Hellraiser is based on the book, The Hellbound Heart, and while both the book and movie were written by Clive Barker, they featured some striking differences, especially concerning Pinhead himself.
Of all of the horror franchises to come out of the 1980s, Hellraiser is perhaps the most cerebral. This may be in part because it was made by novelist, and self-proclaimed fantasist, Clive Barker, whose collection of short stories entitled Books of Blood forever changed the scope of the horror genre. Other horror movies from the 80s, such as Friday the 13th, Halloween, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and even Child’s Play were all made by movie producers with screenwriters and an entire team working on them. Hellraiser, on the other hand, was envisioned and the script was written by one man, Clive Barker himself.
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Nonetheless, all of the major horror franchises from the 1980s also have another significant thing in common: they all have a lead male antagonist. In A Nightmare on Elm Street, it’s Freddy Krueger, in Halloween, it’s Michael Myers, and so on. Audiences know who to focus on when the horrific stuff starts happening. This led to one of the biggest changes Barker made between his book and the movie.
Differences Between Hellraiser And The Hellbound Heart
There are many small differences between Hellraiser and The Hellbound Heart and, in fact, the movie would have turned out quite differently had Barker remained faithful to his original story. For starters, the book provides additional information about the puzzle box, explaining that it is called the Lament Configuration. On top of that, the man Frank buys it from even warns him about the cenobites, explaining that they are theologians from the Order of the Gash. Of course, in both the movie and the book, he ignores the warnings and opens the puzzle box anyway.
Another difference is that Kirsty’s character in the book is a friend of Larry’s, rather than being his daughter from another marriage. This changes how her character reacts to things in the movie, as a concerned daughter looking after her father rather than as a friend. Other notable changes from the book to the movie include the Engineer, who appears only in the film, Julia using a hammer in the movie instead of a knife, and the winged bone demon in Hellraiser is certainly not in the book.
Nevertheless, the biggest difference in Hellraiser between Clive Barker’s books and his movie is none other than Pinhead himself. In The Hellbound Heart, the cenobites appear as a group, with the one who became known as Pinhead only briefly mentioned. Plus, in the book Pinhead is female. For the movie, when it came to designing the cenobites one in particular stood out as the natural leader to the makeup artists and film crew; naturally, the one with all the pins sticking out of his head. Even though Barker didn’t name him, the crew started calling him “Pinhead”, and the name stuck. Thus, the iconic horror character was born and Hellraiser had its villain to compete with Freddy, Michael Myers, and other 1980’s horror antagonists.
