Character page for the film Hellraiser (2022).
For the other character pages of the Hellraiser franchise, see here.
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Humans
Riley
Riley McKendry
"It changed on its own..."
Played by: Odessa A'zion
"It opens up and then it cuts you. And then they come to collect..."
A young woman struggling with addiction who comes into possession of a mysterious puzzle box.
- All Girls Want Bad Boys: The case with Trevor, looking past his shadier actions such as robbery.
- The Atoner: Becomes one after Matt goes missing, determined to find any way to bring him back. She later decides not to trust the Cenobites after witnessing what their "rewards" did to Voight.
- Badass Normal: At the beginning of the film, she's an abrasive recovering addict. By the end, she successfully survives the Cenobite's torment and even kills one of them.
- Expy: One to Kirsty Cotton, being a young woman who inadvertently activates the puzzle box and is forced to make a deal with the Cenobites.
- Final Girl: An inverse to the typical tropes. She's a former addict, sexual, and abrasive, in contrast to Nora, the only other woman in their friend group. Of the two, Riley is the one to survive.
- Functional Addict: Struggles with addiction and staying sober, eventually relapsing just before her first encounter with the Cenobites.
- Guile Hero: To a certain extent. She reasons that anybody cut by the box becomes a target for the Cenobites, including a Cenobite - and it works. She uses her wit to successfully get the Gasp to sacrifice Trevor instead of Colin and becomes savvy enough to refuse a "reward" from the Cenobites (though with a tip from Voight), instead living with her actions.
- Hero Killer: All the deaths in the film are basically her fault, and end up being all for nothing. Inverted, as she also kills Chatterer, one of the more iconic Cenobites in the franchise.
- Imagine Spot: She has one when first calling the Cenobites, getting a vision of chains sprouting from a hole in her chest and digging into Matt as he lies in bed.
- Immodest Orgasm: Has one right after the Title Card, while in bed with Trevor.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: The events of the film, including the gruesome deaths of her brother, her boyfriend and most of her friends, are in part a result of her actions — and she knows it. She consciously chooses to live with the regret of this fact.
- Pay Evil unto Evil: While it's implied the Gasp would have taken Trevor anyway after Riley silently chooses him as a sacrifice, she cements it by stabbing him in the gut. With what he did, it's hard not to feel like it's deserved.
- Staying with Friends: Lives with her friends and brother due to implied financial and addiction issues.
- Survivor's Guilt: This is her "reward" from the Cenobites when she refuses to risk taking any of their gifts, who state that she must live with the guilt and regret of indirectly killing her friends.
Voight
Roland Voight
"It's a puzzle. And it's almost finished."
Played by: Goran Višnjić
A seemingly normal businessman who in reality collects victims for the Cenobites."I demand an audience!"
- And Then John Was a Zombie: The final scene shows him being brutally transformed into a Cenobite.
- Asshole Victim: He's a rich hedonist who sees others as nothing more than cattle to be sacrificed with the intent of using the Puzzle Box to enhance his decadence further. It results in him being rigged up to a Magitek torture device, and the events of the movie were orchestrated to summon the Cenobites to try and reverse it. After summoning Leviathan a second time, The Priest tricks him into trading "Sensation" for "Power", resulting in him being Dragged Off to Hell where he suffers an even worse fate.
- Big Bad Duumvirate: Voight is the main driver of the Cenobite-related action in this film, collecting sacrifices for the Cenobites in exchange for a reward.
- Big Bad Wannabe: Despite the above, he ultimately gets outsmarted by the Priest — not once, but twice — and ends up becoming a Cenobite against his will.
- Composite Character: He's a composite of several villains from the Hellraiser mythos. Like Frank Cotton in the original film, he's an amoral hedonist who's grown bored with the pleasures of this world and seeks out the pleasures offered by the Cenobites and learns too late that the Cenobites' definition of "pleasure" is really not what he had in mind. Like Dr. Channard from Hellbound: Hellraiser II, he seeks the "rewards" the Cenobites offer and ultimately becomes a Cenobite himself. He's also a very loose one for Kerscher, a character from The Hellbound Heart, in that he is a human who facilitates others into possessing/using the puzzle box and is in league with the Cenobites.
- Didn't Think This Through: He schemed to be granted an audience with Leviathan to request a reward from the Cenobites, despite having seen what happened to the people he 'fed' to the box and the research he likely did into the Cenobites, and expected their concept of "sensation" to align with his own.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Voight is genuinely disgusted by and calls out Trevor on his cowardice and refusal to use the box as per their deal. There's also his Pet the Dog moment with Riley.
- Facial Horror: He has his cheeks and lips ripped off when being transformed into a Cenobite.
- Faux Affably Evil: Voight is quite polite and accommodating towards Joey in the beginning. However, it's all a ruse to get him to solve the box for him. Once he finishes and is torn to pieces by the cenobites, Voight is apathetic and ignores him.
- Go Mad from the Revelation: Both the process of becoming a Cenobite and seeing the insides of The Leviathan are implied to break Voight's mind in the end.
- The Hedonist: In spite of what his wealth can provide for him, Voight used the box to seek out greater pleasures.
- Ignored Epiphany: Knowing from experience that asking for a reward from the Cenobites is asking for trouble, Voight discourages Riley from proceeding with her plan to resurrect her brother. Only for him to try to make a deal with the Priest again and ending up in a much, much worse situation than before. Though, to be fair to Voight, this seems to be a desperate last resort after The Priest tells him he cannot have his Liminal/Sensation "gift" removed and can only try choosing "Leviathan/Power".
- Kick the Dog: During the opening scene he pays no attention whatsoever to poor Joey being horrifically ripped apart, other than a brief expression of annoyance, as he requests an audience with Leviathan. He's the one who stabs Nora with the box and sacrifices her to the Cenobites. He does the same to Colin, who only survives because Riley swaps Trevor for him. Trevor actually calls him out on how unnecessary stabbing Colin is since they discovered the Cenobites could also be used as sacrifice and had one already trapped and restrained.
- Lack of Empathy: Fails to manifest any emotional reaction whatsoever to the torturous death he condemns Joey to at the beginning of the film; nor to anyone else before or after him. Though oddly enough, he still seems to feel some small sympathy for Riley, enough to chastise Trevor for not opening the box himself and involving her, revealing to her that Trevor was manipulating her so Voight would pay him and sincerely warn Riley that the Cenobites' offers and gifts are of the Jackass Genie & Blue-and-Orange Morality sort.
- Pet the Dog: While explaining what was done to him by the Cenobites, Voight actually cautions Riley against making the same mistake of blindly accepting any of the box's gifts or rewards, warning her that they are either tricks or will be warped by the Cenobites' Blue-and-Orange Morality. His haunted expression and eyes don't leave much doubt that he's being honest, it's the one moment where he doesn't act completely callously or sadistically, and warning Riley about the Cenobites and Trevor doesn't benefit him in anyway. Riley ends up heeding Voight's advice when she rejects the Priest's offer to resurrect Matt.
- Sanity Slippage: By the time he reappears in the final act, Voight has clearly become more unstable. Having a torture device stuck in his chest for 6 years doesn't help.
- Walking Spoiler: It's hard to talk about his character without mentioning his role as the main antagonist in the last third of the film.
Trevor
Trevor
Played by: Drew Starkey
Riley's boyfriend who tries to help her understand the puzzle box.
- Adaptational Villainy: He initially comes off as functionally identical to Steve, Kristy's boyfriend from the original Hellraiser, being the boyfriend of Kristy's nominal counterpart, Riley. However, whereas Steve was simply a mellow boyfriend to Kirsty, Trevor spurs Riley to rob an old warehouse for money. It also turns out he's in league with Voight.
- Dirty Coward: Is called this by Voight after he reveals he gave the box to Riley. It's also seen when he outright refuses to so much as touch the box when she presents it to him.
- The Dragon: Revealed to be this for Voight in the final act.
- Expy: Of Trevor Gooden from Hellraiser: Hellseeker; along with having the same first name, both are also heroines' love interests who turn out to be Evil All Along con artists who are trying to get a big payout using the Lament Configuration, only to become victims of the Cenobites through the actions of their respective intended victim.
- From Nobody to Nightmare: Trevor starts out the film as a petty thief and small-time crook. But, as the film progresses, he's revealed to be working for Voight and led who knows how many people to their deaths.
- Functional Addict: Implied to be one by Matt, who's worried that Trevor may relapse.
- Manipulative Bastard: He plays Riley and friends for fools as employed by Voight.
- Mr. Fanservice: A brief shower scene shows off Starkey's impressive physique.
- Only Sane Man: Continuously tells Riley to throw the box away. Subverted by the fact that he let her use the box in his deal with Voight.
Matt
Matt McKendry
Played by: Brandon Flynn
Riley's brother, who is concerned for her during her recovery from addiction, and Colin's boyfriend.
- Big Brother Mentor: He tries to be this by setting an example for Riley to follow, but it's implied that his controlling attitude is what puts her off in the first place.
- Bury Your Gays: Is the first character to die. The efforts to resurrect him are ultimately in vain as Riley chooses not to risk him coming back wrong.
- Control Freak: Is called one by Riley, though she might be biased given the fact he's dismissive of her relationship with Trevor.
- Expy: Of Larry Cotton from the first two films, in that he is the brother of a major character, dies as a result of Cenobite-related shenanigans, and becomes the focus of an unsuccessful quest to be brought back to life.
- Mythology Gag: It's implied through hallucinations and dialogue that if he were to come back, Matt would be deformed or stripped of his skin. The latter is exactly what happened to Frank in the first film.
- Nothing Is Scarier: We don't see what happens to him when he's abducted by the Cenobites, but it doesn't sound pretty.
- Small Role, Big Impact: He's in the film for about fifteen minutes but his disappearance is what spurs Riley to investigate the puzzle box and Voight and leads to the rest of the plot.
Colin
Colin
Played by: Adam Faison
A member of the group who is also Matt's boyfriend.
- Action Survivor: He mostly sticks with the group in the manor without taking action against the Cenobites, save for when he tries to stab the Asphyx but ends up getting attacked by Voight instead. Nevertheless, he's able to make it to the end with Riley.
- Body Horror: Is strung up by razor wire, which cuts into his skin. Luckily, he's saved when Riley opts to trade Trevor for him.
- Heroic BSoD: Goes through this. Has a manic one when Nora is killed by the Cenobites.
- Hidden Depths: A scene of him and Matt in bed implies he has a keen interest in literature.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Him pulling the puzzle box out of Nora's back is implied to be what causes the Cenobites to kill her.
Nora
Nora
Played by: Aoife Hinds
The roommate of Matt and Colin.
- Hidden Depths: Is implied to be a good cook in her first scene. She's also religious, as discovered when she prays for salvation after getting caught by the Priest.
- Kill the Cutie: Is one of the nicer members of the group and is painfully and brutally killed by the Priest and Chatterer.
- Only Sane Man: Acts as this throughout the film, telling Trevor not to drink around Riley and trying to de-escalate the situation when they find Riley in Voight's manor.
Cenobites
In General
The Cenobites/The Council of Leviathan
A league of sadistic interdimensional cultists who seek out those who solve the puzzle box.
- Ambiguous Gender: With the exception of some (such as the Mother, who is clearly female), all the Cenobites are mutilated in such ways that either they appear genderless or blur the line between genders. The Chatterer is the only one referred to with gendered pronouns by any of the characters, and is referred to with a neutral "them".
- Badass Preacher: All the cenobites devoutly serve Leviathan and are absolutely terrifying.
- Church Militant: Answer to their god, Leviathan, and are more than willing to go on the offensive if a user of the box shirks back on their deal.
- Evil Is Not a Toy: The film begins with Voight trying to use them and their god the Leviathan for his own selfish desires, not fully understanding that what they offer is never a pleasant experience for those with a conventional worldview. He briefly wises up to this fact when he summons them a second time to take their original gift back or trade it for something else, since he figures nothing could possibly be worse than their first gift to him. The Cenobites however, would emphatically insist that the puzzle box and their gifts are indeed "toys" for humans to play with.
- Inescapable Horror: Once you're cut by the box, and even if you didn't solve one of its configurations, you are marked by the Cenobites for a session of extremely agonizing torture, followed by brutal death. There is one caveat, however: if you prove useful in drawing more victims to the Cenobites, they may give you a free pass to accept one of their rewards if you can get enough unfortunate souls to complete all configurations of the puzzle box. Of course it's almost guaranteed that the "reward" you claim will be A Fate Worse Than Death.
- Nightmare Fetishist: All of them delight in torture and suffering and see them as the most exquisite rewards attainable.
- The Scourge of God: While not being identified or identifying themselves as this, the Cenobites and the Leviathan do fulfill this purpose; they are only seen involving themselves with people who indulge a selfish desire to gain something from them. Their gifts are ultimately a punishment for Voight, and even though Riley escapes physically unharmed, she suffers an enormous emotional loss and guilt for indulging her curiosity with the puzzle box. They do take some innocent victims, but this is due to the unfortunate people allowing themselves to be involved and cut by the puzzle box in the first place. Ultimately, a person who refuses to have anything to do with the puzzle box or the Cenobites in the first place has nothing to fear from them.
- Sense Freak: They revel in torture and pain because they view these sensations as continually thrilling and variable rather than pleasures they consider static and boring.
- Was Once a Man: As revealed by the ending, it's implied that they all were once people who sought "power" and were turned into Cenobites.
- White and Red and Eerie All Over: Their designs trade the classic Cenobite black leather for exposed muscle and pale, pale skin on most of them, creating red-and-white humanoid terrors.
The Priest
The Priest/"Pinhead"
"Their blood... Their pain... All for us."
Played by: Jamie Clayton
"What is it you pray for?"
A Cenobite in service to the god Leviathan, the ringleader of all the Cenobites.
- Adaptational Badass: Tricks Voight, the Dr. Channard Expy, to sacrifice himself to Leviathan and become a new Cenobite. In comparison, Pinhead from the second film is killed in a Curb-Stomp Battle. Though this is heavily downplayed in that Channard was directly controlled and empowered by Leviathan itself, where Voight was not.
- Adaptational Personality Change: In the film series, Pinhead became canonized a bombastic hell priest, always shouting and making violent threats. This iteration is a Soft-Spoken Sadist who uses less dramatic language when it comes to threats, making them Truer to the Text for The Hellbound Heart.
- Adaptational Villainy: In contrast to the overtly hammy iteration who came to collect those who desired him (for the first two movies at least), here she clearly delights in the harm she causes. Fitting since her perception of pain and pleasure is so blurred, she thinks it's truly something to treasure.
- Affably Evil: Is nothing but polite, even towards those she tortures, and seems to regard humans with curiosity more than malice.
- Ambiguous Gender: As with all the Cenobites. The Priest is played by a female actress, but their body is mutilated to remove all clear feminity and their title is "The Priest", not "The Priestess". Similarly, when they speak, they do so with both a female and male voice.
- Badass Longrobe: The Priest has a flowing, elegant robe. That's implicitly made of her own flayed skin.
- Bald of Evil: As per tradition, she's a terrifying entity without a single hair on her entire body.
- Blue-and-Orange Morality: The Priest has a sense of morality. It's just something totally incomprehensible to humans, sincerely believing that the unspeakable tortures inflicted upon them are a gift and a pleasure to be enjoyed.
- Body Horror: Her body is mutilated beyond belief, with her skirt implied to be made of her own flayed flesh.
- Chain Pain: Controls the chains that tear the victims of the puzzle box apart.
- Cold Ham: Jamie Clayton is subtle, but still clearly having the time of her life playing up the Priest's dramatic, subdued personality.
- Dark Is Not Evil: Ultimately, the Priest is a neutral entity who is there to claim whoever is harmed by the puzzle box. Downplayed, in that she goads Riley to seek a reward from Leviathan by killing her friends, though it's likely that she just sees it as Riley getting cold feet when she's about to claim something she's entitled to, and can't understand why she wouldn't want to take what's rightly hers.
- Deadpan Snarker: Subtle, but has an example of this when Voight activates a trap that cages her in corridor."All this... All for us..."
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: She's genuinely confused when Riley starts to waver in sacrifices, as she's so twisted that she can't tell that the Cenobite's pleasures are torture to mortal humans and that Riley might not want to keep condemning people to such a fate.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Is noticeably affected by having to sacrifice her ally, the Chatterer.
- Evil Sounds Deep: She is a demon and has Jamie Clayton's already husky voice made even lower, with added effects that make her sound truly demonic.
- Friendly Enemy: In true Priest fashion, she is nothing but polite to Riley and genuinely wants her to claim her reward.
- Magical Barefooter: She's an interdimensional demon and a brief shot shows she has nothing on her feet.
- Noble Demon: The Priest displays shades of this, acting according to her own rules without a sense of intentional malice. While she does literally force Riley's hand down the path toward completing the sequence of the puzzle box one way or the other, she conversely quickly accepts Riley choosing to sacrifice a Cenobite as one of the ritual's victims to allow her to proceed, an action which could very reasonably be taken as a breach of the ritual's rules and one which the Priest doesn't appear to enjoy honoring.
- Pay Evil unto Evil: Gladly dishes out the most horrific torture to Voight.
- Soft-Spoken Sadist: She never raises her voice and is a terrifying sadist who delights in torture.
- Truer to the Text: While her role in the Cenobites is influenced by the originating Doug Bradley portrayal becoming the anchor of the franchise, the Priest's portrayal takes more cues from The Hellbound Heart, the book where the entire Hellraiser franchise originated from. In the book, the corresponding character was described as leaning toward feminine in the viewer's perception (the character here is portrayed by the actress Jamie Clayton) and their pins were described as being bejeweled at the ends, here adapted to being pearl-tipped for the Priest and the other Cenobites.
The Chatterer
The Chatterer
Played by: Jason Liles
A Cenobite in service to the god Leviathan, with their main mutilation being his Slasher Smile.
- Adaptational Ugliness: Somehow. Rather than just have the eyes removed and the head a fleshy mess, half of their face is scalped off to the bone beneath, making them look more alien.
- Death by Adaptation: Dies here, whereas the Chatterer survived the events of the original film.
- Face Death with Dignity: After Riley stabs them with the puzzle box, they stop attacking, walk backwards, and wait for the chains to tear them apart.
- Nightmare Fetishist: Stands underneath Nora to shower in her bloodshed.
The Gasp
The Gasp
"Save your breath... For screaming."
Played by: Selina Lo
A Cenobite in service to the god Leviathan, modelled after the Female Cenobite.
- The Dragon: Is the Priest's second in command.
- Expy:
- Of the Female Cenobite from the first and second films. Her main mutilation resembles the Female's trachea wound.
- Also, the way her scalp is peeled back is reminiscent of Angelique, the demon-turned-cenobite from Hellraiser: Bloodline.
- The Heavy: Is this to the Priest, committing the second most amount of murders in the film.
- Nightmare Fetishist: Revels in the torture she dishes out to Serena, her whispers filled with euphoria. She also grins with glee when cornering Colin and then later Trevor.
- Slasher Smile: Smiles quite malevolently when confronting her victims.
- Voice of the Legion: Her hoarse voice has this effect when she talks.
The Weeper
The Weeper
"Release yourself..."
Played by: Yinka Olorunnife
One of the Cenobites in service to the god Leviathan.
- Body Horror: Her hands and forearms are bisected down the middle and she can split them apart to gesture with the appearance of four mutilated arms.
- Facial Horror: Her lower jaw is completely gone.
- High-Heel Power: Her feet are pierced through with spikes, creating an effect similar to high-heeled shoes.
- Inelegant Blubbering: It's hard to tell just what in the hell she's saying thanks to her cries intersecting with her speech.
- Tears of Blood: As implied by her name, she weeps tears made of blood.
The Masque
The Masque
"We're already here."
Played by: Vukasin Jovanovic
A Cenobite with a flayed face for a head.
- Advertised Extra: A big deal was made of him prior to release, only for him to only have one line and appear as a background character in a few scenes.
- Ambiguous Gender: As with all Cenobites.
- Jump Scare: Gives Colin this by popping out of a wall.
- Voice of the Legion: Their voice has this effect.
The Asphyx
The Asphyx
Played by: Zachary Hing
One of the Cenobites in The Priest's retinue, a feral creature with its face covered by a taut sheet of...something.
- Erotic Asphyxiation: They embody this concept taken to the extreme. The Asphyx is notably juxtaposed against Serena, who is suffocating from failing lungs. They appear prominently to her before her death either as a taunt or perhaps a recruitment gesture to show her suffocation as bliss.
- Right-Hand Attack Dog: The Asphyx seems barely sentient, functioning as more of a feral beast to sic on victims.
- Shout-Out: To the 1972 Gothic Horror film The Asphyx.
Other
Leviathan
The eldritch god of the Cenobite realm.
- Eldritch Abomination: It is a giant rhombus-shaped god which presides over the Cenobites' dimension. It's implied that staring into its insides is what creates Cenobites in the first place, demonstrated with Voight.
- Greater-Scope Villain: As with the original films, the Leviathan is the supreme being of the Cenobite realm and is responsible for controlling and creating the Cenobites themselves.
- Karma Houdini: Like the Cenobites, it doesn't suffer any form of real comeuppance.
