Film / Hellraiser (2022)

Greater delights await...

Voight: Beautiful, isn't it?
Joey: It's really nice.
Voight: You can hold it.
Joey: What is it?
Voight: It's a puzzle. And it's almost finished. Keep going.
Joey: So if I solve it, do I get a prize?
Voight: I do.

Hellraiser is a 2022 horror film directed by David Bruckner (The Night House, The Ritual) and a reboot of the Hellraiser film franchise, loosely adapted from the original novella The Hellbound Heart by Clive Barker, using many of its elements for an original story. Barker returns to the series as a producer for the first time since 1996’s Hellraiser: Bloodline.

Riley (Odessa A'zion) is a young woman struggling with addiction who comes into possession of an unusual puzzle box after a robbery gone awry. Unbeknownst to her, the box is a device that summons the Cenobites, demonic sadist beings from another dimension, led by the Priest (Jamie Clayton).

The film premiered at Fantastic Fest on the 28th of September and was later released on Hulu on October 7, 2022. The film also streamed on the Australian service, BINGE, a day after its American release.

Previews: Trailer

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Hellraiser (2022) contains examples of:

• Actionized Adaptation: This film has a lot more of the characters directly engaging with the Cenobites, rather than having Frank be the sole recipient of their torture. The characters even find a way to kill one of them.
• Adaptation Deviation: The Cenobite creation chamber in the second film was basically a casket filled with unknown alien horrors. Here, it's more abstract as a table that exposes the victim to the insides of the Leviathan as they're mutilated.
• Adaptational Dumbass: In the previous films, the Cenobites were all mostly sentient and intelligent, with possibly a sole exception being the attack dog from Hellraiser: Bloodline, which was arguably not even a Cenobite. In this film, one of the Cenobites, the Asphyx, hardly notices when he gets lured into a trap and charges like a zombie, devoid of the gash's usual cunning or intelligence.
• Adaptation Inspiration: As stated by the creators, the film takes the original novella and reimagines it for the story they wanted to tell. Many of the themes and plot beats are recognizably carried over, albeit in new and unique contexts. Several of the characters' personalities are also carried over and given to new characters.
• Adaptation Expansion: The puzzle box is more impressive compared to the previous films. Whereas the original box had just two configurations (three if you count the lozenge shape from Hellbound: Hellraiser II), this version has six, unlocked in sequence and each representing a "gift" that can be granted in exchange for finishing all of them. The box also has blades that pierce the flesh of whoever solves each configuration^note Unless they're very quick with their hands to avoid it, which also wasn't seen in the previous movies (except for a dream sequence in Hellraiser: Deader).
• Adaptational Nice Guy:
  • If "nice" even qualifies to the Cenobites, considering what they do. While in the other films being killed/claimed by the Cenobites guarantees you eternal damnation (which was especially bad in later sequels where they would be perfectly willing to go after innocent people), it's implied here that those sacrificed to the box are tortured and then killed, a painful death but death nonetheless. The closest to eternal torment shown is becoming a cenobite, and even then it's something that a person (unwittingly) chooses to become if they wish for "power" after five sacrifices.
  • While Pinhead from previous films was always stoic, he was usually portrayed as serious and would be quick to anger should anyone defy him. Here Pinhead is portrayed as more Affably Evil; intent on causing pain, but with a playful curiosity to it.
• Adaptational Skimpiness: In the original film series, the Cenobites would typically wear black leather outfits. While Fan Disservice certainly balances it out, here the only "clothes" the cenobites wear are their own skin, torn and twisted in a manner that either covers their immodesty, or the parts are so horribly mangled that you wouldn't recognize them as such.
• Adaptational Ugliness:
  • The Priest has all the skin on her throat stripped away, in contrast to the relatively clean appearance of the character in prior films.
  • This extends to the Cenobites as a whole, as rather than wear S&M-looking garbs, they instead have their own skin flayed and mutilated to resemble some form of attire.
• Adaptational Villainy:
  • A minor example. While the Cenobites aren't outwardly malevolent, they're more active in trying to entice Riley to either kill one of her friends or make a shady deal with the Leviathan, to the point of giving her a Sadistic Choice by making the box draw her blood.
  • The Cenobites also simply take whoever bleeds on the box as a sacrifice, rather than finding those who genuinely desire them like in the original film. This has the inevitable loophole of the solver of the box using it to stab others and submit them as unwitting sacrifices, which the Cenobites don't seem to mind at all.
• Adapted Out: The Cottons are nowhere to be seen in the film. Butterball is also removed, not having an equivalent Cenobite like with the Female Cenobite and the Gasp. The vagrant who sells the puzzle box is also removed, with his role given to a man in Belgrade. The role the vagrant has as a surprise villain is given to Voight.
• Added Alliterative Appeal: The names of all the six configurations of the puzzle box begin with "L": Lament, Lore, Lauderant, Liminal, Lazarus and Leviathan.
• Alien Geometries: When the Cenobites come for their targets, they make themselves known by distorting physical space, opening doors into the Labyrinth with an awful grinding of stone as they draw closer. Once the target is alone, the Cenobites close the trap and the real fun begins.
• All for Nothing: In the end, everyone except Riley and Colin are dead, and Riley opts for no reward rather than suffer whatever trick the Cenobites have up their sleeve in bringing Matt back.
• And I Must Scream: Becoming the victim of the Cenobites means a torturous and drawn-out demise. Voight has a more straightforward case of this as he has spent the last six years with a device in his chest that causes him unbearable pain constantly.
• An Offer You Can't Refuse: The Priest offers this to Riley right when she is about to throw the box into a river to be rid of it. The Priest says that Riley knows that her brother can be brought back from death if she finds two more victims to complete the puzzle. When this enticement fails to work, the Priest completes the puzzle's current configuration for Riley, causing it to cut her hand and absorb her blood, making her the next victim. The Priest then offers her the option of finding two more victims to take her place, or she gets to be the next one to be flayed alive.
• Answers to the Name of God: When Nora starts to pray during their torture, uttering the word "God", the Priest has this reaction:
  "What is it you pray for?"
• Asshole Victim:
  • Voight completes the box the first time and and wishes for "sensation", a boon granted in the form of a clockwork device jammed through his torso that winds his nerves around it at regular intervals, keeping him alive and in near-constant pain. He manipulates events to gain a second audience in an attempt to remove this gift, but is told he can only choose another. This time, he chooses "power", and the power granted by the Leviathan is that of domination, turning him into a Cenobite. However, he brought his fate entirely upon himself thanks to how he threw away human life for a reward and richly deserves every single agonizing moment of his demise.
  • Trevor was fine with letting his girlfriend accidentally condemn several of her friends to a horrific fate, all for a paycheck from Voight. He also tried to stop Colin from preventing his own death. Thus, it's hard to say it's not deserved when Riley chooses him as her final sacrifice instead, giving a painful and well-deserved death.
• The Bad Guy Wins:
  • Averted. Voight's plan to receive a second 'blessing' from the Cenobites goes a bit off the rails, but he does get exactly what he wished for. He was just wrong to think he'd be better off for it.
  • Played Straight. The Priest, the Cenobites, and Leviathan get exactly what they want from Riley. She completes the puzzle, and has to choose a "reward." Even attempting to decline the reward means, as the Priest spells out for her, living with the curiosity of what might have been if she'd chosen differently, if she could have gotten her brother back in a way she'd want him back, and even if she couldn't, living with the knowledge that she got him, her roommate, and several other people killed. . . for nothing. Her suffering, as the Cenobites state, has only just begun.
• Bait-and-Switch: The first shot of the puzzle box seems to be in its classic cube form. However, the camera swings around to show the "box" is actually in more of an hourglass shape. This clues the audience into the film's focus on the different forms of the puzzle box, which is demonstrated later when Riley finds the box in its original form and later discovers that it changes with each sacrifice.
• Bald of Evil: The Cenobites are completely bald and hairless, adding to their strange appearance. For his transformation into a new Cenobite, Voight is completely bald and stripped of any facial or body hair.
• Barbie Doll Anatomy: The Cenobites are all nude, with their bodies mutilated and sculpted into shapes that either "cover" their anatomy or otherwise have had their external genitals removed.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: Voight believes that opening the box will grant a "reward", and Riley finds notes indicating each configuration represents a different "gift" that may be requested from "God". Thing is, the user can't make a specific wish, only request a concept to be fulfilled. The Cenobites are not malicious in the giving of their "gifts", but their concept of a reward is clearly not in line with what a human might actually want. Voight's request for "Sensation" results in a device that tortures him at random intervals, a result he explains as "differences" in taste. Based on Voight's warning, Riley decides that reviving Matt isn't worth the risk.
• Big Bad: Roland Voight instigated the entire plot. He tried to force Trevor to complete the sacrifices with the puzzle box after he received his "reward" of being tortured with a contraption locked into his nerves. Instead, Trevor tricked Riley into opening the box, thus resulting in Matt becoming an unintentional victim and Riley having to find a way to resurrect him all while Voight seeks out more victims.
• Big Bad Wannabe: Ultimately, Voight is this. He researched the Cenobites thoroughly and sacrificed several random people to seek a reward from their god, Leviathan. However, that reward is implied to have killed him as the characters find out in news articles. When Voight eventually does come back into the story, he's tricked by the Priest, again, and is taken to be transformed into a new Cenobite, getting none of the rewards of pleasures he desired.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Trevor seems to be a caring enough boyfriend who just wants Riley to abandon the puzzle box, but in actuality, he's merely operating at the whim of Roland Voight for money.
• Bittersweet Ending: Leaning heavily on the "bitter" part. While Riley escapes the horrors of the Cenobites, her brother, friend and boyfriend are all dead and she's forced to live with the fact that it's largely her fault, as well as the agony of not knowing whether or not she could've brought her brother back; and Colin of course is left just as bereft and traumatized as her (however, unlike the original films, here it's implied that anyone sacrificed to the box is tortured and killed outright rather than sentenced to an eternity in Hell, so at least the audience knows that the victims' suffering is over). Voight is also reborn as a Cenobite, and it's implied that the Cenobites will be summoned again in no time, causing more pain and torment.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality:
  • The Cenobites are the religious devotees of an Eldritch Abomination and the logical extreme of Sense Freaks, adhering to beliefs and rules simply incompatible with human concepts of "good" or "evil". The Priest in particular is strangely polite towards the humans, regarding them with curiosity as opposed to malice.
  • The Priest makes this clear during her little religious discussion with Nora, when she states that she prefers the infinite variety of tortures in Leviathan's service to the stifling sameness of a conventional paradise.
  • The most prominent Cenobite to appear before Serena, who is dying of failing lungs, is the Asphyx, a Cenobite constantly undergoing erotic suffocation. This mirroring suggests that the Cenobites try to relate to their victims when they can to reframe their suffering as exquisite delights and show them a vision of their current tortures as ecstasy.
  • Roland Voight spells out that the Cenobites have very different tastes than humans, best illustrated by their "gift" of a machine impaled through his chest constantly twisting his nerves, because he asked them for sensation.
• Body Horror:
  • As expected, the Cenobites' bodies are all horrifically mutilated in ways no living being could survive. Outside of them there's Voight, who had a metal contraption locked into his chest that constantly pulls on his nerves and delivers him excruciating pain every second of every day, and he couldn't even die.
  • Nora is stabbed in the throat with a pin and has their screams amplified and pitched in various ways.
• Came Back Wrong: Implied in reference to the original film. Riley is tempted by a vision of Matt, begging her to revive him. When she embraces him, she discovers that his back is completely skinless just like Frank in the original film. This vision and seeing how Voight's "reward" was twisted into a new form of torture ultimately leads Riley to realize that she can't risk however the Cenobites might "resurrect" Matt.
• Canon Foreigner: The film debuts several entirely original Cenobites, including the Masque, the Gasp, the Weeper, and the Asphyx.
• Central Theme: Addiction, as fitting a series such as Hellraiser with a focus on pleasure and desire. Riley's own addiction to drugs and her obsession with trying to find a dead Matt mirror a relapse, which becomes evident when her friends show up at Voight's mansion looking for her, kind of like an intervention. Addiction is also paralleled to the extreme consequences of pursuing the Cenobites' gift, with the collateral damage meant to evoke the harm an addict can cause in their social circle in the pursuit of a high. Riley ultimately has to wear both—the harm she caused as an addict, and as a dealer with Leviathan.
• Chain Pain: The Cenobite fondness for chains continues, being the Priest's favored method of attack. When Voight wishes for power in the climax, an absolutely massive chain spears him and lifts him into the Leviathan.
• Cold-Blooded Torture: The ultimate fate that awaits those who are sacrificed via the box.
• Continuity Reboot: Departs entirely from the continuity of the previous films, focusing on its own characters and even debuting several new Cenobites.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Big shocker, plenty of these are littered throughout the film.
  • Joey in the film's opening, killed in a way similar to Frank in the first film.
  • Nora gets it rough, getting bound by chains and having a pin jammed into her throat and jerked around, causing her scream to alternate in pitch. Then, the Chatterer pulls her down, causing her whole back skin to be ripped off.
  • Trevor is killed by razor wire that cuts through his flesh, notably degloving his whole forearm before he's yanked away.
• Cruel Mercy: The gift of Lament/Life turns out to be backing away with no reward, retaliation, or change which is the only option the Cenobites seem to regard as a punishment, since it represents both a lack of the reward they find in torture, but also damns a person to live unresolved with the trauma they've inflicted in the process of gaining a wish in the first place.
• Deal with the Devil: How the Cenobites, puzzle box, and Leviathan function in this film. Here, the box is a multi-stage ritual that allows the solver to claim other victims in their stead depending on who is cut by its blades at each stage, and reaching its final configuration for the reward involves sacrificing others to die for your own gain. Fitting the cruel irony of a devil's deal even further, the "gifts" the Cenobites grant through Leviathan are indicated to be viewed very differently between the granters and beneficiary on all counts. It's also explained that there's no return from a reward previously accepted—you exchange for something else or nothing.
• Death by Adaptation: Chatterer, surprisingly, dies while having lived throughout the events of the first film and the original novella. If Voight's partial transformation is any indication, he may be a new one.
• Destructive Romance: Matt worries that Riley's relationship with Trevor is this, and he's not exactly proven wrong as Trevor lulls her into robbing a warehouse out of the pretense of digging themselves out of a financial hole. Turns out, this was very much intentional on Trevor's part.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Riley and Trevor are noticeably taken aback when Riley stabs Chatterer with the puzzle box, which actually counts as a sacrifice and leads to his death.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?:
  • The puzzle box harming the user as they proceed, and the death that follows, is a representation of how substance abuse harms and kills users. To further drive this point home, Riley has a pillbox that strongly resembles the centerpiece of the original Lament Configuration, and this is used solely for symbolism.
  • After being cut by the puzzle, the sacrifice becomes disoriented and physically weak much like someone that has been drugged. Especially notable in the opening, which frames things as a seduction turned murder.
  • Riley enters the full ritual sequence because she fails to be marked by the first solution of the puzzle box, instead causing her brother to die when he gets cut in her stead. From there, she commits to completing the sequence. It acts as a commentary on how drugs can kill at different speeds, and how those who aren't wrecked immediately will push to further, more dangerous extremes for a bigger high, causing lots of collateral damage beyond themselves. The same is true for Roland Voight, who went through the sequence and explicitly chose to have greater sensation, which many addicts may be motivated by, only to be tortured by the results.
• Drugs Are Bad: Riley is a struggling addict and the Hellraiser rituals and mythos are here framed as a commentary on the dangers of addiction, framing the ritual stages and Leviathan gift as an understandably appealing bad thing and paralleling an addict's dangerous pursuit toward something that hurts them and the people around them.
• Eldritch Abomination: Leviathan, the rhombus-shaped god of the Cenobite dimension. Voight is later shown inside the god and is transformed into a new Cenobite, broken by staring directly into the entity's insides.
• Eldritch Location: The Labyrinth, of course. And the grounds of Voight's estate as the influence of the Cenobites grows. When Leviathan arrives, the two become one.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • Voight is a piece of work, but he actually warns Riley not to seek the reward from the Cenobites, playing a part in her ultimately giving up and choosing to live with what she's wrought. He also disdainfully calls Trevor a "coward" for shirking the box onto Riley.
  • Serena bluntly calls Voight monstrous and sadistic, after having helped him seduce sacrifices six years prior.
  • After Riley stabs the Chatterer with the box, thereby claiming them as a sacrifice, the Priest is clearly distraught at having to lose them but honors it nonetheless, and the Chatterer themselves solemnly accepts their rightful fate and doesn't even protest.
  • Trevor was glad to betray Riley and her friends, allowing her to use it while knowing what it does but even he's horrified by Voight stabbing Colin when they realised that sacrificing Cenobites works just as well. Doesn't stop him from trying to bring Colin back to be sacrificed in the main hall, however.
• Evil Is Not a Toy: Riley messes around with the puzzle box after finding it, inadvertently leading to the deaths of almost all of her friends and her boyfriend. Likewise, Voight earned his reward and immediately regretted it, and yet got it in his head that a repeat would play out better.
• Evil Sounds Deep: The Priest, due to Jamie Clayton's already deep voice.
• Exact Words:
  • Voight uses the box to stab Colin as the final sacrifice, but Riley manages to steal the box back and reach Colin before he can be killed. She argues that because the Priest gave her the choice of sacrificing herself or another, she can choose someone else, which in this case is Trevor for betraying her.
  • The six configurations of the box represent its six gifts: Lament ("life"), Lore ("knowledge"), Lauderant ("love"), Liminal ("sensation"), Lazarus ("resurrection") and Leviathan ("power"). How those gifts are granted, however, is at the Leviathan's discretion, and its perception of those concepts is very different from mortals.
• Eyeless Face: The Chatterer and the Asphyx.
• Eye Scream: One of the Cenobites pulls a pin out of the corner of their eye.
• Facial Horror: All the Cenobites. The Priest has pins embedded in her head, the Asphyx seems to have a completely skinned face underneath the sheet covering their face, the Gasp has pins embedded in her eyes, the Weeper's lower jaw is pretty much gone, the Masque has only a skinned face as their head, and the Chatterer has no face save for an always chattering smile. Voight goes through this as well during his transformation, with his lips and cheeks ripped off before he's completely inducted.
• Fan Disservice:
  • The Priest doesn't have anything covering her chest and is played by the very attractive Jamie Clayton. However, she's also a Cenobite who is mutilated beyond belief, more even than the original depiction of the character.
  • The Cenobites are all completely naked, however, they're also horribly scarred and any sex appeal they might have is sucked out by their role as interdimensional sadistic demons.
• Fanservice: After the film's Cold Open, we get a fairly raunchy sex scene between Trevor and Riley. They have another one later in the film as well, both times showcasing both actors' rather complimentary physiques.
• Foreshadowing:
  • Matt doesn't like Trevor because he and Riley hooked up at a 12-step meeting. Trevor working for Voight to feed the box souls means he targets vulnerable people such as recovering addicts whose disappearances could easily be blamed on relapsing.
  • Trevor's vehemently negative reaction when Riley hands him the box implies that he is well aware of what it is. Turns out, he does, because he's working with Voight to get another reward from the Leviathan.
  • The gate into the Voight estate opens for Riley without explanation, foreshadowing that the estate is far from abandoned.
  • When Riley first enters Voight's manor and digs through his papers, we have brief shots of various drawings - many of which being actual portraits of the Cenobites, including those we haven't seen yet such as the Mother, the pregnant Cenobite.
  • One character’s use of the phrase “What’s your pleasure?” foreshadows that they are far more involved and familiar with the box than they’ve been letting on.
• Gender Flip: Zig-zagged. This film's version of Pinhead, the Priest, is portrayed by a woman for the first time, which flips the precedent for the films but is more accurate to The Hellbound Heart, as in the novella "Pinhead" was an ambiguously-gendered Cenobite whose only clue to their gender was a feminine voice. Prior to the reboot's release, Clive Barker authorized a female version of Pinhead as a sideshow collectible figure in 2018, and previously wrote for the Boom!Studios Hellraiser comic book series a female version of Pinhead wearing a white robe (similarly to this movie's Priest).
• Good Is Bad And Bad Is Good: Hinted at slightly with the Cenobites' warped perception of the Leviathan's gifts. What they consider to be its greatest rewards are unimaginable tortures for any human, and conversely, the only option they seem to actually pity is to leave the ordeal with no reward, which, while definitely psychologically agonizing, is still Riley's safest option and her clear moral victory.
• Gory Discretion Shot: The camera cuts away several times whenever the torture really amps up. Subverted as the film progresses, however, as the characters and the audience are desensitized to the madness and horror.
• Greater-Scope Villain: Leviathan, as always in this franchise. This installment emphasizes the Cenobites' religious devotion to their god, and Voight's actions are driven by an attempt to appease and bargain with Leviathan itself, instead of the Cenobites, but it takes little direct action itself other than to be absolutely immense and terrifying.
• Hell Is That Noise:
  • The weird raspy breathing sounds the Asphyx make and the Chatterer's... well, chattering are examples of this.
  • As in the original film, the arrival of the Cenobites is accompanied by the ringing of a cloister bell. But in a twist, their soon-to-be-victim can hear the bells (similar to The Hellbound Heart) instead of it just being a musical cue for the audience.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Riley suggests this to prevent the others from dying, but they have none of it.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Voight trades 'sensation' for 'power.' He has the device which constantly tortures him removed from his chest by the Cenobites... and then is tortured even worse by the Leviathan to turn Voight into one of them. He has essentially traded a lifetime of pain and suffering for an eternity of it.
• Hypocrite: Voight warns Riley that the Cenobites' 'gifts' are poisoned and that she should not accept them if they are offered to her like he did. He totally fails to follow his own advice, and it costs him.
• Ignored Epiphany: Voight, like most of the cast, comes to deeply regret meeting the cenobites. This doesn't stop him from bartering with them a second time. He should have learned after the first.
• Impaled Palm: In the beginning, Joey is impaled through the palm by a blade popping out of the puzzle box. It's tame compared to what follows.
• In Love with the Mark: Trevor admits that he got close to Riley as part of his job to gather sacrifices, and even calls her a "mark". But he claims that he'd fallen in love with her, and tried to stop her from opening the box. Riley doesn't buy it and hands him over to the Cenobites to save Colin.
• Ironic Echo: Voight says the line, "Isn't it obvious?", to mock Riley's reaction to Trevor's betrayal. When she sneaks behind him and activates the panel that frees the Cenobites from their cage, she says the same line right back at him as he questions what she's doing.
• Jackass Genie: After five sacrifices, the puzzle box grants a person an audience with Leviathan who then grants them one of six different "blessings" based on the six different configurations the puzzle-box takes; Lament ("life"), Lore ("knowledge"), Lauderant ("love"), Liminal ("sensation"), Lazarus ("resurrection") and Leviathan ("power"). This being the god that the cenobites worship, all of the way it grants these wishes are cruel and unusual.
  • When Voight asks for "Sensation", his body is affixed with a torture device tied to his nerves. Pain is a sensation, after all.
  • When Voight asks to exchange his gift for "Power", he is dragged to the Labyrinth by Leviathan and turned into a cenobite. In this case, domination is power.
  • While at first Riley thought of asking for "resurrection" to bring her brother back, she ultimately decides to reject their gift, knowing that however they would grant it would end horribly. They take this as her choosing "life/lament"; being allowed to live with the guilt of her actions.
• Karmic Death: The Cenobites excel at giving these out.
  • Voight's lawyer, Serena, assisted him in obtaining the box and lured at least one sacrifice to him. Years later, she meets the same fate when the Cenobites come to claim her after she accidentally gets cut by the box.
  • Trevor betrayed Riley by selling out to Voight and stringing her along to be used as a sacrifice for the puzzle box. Naturally, when Riley has the option of selecting someone else to sacrifice instead of Colin, she picks Trevor.
• Karma Houdini: The Leviathan and the Cenobites are not particularly inconvenienced by anything that happens in the film. The victory was in simply surviving them.
• Karma Houdini Warranty: Voight gets it big time after causing so much pain so many years ago and setting the events of the film into motion by trying to get Trevor to get him the box. He's given his "reward" in the form of a painful transformation into a Cenobite, a process that's implied to break him mentally and rob him of his senses.
• Kick the Dog: The Priest lightly mocks Nora's faith as she begins torturing her.
• Killed Offscreen: We never see the final fates of Matt, Serena, or Trevor, but we know they still die thanks to the changing puzzle box.
• Lured into a Trap: Riley stabs Chatterer with the box on impulse and Chatterer is immediately killed by chains, showing that the Cenobites can be used as sacrifices. To that end, she tries pulling this on the Cenobites outside Voight's compound. It actually works on the Asphyx, but Riley drops the box in the scuffle and Voight steals it back before anyone else can pick it up.
• Magitek:
  • Voight's mansion is tricked out with gates and a metal framework with a labyrinthine design. The protagonists discover that the Cenobites are unable to break through these defenses without a direct portal to and from the Labyrinth, presumably as a means of controlling who does and doesn't get claimed by the Cenobites.
  • The mechanism impaled through Voight's chest displaces several major organs and his spine, in addition to pulling on his nerve-endings at regular intervals. Not only does having a constantly fresh wound and part of his spine (and possibly his heart) outright destroyed not kill him, he's still able to walk and never bleeds to death. In fact, it's implied that the device is actually keeping him alive so he'll have to experience the pain.
• Meaningful Name: Each configuration of the box has a name, and is associated with a potential "reward". When Riley rejects the Cenobites' gifts, the Priest states she has chosen the bitter fate of "life" — living with her regrets.
  "You have chosen the Lament Configuration."
• Mind-Control Eyes: Heavily implied in the final scene, where Voight is turned into a Cenobite and his eyes turn black with blue irises, no longer expressing pain at his torturous transformation.
• Mythology Gag:
  • Several moments such as Joey's death by chains pulling him in all directions and the visage of Matt being completely skinned pay homage to the first Hellraiser film.
  • Serena alludes to the famous line "Demons to some, angels to others" when talking about Roland Voight, saying that he called them angels and "You'd think a devil would know a devil" immediately after.
  • Trevor, finding a partially-stocked bar, offers Nora a drink with, "What's your pleasure?", directly quoting a major line from the earlier films.
  • While talking to Riley, the Priest describes the Cenobites as "explorers in the further regions of experience", directly quoting the first film.
  • The Priest quotes the first film's line, "We have such sights to show you," at the end of the film.
  • The Priest's line: "You have chosen the Lament Configuration", is a nod to the puzzle box's original name, changed for this film since it now has many configurations.
  • The film's premise of young people trapped and pursued by the Cenobites in a madman's arcane mansion brings to mind Hellraiser: Hellworld.
• Never Found the Body: To the outside world, the Cenobites’ victims simply disappear without a trace, abducted into the Labyrinth with no witnesses. This actually drives the plot before Riley figures out what’s happening, since her brother Matt was taken while she wasn’t looking and so her search for them brings her to the Awful Truth. Towards the end of the movie we discover that Roland Voight, one of the people presumed dead, is actually very much alive.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: What's Matt's reward for finding her sister after he kicked her out of his apartment and discovered she was in trouble? He unintentionally becomes a sacrifice for the Cenobites.
• Nothing Is Scarier: We don't see Joey's, Matt's, Serena's, or Trevor's full drawn out death, but based on what's heard, it's probably for the best.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Riley's actions result in most of her friends getting horribly killed by the end of the movie. This becomes lampshaded when she refuses the Priest's offer of reward, choosing to live with the guilt and pain she caused to others. Unlike most examples, however, this trope is deliberately invoked since Trevor is sent to manipulate her into activating the box.
• Number of the Beast: Subtly indicated in line with the theme of a Deal with the Devil: the puzzle box starts as a six-sided cube, has six configurations, and when complete, allows the viewer to take one of six rewards reflective of the box's forms.
• Only Sane Man: Colin is this during Matt and Riley's fight, encouraging her to come back inside as she leaves so as not to make a big deal out of it.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Voight, the calm and collected businessman we saw in the prologue is fucking weeping when he begs the Priest to remove the Liminal/Sensation device, showcasing that he's on the verge of having a mental breakdown. This out-of-character moment makes it far easier for the Priest to manipulate him to her whim.
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner:
  • The Priest has one of these while summoning a massive chain to take Voight away to be mutilated inside Leviathan.
    "We have such sights to show you."
  • The Gasp also gets one when confronting Serena.
    "Save your breath... For screaming."
• Preserve Your Gays: Downplayed. Matt is claimed by the Cenobites early on in the film, and Riley chooses not to resurrect him after seeing how the Cenobites "reward" people. Colin, however, survives, although he's seriously wounded by the end.
• Reality Warper: The Cenobites can alter reality to capture and torture their victims. This includes feats such as manifesting a room inside a moving vehicle or causing hallways to loop endlessly.
• Religion of Evil: The Cenobites are more explicitly a religious order devoted to an Eldritch Abomination God, in keeping with the source material. Their designs more heavily incorporate elements that resemble the vestments of religious orders, such as the "veils/habits" on the Gasp and the Mother, and the Chatterer's monk-like "mantle". Voight explicitly refers to them as Leviathan's Priest and acolytes, and his transformation into a Cenobite is framed as a religious experience.
• Sadistic Choice: Once Riley finally figures out what's going on and what solving each box configuration actually does, she is ready to dispose of it. The Priest appears and compels her to keep the box and complete the configurations, throwing in the added bonus of causing the box to cut Riley's hand and mark her as the next sacrifice. The Priest tells her in no uncertain terms that she will be spared if she has others complete the remaining configurations, or Riley will be the next victim instead.
• Sequel Hook: The Priest says "it's time" in the final scene while Voight is turned into a Cenobite, implying that someone new has summoned them through the puzzle box.
• Slasher Smile: Voight smiles with pure malice in the Cold Open. Chatterer, as usual, has a permanent example of this. And so does Voight in the end.
• Soundtrack Dissonance: Lovett's score for the film gets regal and epic during moments such as Voight's "reward" of a chain impaling him through the chest and taking him to the Leviathan and Trevor's messy death.
• Take a Third Option: Zigzagged throughout the film, as a result of the loopholes in the Cenobites' rules. Riley is advised by the Priest that she can choose who to sacrifice, as long as she's holding the puzzle box. When she stabs Chatterer in desperation, she discovers that Cenobites also count as potential sacrifices. Her second attempt at offering a Cenobite fails, with Voight reclaiming the box and offering Colin as the sacrifice. But Riley is ultimately able to interrupt Colin's sacrifice, using the box to exchange Trevor's life for Colin's.
• Thousand-Yard Stare: Matt sees a reflection of himself with this reaction right before he's sacrificed.
• Too Dumb to Live: Voight had to be a short-sighted idiot to seek out the puzzle box's 'pleasures' to begin with, especially when he saw what happened to the people whom he sacrificed to it. He reaches a new level of stupid (and desperate) when he not only summons the Cenobites a second time, but actually thinks that this time around will lead to a better outcome for him rather than a worse one. The Priest even admits this when she says that one cannot go backwards after crossing a threshold, they can only escape it by crossing a greater threshold.
• Torso with a View: Voight accepting the gift of "power" causes the "sensation" device embedded in his chest to fall to pieces, leaving a giant hole through his torso that then heals itself.
• Truer to the Text:
  • Jamie Clayton's character is simply credited as "The Priest" as opposed to Pinhead (a name that Clive Barker famously dislikes).
  • Similarly, this depiction of The Priest as an ambiguously-gendered entity, and the fact she is played by a trans woman, is an attempt at returning to the original character from the Hellbound Heart novella, whose mutilations rendered them genderless except for a feminine voice.
  • The fact these Cenobites have pearls ornating their various nails and mutilations is also a reference to the original novella, in which it was noted the second Cenobite had jeweled pins on their head.
• The Un-Reveal: We never find out how the man whom Serena bought the puzzle box from obtained it in the first place.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Riley has absolutely no idea what the box is or what it's doing when she solves the first three configurations until The Priest greets her when she's about to throw the box off a bridge. Then Riley discovers how many people are dead because of her, and the Priest offers her the choice of being the next victim or offering up others.
• Villain Respect: The Hell Priest shows a measure of this to Riley once she chooses the "Lament" configuration: to live with and carry the weight of guilt for all the pain and death she had a hand in causing. The Gasp remarks that Riley's suffering has barely begun; suffering is something the Cenobites live for and admire in people who choose it.
• Violence Is Disturbing: The film never lets up with the blood and gore, which is framed as depraved and horrific. In fact, it literally ends with a gory and horrific transformation of Voight into a Cenobite, showcasing just how foreign the Cenobite's idea of "pleasure" is.
• Wham Shot: A third of the way through the movie, a horrible clicking noise draws close to Trevor, already seriously wounded, and we wonder if one of the Cenobites managed to infiltrate the house. And then the film reveals Roland Voight, very much alive and far worse off than we last saw him.

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