The Hellraiser Films and Their Legacy (36 page)

Maybe this is the reason why Paul Merchant has not taken a wife. He is very different to his predecessors, not simply focused and dedicated to his work as they were, but obsessive to the exclusion of all else. In the script the love interest is represented by Kirsty’s descendant, Corinne. There is potential for a relationship to develop, but because his bloodline is cursed it is necessary for Paul to sacrifice himself and obliterate the demons. In the film, Rimmer replaces Corinne, and she has studied the doctor in depth, which we deduce from Edwards’ line: “I wasn’t asking you, Carducci, I was asking the expert. Well, Rimmer? Great man didn’t live up to your expectations, did he?” It is apparent from her interview that there is a certain amount of hero worship on her part, and possibly attraction as well. Before they can embark on a relationship, though, Paul must rid himself of the guilt from his past by erasing all trace of Pinhead and Angelique. This done, he is allowed to fly off in the escape ship with Rimmer to start a better, and, it’s to be hoped, happier existence. Paul doesn’t succumb to temptation; he resists and reaps the benefits that were beyond the grasp of Phillip and John. It is his act of recompense on their behalf.

But Phillip, John and Paul are not the only characters Angelique finds herself involved with. Once summoned, she is forced to enter into a sexual relationship with Jacques. Phillip sees him through the open bedroom door, a naked Angelique attending to his needs. The epitome of the jealous boyfriend, Jacques’ answer to Angelique’s attraction for Phillip is to hit him over the head then damn him for all eternity: “Demons will walk the earth and you’re responsible.” His order for Angelique to kill Phillip is the ultimate masculine triumph over both her and him. She has no choice but to obey, even though she wants Phillip for herself. But when the bloodline continues, Jacques is doomed. Angelique sees John on
AE
’s cover and determines to go to America. “I’m restless and you’re bored,” she says in an effort to talk him into going. Jacques tries to stand in her way—and in Hell’s way; therefore his punishment is
Hellraiser
’s infamous “kiss of death,” this time ripping a bloody hole in his cheek.

Angelique’s relationship with Sharpe is brief and founded upon a misunderstanding on his behalf. He believes that she wants him for sexual favors, when she is only using him to call forth the next man in her life: Pinhead. As already discussed, there is a discrepancy between the technicalities of their relationship on page and on-screen. In Atkins’ script they do not care for each other at all. In the movie there is a definite undercurrent of physical, and possibly emotional, magnetism. His entrance impresses her, and she circles him, looking him up and down. In the film this is also the first time she is called Princess. This could mean she was high up in Hell’s echelons. Or is it a term of endearment? As Pinhead is sometimes known as the Dark Prince of Hell, it would seem that the two are well suited. The rest of the section reads visually like a mating ritual between them, with each vying for superiority. Like Jacques, Pinhead manifests a certain degree of jealousy about her fascination with Merchant men; then he asserts himself at the end by encasing her in chains, a scene that recalls Joey’s bondage at the climax of
Hell on Earth
. When we see her again, she is dressed in the attire of a Cenobite, insinuating that she has relinquished herself fully to Pinhead.

As for Carducci, his fling with Angelique is even shorter than Sharpe’s. Unable to ignore Angelique’s cries in the mirror on the Minos, he reaches out, only to be killed when it solidifies around him. In any and all cases, just as they are in all the other
Hellraiser
films, sex, love, pain and punishment are intertwined: one is never present without the others.

He Who Commands

Connected very closely with this is the theme of slavery—or even bondage—contained within the movie. Like most slaves, Angelique comes from a poor background: “All alone in this dark, dark world,” as the Duc de L’Isle puts it, which suits his purposes exactly. Skinned in the traditional
Hellraiser
fashion, she is used as a vessel for a Princess of Hell—and yet, still she finds herself in servitude. “He who summons the magic, commands the magic!” de L’Isle teaches Jacques. In the original script, it is he who commands Angelique, but in the film the young apprentice steals that power. For two centuries she remains his slave, and it is implied that his treatment of her has not been lenient. When we catch up with them in 1996, the scene between them speaks for itself. Grabbing her by the back of the neck, Jacques elucidates: “Angelique, let’s make this clear, what you want is irrelevant. It’s about what
I
want. After two hundred years, you should know what those things are.” But her chance to escape comes when Jacques ignores the rule about standing in Hell’s way. “You like it rough, don’t you?” she says, grabbing him by the throat and slashing his face.

Unfortunately, her moment of freedom is short-lived, if it ever truly existed at all. Although personally her reasons for going to New York are to see John Merchant, this overlaps with Hell’s bidding; and Hell, as we know, speaks through Pinhead. In the script these contrary forces—the chaos of the Old Hell and stability of the New—are defined by their sparring and her eventual surrender to Pinhead’s wishes. In the movie this is much more subtle, expressing itself first in the way Pinhead grows impatient with her progress, then in his line: “A lesson, Princess. Work with me, or
for
me.” When it becomes apparent she wants to send him back and regain her freedom, she is forced to return to Hell for Cenobitization. In the last section of the film, we see a more subdued Angelique, once again a slave, this time to discipline. When Pinhead gives her the order to kill the soldiers on the station, there is no argument, no spirited retort as there was back in Merchant’s buildings when she told him he was “no different than the beast that sucks the bones you throw to it.” Now, she simply obeys; Angelique is bound to Hell’s new rules.

Though he is more in control than Angelique, Pinhead, too, is a slave to Hell. We know from the previous movies that there is a human side to him, trapped in the “shell of the beast.” His orders come from Leviathan and his efforts to open the larger Lament Configuration in New York are all in the name of his dark god. At the same time, Phillip, John and Paul are slaves to what they have created. Phillip’s device has allowed the door to be opened between Earth and Hell, and will cost the lives of many. John has inadvertently done the same thing only on a grander scale. Paul has been a slave to this history and sees it as his responsibility to end the curse, to seek both redemption and retribution. He is tied to this destiny just as surely as the slave-like manacles bind him to his chair when Rimmer is interrogating him. Paul, in turn, has also used the robot in the holding cell as a slave, getting it to perform the task he would rather not, which results in its total obliteration. Lastly, the first two Lemarchand/Merchant incarnations are, to some extent, slaves of Angelique, intoxicated by her, Phillip more so in the script than in the film.

Mirror Images

Mirrors have played a very important part in the mythology of the
Hellraiser
series. They’ve hidden voyeuristic tendencies, allowed passage into dream landscapes and reflected the inner qualities of the person. In
Bloodline
this trend continues. De L’Isle offers the demon Angelique a mirror so she can look at her new face immediately after he has summoned her. “You are Angelique,” he informs her. She studies the guise carefully and smiles before rubbing blood across her lips—as Kirsty does when she sees Larry’s skinned figure in
Hellbound
—indicating that de L’Isle is her “father.” But there is an aspect that is not revealed until she kills Jacques, her monstrous clawed hand and black eyes hinting at the creature she keeps hidden. This is referred to when Pinhead catches her looking in not one, but two mirrors, symbolically and physically reflecting her two personas. “You look like death, Princess,” he says admiringly, as the camera closes in on the pair of them framed in the mirror. It is unclear whether the tear on her cheek is because she hates the form that she now takes, or because she has another one beneath that John Merchant is liable to discover. Quite possibly she is crying for the person she would like to be, one expunged of the evil that dwells inside.

There is one final scene with Angelique and a mirror, during the Minos sequence. Here she is actually on the other side in her human appearance, asking Carducci to, “Help me, please help me!” It is a ruse and when he is pulled through he sees her as the Cenobite she has become. There is something very sad about this, that Angelique’s human self has now become merely a shadow used to confuse her victims, like Elliott Spencer, the ghost of what Pinhead once was.

A mirror image, the Twin Cenobites of
Hellraiser: Bloodline
. Replica figure by NECA (courtesy NECA; photograph credit Nicolle M. Puzzo).

Paul Merchant is also plagued by mirror images. He is cursed with looking exactly like his predecessors, which creates even more pressure for him to conform to their mistakes. “You are so very like your ancestor,” Pinhead says to him, “did you know that?” Facially this may be so, but there is a difference. In his current incarnation, with his shaved head (which Ramsey willingly volunteered for just to get this point across), Paul more closely resembles his adversary than he does either Phillip or John. In order to beat the demon he has taken on some of its traits—the obsession, the allegiance to order, the ability to play games. But only Paul and Angelique actually take on
three
different personas at various times: in the latter instance, her human, demonic and Cenobitic likenesses; in the former, his three different generational incarnations

A more tangible representation of the mirror image is presented in the shape of the twins. A staple of horror cinema, these have been used time and again in films like
Dead Men Walk
(Sam Newfield, 1943),
The Dark Mirror
(Robert Siodmak, 1946),
Twins of Evil
(John Hough, 1971), right through to the more recent
Dead Ringers
(David Cronenberg, 1988), the brothers chillingly portrayed by Jeremy Irons. In
Bloodline
we first encounter the twins as inept security guards. “What’s this?” says the first when they come across a section of John Merchant’s building they aren’t familiar with. “It’s a door,” replies the second. “I know it’s a door, but it isn’t on the chart,” his brother replies. The solution is to put it down to “Genius college boys” and investigate. This ends in a confrontation with Pinhead, and their ultimate Cenobitization: “I know your pain, I hear it. Please don’t separate me from my brother. I give you my word, that will never happen.” The pair are merged forever, a drill winding their faces tightly together. Moments beforehand, their conversation actually alluded to a repressed Cenobitic nature:

“So she starts asking me all kinds of weird questions,” says the first brother, “Like would I do it with a woman who used to be a man.”

“With a guy who had it cut off?” asks twin number two. “So what did you say?”

His answer is: “I mean, I guess so, if she was cut and all....”

A transformation brought about through pain, exactly like their own. When we see them a second time on the Minos, they have been radically altered: their faces are contorted, one smiling, one frowning. And they have the ability to absorb other people, just as they do with Edwards—disconnecting and coming back together with their victim in the middle. In addition to their mirror image twin faces, they now have another personality as Cenobites taking direction from Pinhead and Angelique.

Darkness and Light

At its most simplistic level, the darkness and light motif represents good versus evil. Pinhead tells John in the corridor that “Darkness is where you’ll find me.” In contrast, it is “the light” that allows Paul to defeat Hell, solar energy powering the Elysium Configuration. “The light, demon,” Paul explains as he makes his escape, “the light.” But, as we’re aware, nothing is that simple in
Hellraiser
.

Leviathan churns out a black light, itself a paradox, and the demons can be seen as angels to some. The main female demon in this film even takes part of her name from this concept: Angel-ique. The monster she hides beneath her human guise and the Hell she originates from is more in keeping with those described in chapter 9. She is a demon of the Old Hell—and thus could only find a home in an unchristened host. Therefore, her radical metamorphosis into a Cenobite could be seen as a rebirth, a baptism to wash away the elements of chaos she once defended.

Pinhead, as we’ve noted, turned his back on the Christian God after his experiences in the First World War. His opinions haven’t altered and this gives rise to one of his finest lines: “Do I look like someone who cares what God thinks?” He is asked to question who he is in this movie at least twice, by Angelique and by Paul. In this last scene Pinhead tells Paul that he has the “same faithless hope in the light” as his ancestors. “And what do you have faith in?” Paul asks. “Nothing,” is the reply, “I am so exquisitely empty.” Except we know this isn’t completely true. Somewhere deep inside, Elliott Spencer is begging to be released—a release that comes when the Elysium Configuration is activated. As he dies, Pinhead—or Elliott—whispers: “Amen.” Could this one word mean that he is again embracing the light? That at the end he has sought forgiveness from a God he once turned his back on? The very name of the Elysium Configuration is taken from the Greek Elysium Fields, a heaven where souls go to rest upon their death.