Hellraiser ending: Director explains how they did that

Hulu’s new Hellraiser This week’s movie was ripped to pieces and uploaded to the streaming site. Pinhead is back with new pleasures and pains.

The reboot-ish horror film arrives just in time for Halloween movie season and continues a storied tradition of Pinhead making people’s lives more filled with pain and pleasure. Jamie Clayton guided us through the process of becoming a Hellraiser, as well as how to apply makeup and other prosthetics to go into Pinhead mode.

What about the shocking end? Clayton and director David Bruckner talked to us about the making of it and their interpretations.

[Ed. note: This post contains spoilers for the end of Hellraiser 2022.]

Spyglass Media Group. Image

The final section of Hellraiser, protagonist Riley and her friends have made their way to the reclusive billionaire Voight’s compound, with the Cenobites close behind. They’ve set up shop and blocked out Pinhead and her pals, until it’s revealed that (1) Voight is still alive (although he has a giant nerve-rending machine sticking out of his torso, my favorite part of the movie) and (2) Riley’s boyfriend has been working for Voight the entire time.

There’s a whole sequence that plays out between Voight, the Cenobites, and Riley’s friends, but that’s not what we’re here to talk about. We’re here to talk about what happens next — Voight gets his “reward,” which is a gnarly display of skin-flaying in a stark-white room, transforming him into a Cenobite himself. It’s one of the most memorable and jarring sequences in the movie.

Bruckner says that the sequence was constructed using a variety of practical elements. This is the Hellraiser team created a skin suit and built a “real torture table,” using monofilament fishing line to pull apart the skin on the suit.

“No CGI gore,” Bruckner claims. “We were adamant about that.”

Jamie Clayton, a new pinhead, recalled Bruckner raising that issue early.

“He told me he wanted do a lot of the effects practically,” Clayton says. “And I was like, [uncontrollable laughter] They achieved it!”

Image: Spyglass Media Group/Hulu

Bruckner states that technological advances have made these techniques possible, with light touches of VFX used to complement the prosthetics and other practical effects.

“It felt like there were new opportunities down that path,” Bruckner says. “Part of the spirit of the franchise is to show them something that they haven’t necessarily seen before. It felt more in line with this spirit to let ourselves imagine and invent.

“Cenobites are generally nude, they don’t need to wear clothes, they’re kind of beyond all these earthly concerns in some way, and are just lost in their pursuit for experience. They are able to make flesh look almost like clothing by being tailored. In some ways, they look almost as if it were made from leather. And so you just require a little bit of augmentation to help bring it to life, but it’s all practical as well. It’s all actual light falling on prosthetics. And we’re just touching it up in small ways.”

But, why stop there? Hellraiser In this way? It’s simple, Bruckner says — it’s in the spirit of transformation and change inherent to the series (and the Cenobites).

“To have that be [Voight’s] destination plays to the irony of the gifts, the joys of Hellraiser,” Bruckner says. “The Cenobites are inviting you to a party you might not want to be a part of. [It’s] the irony of ‘you’re gonna love this’ and you’re thinking, I don’t know if I’m going to love this!It was just feeling. [like] exactly the right place to leave it.”

Clayton can attest that the set was an amazing experience.

“The days that all seven of the Cenobites were working, everyone’s covered in blood or losing an arm, or getting their skin [flayed],” she says. “Those days were massive. They did it all. All of that was happening in front of us.”

Hellraiser Watch it streaming on Hulu.