads to lots of double entendre dialogue as, while the story still refers to the series' background as canon, there's also lots of talk about "Hellraiser fans" and whether "Hellraiser" is a healthy interest or something that should worry parents.
* LegacyCharacter: The Chatterer.
** Also the Lemarchand family, though the Chatterer's more visible and continuously invoked. It's debatable whether it's the same character throughout the series.
* MadDoctor: Dr. Channard in ''Hellbound'', later upgraded to a DeadlyDoctor when he [[spoiler:becomes a Cenobite]].
* MadeOfIron: Pinhead shrugs off laser blasts in ''Bloodline''.
* MindRape
* MindScrew
* MonsterClown: One shows up in Tiffany's Hell in ''Hellbound'', and the comics gave us the Clown Cenobite (aka Winky Dink).
* MotiveDecay: Pinhead. In the early installments he put a great deal of emphasis on the idea that his victims, on some level, wanted pain, and had even sought him out. In Hellbound, he even stopped the other cenobites from attacking a traumatized girl who'd been tricked into solving the lament configuration. By Bloodline, though, he was actively attempting to drag the entire world into Hell, whether they liked it or not.
* NastyParty: [[spoiler:The Host's]] plan in ''Hellworld''.
* NiceJobBreakingItHero: Nice job [[spoiler:restoring Pinhead's humanity]], Kirsty. Too bad that his evil side no longer follows his rules.
** In ''Revelations,'' just before [[spoiler: Pinhead drags Niko away, Ross shoots him, saying that he has more of a claim to Niko's life than anyone. Niko even thanks him with his last breath, as he's now spared an eternity with the Cenobites. Pinhead, annoyed, promptly gives Ross a HannibalLecture explaining that the suffering Niko would've endured is beyond what vengeance would call for, and calls him out for having acted purely out of a selfish need to be the instrument of vengeance himself. To satiate their appetite and claim their debt of flesh, they take his wife as a replacement for Niko.]]
* NotSoDifferent
* OffTheShelfFX: Pinhead's "pins" in ''Hellbound'' are Q-tips without the cotton-balls, painted gray.
* OnlyKnownByTheirNickname: ''Hellbound's'' Tiffany (that was a name given to her by the staff) and the Host from ''Hellworld''.
* TapOnTheHead: Half the horror comes from averting this trope, in much of the first film. [[spoiler: Murders are by smashing someone on the head with a small hammer, and the first blow NEVER works.]]
* TheOtherDarrin: The actress who played the Female Cenobite in ''Hellbound'' isn't the same one who played her in the original, but it's not that noticeable. In ''Revelations,'' it's ''very'' noticeable that Doug Bradley isn't Pinhead.
* OurGhostsAreDifferent: Elliot's wayward soul in ''Hell on Earth''.
* ParentalIncest: Flashbacks in ''Deader'' implicate Amy was sexually abused by her father.
** The lurking phantom of parental incest is all over the first two films. "Come to daddy" and all that. There's no evidence that it actually happened, but the idea is pretty firmly put into viewer's heads. [[spoiler:Well, aside from Frank not being above sleeping with his brother's second wife. Even if he's not Kirsty's father, though, the implications as her uncle aren't much better.]]
*** Incidentally, that was a line taken directly from the novella where Kirsty is twenty-six and a friend rather than the daughter. Doesn't make it any less creepy though.
* PeekABooCorpse: Played about as straight as possible in the first film.
* PremortemOneLiner: Several. For example, "Play dead" (to a demon dog) or "Welcome to oblivion" (to Pinhead) from ''Bloodline''.
* PunctuatedForEmphasis: "We'll tear your soul...APAAAAAAHHHHT."
* RecycledInSpace: ''Bloodline''.
* RedemptionEqualsDeath: Pinhead, Butterball, Chatterer and the Female all die shortly after remembering their humanity in ''Hellbound''.
* ReligionOfEvil: The Deaders in ''Deader'', and the Cenobites themselves in the original novella, as servants of the Order of Gash (the word Cenobite just means a monk or nun in a convent).
* RomanticizedAbuse: The ''Hellraiser'' films have this as a component, creeping most viewers out even further. "We have such sights to show you". The novel version ''The Hellbound Heart'' has the initial description of the female cenobite invoke piercing fetishism.
* SealedEvilInACan: The Lament Configuration again, and the pillar in the third film, plus the floorboards and the mattress in the first and second films.
* SelfConstructedBeing: The plot of the first movie as far as Frank Cotton was concerned.
* SenseFreak: The Cenobites. Albiet to a very, ''very'' extreme degree.
* SheIsAllGrownUp: Kirsty in ''Hellseeker''. This was also Frank's reaction to her in the original.
* SinisterGeometry: Leviathan is a lozenge!
* SinisterShades: The Butterball Cenobite, who wears shades because his eyes are sewn shut.
* SinisterSubway: ''Deader''
* SlasherSmile: The Chatterer. (not that he can really make any other expression).
* SpinOff: The Harrowers.
* StuffBlowingUp: An entire sequence in ''Hell on Earth'' just has Joey running down the street as stuff explodes around her.
* SuddenlyVoiced: Tiffany in ''Hellbound'', after seeing the Channard Cenobite:
--> '''Tiffany:''' "[[OhCrap Shit!]]"
* SupernaturalProofFather: Larry.
* TemptingFate: From Hellraiser 3. When Joey seeks refuge at church to escape the "Demons" the priest assures her demons don't actually exist. And guess who decides to strut on in...
-->'''Pinhead opens the doors'''
-->'''Joey:''' The what the [[PrecisionFStrike fuck]] is ''that?''
* TokenMinority: Derek in ''Hellworld''.
* TomatoInTheMirror: The ending of ''Inferno''.
* TheLittleShopThatWasntThereYesterday: ''Hell on Earth'' and ''Hellseeker''.
* ThrowItIn: Andrew Robinson thought "Jesus wept" sounded so much cooler than the scripted line "Fuck you". He was right.
* TooKinkyToTorture: [[spoiler:Channard]]'s reaction after [[spoiler:his transformation into a cenobite]] is to question why he had any doubts about it.
* TooDumbToLive: [[spoiler:Larry]] from the first film. Paying so little attention to your house and to your wife's strange behavior can get you killed. And [[spoiler:Kyle]] from the second. Went to a house where [[spoiler:Julia]] was, then decided to split up, didn't ask a strange woman who she was and what was doing there, and when she started to behave oddly didn't run away. WhatAnIdiot indeed.
* TookALevelInBadass: [[spoiler:Julia]] went from being a reluctant and remorseful killer who tried her best to save [[spoiler:Larry Cotton]] from Frank in the first film to a hardened killer in the second, who took great joy in being evil. Probably an after-effect from being [[spoiler:betrayed, killed, tortured and resurrected.]]
* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: Pinhead is prone to these as well.
* ThePowerOfBlood: The first three films have Frank, Julia and Pinhead coming back via blood.
* ThisWasHisTrueForm: After being killed by the Channard Cenobite in ''Hellbound'', the other Cenobites turn back into humans. Also arguably how Pinhead is defeated in the third.
* [[TwinThreesomeFantasy Twin Threesome]]: ''Inferno'' has a disturbing version.
* TwistEnding: Several:
** ''Bloodlines:'' The space station is [[spoiler: the perfected "anti-Lament Configuration" that previous Merchants couldn't get quite right.]]
** ''Inferno:'' Joseph is [[spoiler: a TomatoInTheMirror and his entire investigation of the Engineer serial killer case has been his personal Hell.]]
** ''Hellseeker:'' [[spoiler: Kirsty's actually outwitted her husband and traded him to Pinhead in exchange for her own safety.]]
** ''Hellworld:'' A double whammy: [[spoiler: There's nothing supernatural going on at the party, the Host has drugged the protagonists so they'll have potent enough Hellworld-related hallucinations to kill them as ironic payback for his son's Hellworld-inspired suicide. Then, when the Host is idly playing with his son's homemade Lament Configuration, it turns out that it actually ''works,'' and the real Pinhead explains his son simply opened a gate to Hell. The Host pays for doing the same.]]
** ''Revelations:'' [[spoiler: The second Pinhead is Steven, the skin-stealing trick hasn't fooled Pinhead at all, and Niko's bargaining chip is worthless.]]
* VariableLengthChain
* TheVoiceless: Every Cenobite (except Pinhead) that appears after ''Bloodline''. Also, Tiffany from ''Hellbound''.
* WasOnceAMan: [[spoiler:The Cenobites.]]
* WeaponOfChoice:
** Pinhead: The hooked chains.
** Female: [[SinisterScythe A sickle]]
** Julia likes hammers.
* WelcomeToHell: Literally, in this case.
* WhatCouldHaveBeen: The music for the first film was originally done by Coil (they were hired by CliveBarker after he listened to one of their albums and nearly got sick due to how brutal their music was) but the studio ended up rejecting it due to its content. Their score ended up getting released separately and Christopher Young did the score that ended up in the film (which launched his career as a composer).
* WhereTheHellIsSpringfield: Larry refers to the city they've moved to as Julia's "turf" yet the residents have an odd mixture of both American and English accents. One person is seen wearing a New York Yankees ballcap
* WickedStepmother: Julia.
** She even [[FairytaleMotifs says so herself]].
* WordsDoNotMakeTheMagic: One character in the second film solves puzzles reflexively, as she has a psychological detachment that forces her to do so, whether she wants to or not. She's given the Lament Configuration so that someone else can sacrifice her to the Cenobites, while he can safely watch what happens. The Cenobites ignore her, and proceed to hunt him -- his was the desire that led to the box opening.
--> Pinhead: It is not hands that summon us. It is desire.
** In ''Revelations,'' Niko tries the same trick and also fails, although Pinhead doesn't bother spelling it out this time.

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