The 12 Most Disturbing Moments In Hulu's Hellraiser Ranked

This article contains spoilers for the new Hulu movie "Hellraiser."

The wait is over and the much-anticipated "Hellraiser" 2022 reboot is finally here. Did you enjoy it? How did you prepare for it? We got ready in the usual way: By combing Looper for secrets about the "Hellraiser" franchise and making sure we know where we can watch all the films, including Hulu's newest reboot.

And anticipation was high. Not only is "Hellraiser" a beloved series, but the first two films (at least) are recognized horror classics. There's something undeniable about the story's mix of brutality, sensuality, and cleverness — and something wicked about its sense of humor and fairness. 

Because in Clive Barker's world, there really isn't much fairness to be had. On the largest possible cosmic scale, things might work out. But down here among the little folk, you're as likely to be stepped on by a giant as you are to become one: It's a cold universe, full of dangers and darkness, with that added noir flair that says, "Nobody in this movie is going to do the right thing."

Even the heroes, like Kirsty in the first two films, regularly end up sacrificing their antagonists to the Cenobites. And while that's not exactly how the story ends here, it's safe to say there will be few "good guys" left by the end...

Matt (Brandon Flynn) and his boyfriend Colin (Adam Faison) are cozying up in bed, clearly in love but worried about Matt's sister. She's off playing around with the ancient LeMarchand puzzle box and doing drugs from a stash in her car. As Riley dreams of opening the box in a certain way that sends more chains out of her body, we return to Matt's bedroom, where chains hook him from all sides, tearing horribly at his flesh. Matt awakens, breathing heavily, with no idea he's just been warned about the Cenobites. 

In other "Hellraiser" films this is a common cinematic trick: To demonstrate that a character is in danger from the hellish forces the Cenobites represent, they will have a realistic dream about being killed by them. In this case — with so few scary scenes this early in the film — Matt's death seems particularly likely. Unfortunately it also plays into the "Bury Your Gays" trope, in which queer characters are often portrayed as little more than one-dimensional victims of violence.

That's a troubling way to start the movie, and when Matt is revealed to be just dreaming — for now — it's more of a relief than it might be otherwise.

In this version of the story, the LeMarchand box has seven configurations with seven different purposes — which gives new meaning to the puzzle box's classic cubical silhouette, also known as "the Lament Configuration." 

We'll learn more about its operation throughout the film, but about 30 minutes in we've only seen one visit from the Cenobites and Riley hasn't figured out anything about the box or how it works. In fact, the bloody gash on her brother's hand seems like almost an afterthought once he touches the box and it stabs him — we are meant to assume that the Cenobites will be coming to rip him apart soon.

Matt bleeds all over himself and runs into a public toilet to wash his hands. Outside on the ground, where Riley threw it, the box begins once again to solve itself, twisting and turning its clockwork mechanisms. Back in the bathroom, there are flickering strange lights and blood is bubbling up from the sink.

We hear the chains arrive and presumably do their business, but when Riley goes to find her brother, all that remains is a bloody handprint. He has disappeared, if not died alone, and the rest of the movie will see Riley trying to rescue him from death itself.

At around the halfway point of the film, we get our first real visitation from the Cenobites in all their splendor. Serena (Hiam Abbass), who gathered souls for Voight in his pursuit of the Cenobites, is dying in a hospital when she accidentally stabs herself with the LeMarchand box. Knowing it's only a matter of time before Hell arrives, Serena buckles up for what's to come. The lights begin to flicker and we see the Flayed Nun's naked back and spinal column for the first time. 

Serena runs past a hallway which has just opened up out of the walls, where a 10-foot pole with various swatches of flesh hanging from it rotates horribly. All the doors are locked. Finally three of the Cenobites converge on Serena out of the gloom, and it's our first good look at them — including The Priest (Jamie Clayton), aka Pinhead. She is festooned with pearl hatpins coming out of her head at all angles, and the same pearl hatpins appear driven through the faces of the other Cenobites. One of them pulls a pin out of her face and puts it into Serena's mouth, telling her to scream. And boy, does she.

Riley's first face-to-face encounter with the Priest does not go well. Pinhead pricks her hand with the LeMarchand Box, making her not just the Cenobites' next victim but basically a beacon to any creatures interested in crawling up from the pits of Leviathan. They are going to chase her until they get her, or until something makes big changes — thus introducing the motivation for the film's final act, in which Riley is up against not just the demons of Hell but the clock itself. Which is ticking.

Pinhead clarifies that Riley's only choice at this point is to take true possession of the LeMarchand Box and put it through its many configurations by sacrifice, so that she can get the prize Voight was after: An "audience with God," in which she'll get her wishes granted. Of course, even this offer is questionable to those who have seen a "Hellraiser" movie before, as their gifts are never what you actually want and usually quite horrible.

Pinhead makes sure Riley understands that none of this can happen unless she sacrifices Trevor and Colin — her boyfriend and her brother's boyfriend — which makes the whole conversation a whole lot more disturbing. 

We eventually find out in a flashback exactly what happened during Roland Voight's last encounter with the Cenobites: Having reached the end of the configurations with the young man's death in his locked gallery, Voight is given his wish. We learn that he chooses the "Liminal Configuration" — constant sensation — thinking it would mean endless pleasure, which is what he was after. 

Instead, Voight is fitted with a brass mechanical device that strums his nerves at odd intervals, something like a typewriter or music box shoved through his ribcage and protruding out of his back, that's keeping him unnaturally alive to prowl the hidden halls and staircases of his not-so-abandoned manor. It's organic and mechanical in a way that combines the worst qualities of both, and truly strange to look at.

Later, when Voight is able to undo his wish, the machinery of his body begins to come apart and drop to the floor. His heart and chest sew themselves up, healing in the grossest possible way, and then a giant chain shoots out of the ceiling, pins him down, then pulls him up toward the manor's skylight.

The last image of the film is also its most troubling, as we see the end result of all Voight's planning. While at the beginning of the movie he was granted his wish, now he wants to give it back and have his "audience with God" instead, so he's run the LeMarchand box through another round of sacrifices, using Riley to get to her friends. 

Voight is dragged up through the skylight of his manor, which has never looked more like a LeMarchand box than it does at this point, and into "Heaven." There, a naked, hairless, grotesque, corpse-white Voight is pinned down, flayed alive, and tortured into his new shape: a grotesque, clown-like Cenobite whose red mouth is stretched open with white strips of flayed skin and unnatural blue-black eyes. Quite a visual to go out on, and in this case the most troubling of all, because Voight got everything he wanted.

If pain and pleasure are endpoints on a spectrum, the Cenobites' offer is to turn both of them up to 100 percent at the same time. This is why Voight chose "unending sensation" the first time around, thinking he'd experience the limits of both. Now, at the moment of his apotheosis and what's presumably his transformation into a Cenobite, we can see that he's finally reached his goal.

That's the conclusion of our list. Sleep tight, don't go touching any strange puzzle boxes, and stay safe.