Headscratchers / Hellraiser (2022)

• Is the Priest female or agender?
  • Likely the latter, since the original character's gender in the novella wasn't specified, though had a feminine voice. The film is also meant to be read the same way, though as the actor playing the Priest here is a trans-woman, she/her is used on the page for consistency's sake.

• If I understood it right, the whole "eternity to know your flesh" aspect of the old Hellraiser movies is not present in the reboot? As in, you manipulate the box and a Cenobite comes to tear you apart, and then you are gone?
  • No, apparently not. In its stead, the person who has the box has others solve different configurations. Each solving of a configuration gets the person stuck with a blade which draws their blood and summons the Cenobites to sacrifice the person (as in horribly torture and kill). Five in all. After the final sacrifice, the person who holds the box is offered one of six different rewards which are:
  1. Lament "Life"
  2. Lore "Knowledge"
  3. Laudarant "Love"
  4. Liminal "Sensation"
  5. Lazarus "Resurrection"
  6. Leviathan "Power"
  • Refusal to take any reward leaves you with Lament. Although that is not a guarantee as the Cenobites could select a different one for you. Also, you can't reject a gift once given, only exchange it for another. As in you must cross a greater threshold. Accepting "Power" results in you joining their order and becoming a Cenobite for eternity or until you end up sacrificed. We've also seen what happened with Voight when he accepted Liminal "Sensation".
  • Based on the order of the configurations, the different gifts could also represent those thresholds. Lament is the lowest threshold one must cross while Leviathan is the highest or, as The Priest says, their "finest gift". They are apparently ordered by the level of suffering (to humans), so God help the person who selects anything other than Lament.
  • Of course, like in the previous movies involving Kirsty Cotton, as the door has been opened, that door doesn't close. Meaning that the Cenobites are not out of Riley's life forever. Like with Pinhead, The Priest is clearly smitten with Riley.
• So, Voight is supposed to The Hedonist AND Sociopath, right? He's a Corrupt Corporate Executive involved in money laundering, guilty of unspecified sex scandals and deviancies and he went through all the trouble to sacrifice 5 people to the Puzzle to make a Deal with the Devil. He then sacrificed both Nora and Colin, with the last one being even more cruel and unnecessary since they'd just figured out the Cenobites can be used as a viable sacrifice and already had one lured into a trap for that purpose. So... why did he seem to suddenly soften up towards Riley? He admonishes Trevor for being a coward and using her rather than solving the Puzzle himself, reveals to her that Trevor is The Mole working for him and warns her of what awaits her if she accepts the Cenobites' offers and "gifts". Warning Riley gains him nothing since she's aware of his actions, so it's not Pragmatic Villainy at play, and it's the one moment where he isn't acting smugly, sadistically or ruthlessly selfish. The one moment where he does get a little hostile is when she switches the gates off and releases the Cenobites across the mansion (effectively ruining his plan to hold them hostage and nearly getting Colin killed in the process). What's up with that? Did he feel a little sorry for her because of Trevor unnecessarily getting her involved? Did six years of torture cause him to grow SOME small sympathy for others so long as they're not his targets? A Moment of Weakness due to them both having been duped by the Cenobites? Share your thoughts.
  • Voight, like Frank Cotton, is a person who thought he had reached the limits of the pleasures offered in the real world and like Frank, thought that the Cenobites would give him more. He just didn't realize what "more" meant and got in way over his head. Those six years of suffering alone probably drove him insane, made him desperate and likely humbled him a bit. At the very least, he was not thinking straight.
  • Why warn Riley? Why not? Maybe he was hoping she'd warn others not to use the box. They can't be summoned if the box isn't used. Why? It's the only way to really fight back against them. Or he saw a kindred spirit; after all, he let her onto the grounds, allowed her to read his journals and didn't touch her. Being alone for six years and having no one to talk to, confiding to Riley would've been cathartic. Finally, he has someone who understands his suffering and he could talk to. Relate to.
  • On the other hand, being used to people doing what he tells them to do, Voight was probably peeved that Trevor didn't do what he was paid to do. He makes it clear to Trevor that he was supposed to feed the box and bring it back, not bring people to his house. Him stabbing Nora and Colin wasn't necessarily an act of malice but desperation to get that thing out of him because Trevor didn't do what he was hired to do. It probably didn't help that Trevor fell in love with his mark instead of sacrificing her, babbled about the process "finishing itself" and "being patient"; which to a guy who has suffered for six years would sound pretty patronizing.
    • It would be a kin to a contractor not performing the work that they were paid a lot of money to do by their client the way they agreed on. Pulling a stunt like that is going to anger the client.
  • He may have just been venting, lamenting that his deal didn't turn out and in the process warning Riley not to make deals with the Cenobites. We really only have his word that anything you ask for will be twisted into something grotesque. More ranting at the general unfairness that he (for once, it seems) didn't get exactly what he wanted than having any empathy for Riley and giving her a specific warning for her own good.
• While it makes sense that both Voight and Riley were trying to use the Leviathan sequence for themselves, how did it happen that both of them were granted an audience for it? Wouldn't some rule or logic eliminate a competitor so only one person receives the audience per completion of the sequence?
  • There are three things: 1, Riley solved one of the configurations but didn't get stuck with the blade. 2, there doesn't seem to be anything that says there can't be more than one holder of the box at the same time. 3, the Priest seems smitten with her.
  • Voight also trapped them and fought back, alerting them to his presence, remember the cenobites can't really see into the real world and couldn't tell that Frank had left their realm in the originals. Also during the summoning you aren't taken to their realm, it comes to you. In this case the entire house was taken so everyone inside technically is with Leviathan. Voight technically didn't get an audience Leviathan just had him as he had everyone and exchanges were possible. Nobody else in the house other than Riley was entitled to a gift or an exchange.
• Do the cenobites drag you to Hell like they did in the original series or do they just leave your soul alone after killing you?