Among all the artworks that fill our imagination, some offer
the discovery of a singular world, with its own laws and principles, its codes and its symbols ...
Once combined, all these elements create a "mythology".
Welcome to the landscapes of mind : you're watching MythoLogics.
Hellraiser is one of the artworks by which I wanted to launch Mythologics.
This fabulous story of ancient puzzles that, once solved,
open gates to Hell has always fascinated me.
I was one day contacted by a man that gifted me a Lemarchand box,
an artefact I had been looking for for years.
Last night, battling fear and envy, I finally completed the ritual
by decrypting the Lament Configuration.
After so much research, I thought I knew the Hellraiser's secrets.
But the mechanism sprung to life, the box opened...
then I finally understood…
For this episode, I think a warning is required.
If you are not 16, are sensitive or foreign to artistic abysses,
I kindly suggest that you skip this video.
If on the other hand you cherish modern mythologies, a universe's creation and its
shortcomings; if horror and its symbols fascinate you, be ready…
You are about to step in the most infernal cathedral amongst the fantasy galaxy.
Before we start reaching into Hell, I would like to invite you to, for an instant,
take the place of a writer of horrific tales.
Demanding creator as you are, your secret ambition is to give
birth to an original and detailed universe
filled with memorable abominations, striking images, rich concepts
and a depth that will give the most incredible freedom possible.
An idea comes to you, and you open your notebook, contemplating the endless possibilities:
you may need characters to which all may identify, but you more importantly need charismatic antagonists,
gifted with inhuman powers and a legendary and terrifying appearance.
The artwork will in that way strike minds, populate generations' nightmares, and will grant
the world the ability to dream and fantasise through your cathartic visions.
The XXth century has seen the bloom of a rich and complex horror culture, strong of iconic figures
that have since become timeless classics.
It is therefore challenging to come up with totally new ideas… Even more if it is 1986 already,
and horror's golden age has reached its peak.
What is there left to create? How not to plagiarise? How to shine
brighter than others in such a blinding galaxy?
Imagine now that you are…
Clive Barker.
You are a young, ambitious and talented fantasy writer.
Your first collection, the Books of Blood, was well received, and the great Stephen King himself
said numerous times he had seen the future of horror…
a future named Clive Barker.
You can feel it, you're on the doorstep of your creative career. In you, crazy concepts
and the need to concretise the refined nightmares haunting you are boiling.
Indeed, a story has been obsessing you for a while now.
You can sense that this one is different, it contains vertiginous wealth and
glows of a dark blackness.
Following a feverish and passionate writing, your novel is published, under the name
"The Hellbound Heart"
Even though the literary success is satisfying, the world hasn't yet taken notice
of your tale and its potential.
Cinema would be ideal, but you've already been contracted by the studios twice
and what they made of your stories disappointed you.
So if a movie is required for the world to know, you will be the one making it, or no one else will.
In 1987, Hellraiser is released.
It is a direct adaptation of the Hellbound Heart, directed by Clive Barker himself.
This young 35 years old Englishman has just joined Hollywood
and is eager to impress.
Fascinated by horror, Barker achieved a remarkable feat here:
with limited funds and no cinematographic experience, the author effortlessly joins
the universal horror pantheon.
All this through powerful concepts and creatures that remain unequalled
in pure terror.
And so the world discovers Hellraiser and its mythology, with an almost perfect narrative invitation:
in this reality exists a magic box, carved in wood and covered in gold…
It is said to allow to mind to reach
unimaginable pleasures.
Unfortunately for those in possession of this box, it is actually a key
that opens a direct door to Hell,
from which Hell's most sadistic creatures emerge:
The Cenobites.
The movie is a huge success, as it not only benefits from a striking and venomous story,
a magnificent score and talented actors, but it gives birth
to a new cinematographic icon, named "Pinhead" by the audience.
This waxy blueish man, pierced by nails and clad in black leather immediately joined
the Freddies, the Jasons and other Leatherfaces at our nightmares' table.
The movie will even lead to a direct sequel, Hellbound, of which Barker will co-write the script.
This quality sequel leads us directly into Hell and shows us more about the Cenobites themselves.
On opuses 3 and 4, Barker stays confined to the role of consultant… And from the fifth
to the ninth movie, Barker shies away from a franchise that will sink into the abysses of
dispensable movies.
The cause for such a disintegration lies in Barker's cession of his author's rights to the producers
from the first film onwards.
Quickly, the saga is taken away from his influence, to the point where Hellraiser
became one of the Horror Cinema's biggest missed opportunities.
We may watch each new released sequel, but more due to the first movies' nostalgia
than hope.
We mostly watch, a bit guiltily, for new Cenobites designs that even in
mediocre movies remain fascinating and sick monsters.
Unfortunately for us, these movies do not deliver much to work with regarding the mythology itself,
and soulless realisation will in the end murder the franchise.
When I discovered it, I was totally unaware of the existence of novels and comics
giving life to this extended universe.
It is only for the creation of this episode that I decided to explore in depths
what Barker and others have imagined on all media.
After several months of research, viewing and reading where terror
was only equalled by marvel, I am still taken aback
by what we've missed.
We then had to start again, from zero.
It is therefore here that our journey through the Leviathan's Hell begins.
Every tale of this saga starts by a mysterious box that one day finds itself
in the hands of someone.
Does the box itself choose its victims by luck?
Before discussing this maleficent artefact, let me reassure you: this box won't
spontaneously appear within your life…
It only appears to certain profiles.
After having read all the Saga's tales, it is possible to isolate
broad families of damned candidates, in order to understand which profiles are sought
by these hellish recruiters.
First of all, there is those we could call the Explorers.
Who has never dreamt of additional knowledge over the world's secrets?
Like Frank in the original story, explorers are on a quest for hidden knowledge
and forbidden pleasures.
It is therefore not surprising to find in our victims two reporters, a photographer,
an explorer, a librarian and a disillusioned detective.
Whatever the goal of their quest may be, it leads them the darkest corners
of reality and reason.
All these profiles have in common the quest for a hidden truth, and that greedy thirst
for knowledge leads implacably towards the box, if it doesn't reach out to them
by itself.
It is often a symbol for the price that must be paid by those that try to reach knowledge
no human should possess.
But there is another family, even more dedicated to the empirical research within the unknown
the family of Scientist.
There we find a doctor, a virtual reality researcher, a virologist and even
a physics researcher.
Either those jobs are at the closest to life and death, or they raise
moral and ethical questioning of which the monsters invited through the box are fond of.
Outside those searching for mystic or scientific truth,
there are darker profiles that come and enrich our candidates list.
The most surprising of families is the Lost Souls one: the box frequently springs
in the hands of those desperate enough, either to end
their suffering or quench their thirst for revenge against those they deem responsible.
We find a depressed woman taking her life in a bathtub and a regiment
of old soldiers traumatised by the horrors of war.
Even more surprising, the box also appears twice to unbeknownst abused children
that will summon the Cenobites to get rid of their toxic
entourage.
Contrary to the apparent justice that the last two cases may suggest,
the box often comes into the lives of ill intended beings, giving birth to
the family of Criminals.
These candidates evolve in usually morals-free circles:
gamblers, thugs, gang members, rapists or even serial killers.
They are in a way the most anticipated candidates in our traditional acceptation of
the Judeo-Christian hell.
However, the largest family is without a doubt the Ruling Castes one,
by extension encompassing all those that exert and abuse of a power over others.
It is fascinating to see how these chosen ones occupy varying social positions.
From the simple corrupted promoter to a violent nightclub manager, from a torturing horse trainer
to a sick producer, the one taking advantage of his position
is a prime candidate for the box.
The same goes for the authoritarian power exerted by a state or administration:
we can therefore find here some soldiers, policemen, even a jail guardian?
This family also brings together rulers, dictators, CEOs and a bloody count
back from the Crusades.
We can finally find, seemingly incongruously, several religious fundamentalists
thinking they were summoning their God and only got the Cenobites in return.
A last family exists, the one of the Creators
It is however still too soon to evoke their particular specificity.
It could be thought that I haven't unshrouded the saga's Mythology yet,
however we've just reached its heart: it is in mankind's own darkness
that the Cenobites hunt.
Their apparition is the bloody coronation of a human life destined to the dark side.
A quote from Barker resonates then: "Everybody is a book of blood...
wherever we're opened, we're red."
Nothing surprising then in seeing within the saga's tales numerous direct references
to History's darkest hours.
From violent colonisation to fratricidal wars, from slavery to apartheid
and the Nazi horrors, Hellraiser reminds us that the Cenobites' darkness
have nothing to envy from humanity's.
With its fantastic charge, the Saga could have easily smashed into the most uninhibited Dark Fantasy,
but on the contrary, more often than not, the tales are born in very realistic contexts
that reflect our world, making us face what
we would rather avoid…
The time has come to talk about this box.
If we only refer to the movies, we don't know much about this mysterious artefact:
a cubic form with mysterious patterns.
Regarding its origins, the movie Bloodline reveals that during the XVIIIth century, an architect
versed in the dark arts created it.
His name was Philippe Lemarchand.
However, as we said, the movies show nothing of the magnificent and sophisticated complexity
that other media can bring.
Let's trace back together the path of this mysterious engineer to understand his role and motives…
As I have had the privilege to read his private diary,
let me share its contents.
The year is 1740.
Philippe Lemarchand, architect and artist, worships geometry but finds himself frustrated
in his creative process.
One evening, in a brotherhood, he learns about an esoteric manual discussing holy geometry
and some mysterious Cenobites…
More and more curious, Lemarchand finds himself on an unrestrained quest for knowledge
on this matter. He skims through Albertus Magnus's enigmas, devours
Saint Thomas of Aquinas' scripts, Agrippa and Giovanni Pico Della Mirandola's writings.
All referring to the Cenobites.
A credibilisation technique for mythology resides in invocation of shady
but historical figures.
At the end of his research, Lemarchand becomes obsessed by these legendary Cenobites.
He may deem some of these tales unreliable,
but has long left reason's reach.
He slowly slides towards the malefic while consulting disturbing anatomy works, but mostly
while reading Gilles de Rais's biography.
Joan of Arc's lieutenant, he committed such horrible crimes
that he became Bluebeard's inspiration, and is still present in our collective imagery.
He was accused during his trial of the murder of over 140 children, and is often referred to
as one of History's first documented serial killer.
In the diary of this sinister character, Lemarchand discovers that a Cenobite would have
guided the murderer in his evil deeds, but also that there exists a box concealing
a magic formula capable of summoning the monster.
Activating his occult network, he manages to land his hand on the box.
Lemarchand therefore wasn't the inventor of it,
however, he analyses it until he understand its mechanism.
His frustration grows as the distance to supreme knowledge shrinks,
with many sketches and calculations.
To complete his learning, he one evening activates the mechanism and finally summons Baron,
the famous Cenobite that commanded Gilles of Rais.
The Cenobite analyses Lemarchand's sketches and feels his obsession for order
and symmetry.
Baron agrees to Lemarchand's fabrication of more mechanisms to summon Cenobites.
He therefore becomes the first human granted with the right to create these boxes.
Let's now dive in the entrails of the myth.
First of all, luck plays no part in the appearance of the box in your life.
The Cenobites have spotted you from Hell, and sent
the puzzle to you.
We will come back to this point later…
For the boxes to be memorable and credible, one has to give them a backstory,
but also a striking appearance and operating concepts.
Regarding their aspect, there exists a multitude of different designs.
The shape is mostly cubic, but not exclusively.
For proof, one only has to read the cursed pages of the Sigillum Diaboli,
book compiling all the appearances and effects of the boxes.
On their sides lay mystic symbols and fine shapes over which
precise finger movements must be applied in order to activate the mechanism.
The symbolism of the inscriptions on the boxes originates from multiple occult
and maleficent sources.
These markings are therefore an insane concentrate of black magic and forbidden knowledge.
References to Indian myths, the Judaic Cabal, demonology treaties,
or the Bible can be found, as if the box was an imbrication of different forbidden knowledge,
or a key to Darkness.
Once the puzzle is started, a music box tune that grows
as the solution is being solved can be heard.
The final click resonates, the box moves, rotates on itself
and shapeshifts, bound to a sinister logic.
Finally, a bell tolls, like an infernal knell.
The stones in the walls moan and molder as the Cenobites draw close.
Then the walls of the room retreat and a blue light springs from darkness.
Sick shadows are drawn, here they are.
Unless a deal or a miracle take place, they will go back with you,
and you'll know Hell.
Right before dealing with what happens to the unfortunate chosen ones, an important point on the magic boxes:
although very useful, they aren't
the sole way to summon Hell.
By solving the boxes, a geometric ritual called Configuration is accomplished.
In the movies, magic formulas are hidden in these puzzle boxes,
but more unconventional configurations have existed.
Some may take the shape of a pocket watch, others the form
of a simple music box.
In 400 BC, a configuration under the appearance
of a stone table can be found, in front of which incantations must be pronounced…
Even more surprising, Lemarchand built buildings in which
the dark ritual is dissimulated.
It is for example the case of a leprosy treatment centre, an artist pension in Paris
or a worrisome building.
For that last one, it is the climb up with the elevator
that springs the configuration to life.
It also works with a guitar if the chords played follow a given pattern.
The configurations may also hide in the cardboard pieces of a jigsaw to assemble,
in a crucifix, a crossword grid, a novel
or even the way you reap a corn field.
There seems to be more highways to Hell that stairways to Heaven.
What happens once the Cenobites are present?
Different things may happen.
If you don't get along, the audition may go sour and the Cenobites
will make hooked chains appear to quarter you
in a geyser of blood.
If, however, you pique their interest, the Cenobites may be tempted
into a deal.
For example, to bring more candidates for Hell and effectively work
for them in the real world.
Don't try to trick or play them or it's back to square one.
Admitting the Cenobites leave you alive, this doesn't mean
they'll go back empty-handed.
You'll need to sacrifice someone in your place.
If they however consider you ripe enough to be taken to Hell,
then the Cenobites will weigh your soul.
Depending on the desires and impulses they will find in it,
your sentence may vary, but rest assured that never-ending suffering
is on the menu.
If the infernal priests find your vices sadly common,
you'll be considered a simple entertainment and thrown into the Pit,
where other souls can be found wandering as you will be.
They appear skinned, crawling like a suffering herd in the desolated moors
of the place.
This explains the presence the Skinned in the movies.
These are damned that managed to flee from Hell with human help.
It is the case of Franck of the first opus, and Julia in the second one.
The sentence "I am in Hell, help me", written in blood by the Skinned
makes sense.
In order to become human again, they must kill people
and take their skin.
The skinned of the Pit undergo the yoke of the Cenobites that treat them as cattle,
and they will even be seen revolting against their masters.
How the hell do you become a Cenobite? After living a human life turned towards to darkness,
your future companions are called through the box and
come for you.
The next phase is rather uncomfortable and takes place in a reconstruction chamber.
It may take many different forms: sometimes an iron maiden, a medieval sarcophagus
filled with deadly stakes, sometimes a niche with walls
like the box's.
Most often, it is a bare medical room.
Chirurgical instruments of a new kind can be found here, accompanied by repulsing tentacles
that scramble your brains.
The machine morphs your flesh into a new abject and fascinating form,
usually conforming to your psyche.
Your appearance will always, no matter what, inspire torture, suffering and sick eroticism.
Once the operation is complete, you are now a Cenobite.
Your goal is now either to collect souls for your Leviathan God or
to recruit new Cenobites amongst humans.
The demons of the Order of the Gash are also empowered with the role of Hell police,
as their role also entail capturing the rare damned souls that manage to escape Limbo.
The Cenobites dwell in an extremely hierarchised caste with clearly defined roles,
as a regular religious order.
Before mentioning their laws and motives, let's stop a second on their appearance,
unequalled in the horrific genre.
Cenobites are as repulsive as fascinating.
It is in the original movie that they first appear.
Their makeup and mannerism lay the foundation of their identity, even though
it will be with the comics that the most degenerate expressions will be imagined.
Black leather wasn't chosen by accident.
If we look at the appearance of leather in Cinema before the first movie's
release in 1987, we can already find a striking imagery: other than the black jacket-clad
bicycle bad boys, leather is often found on the movie villains.
Black leather makes you asocial, is associated with domination, sex and shady places.
It's the offender's uniform, the murderer's glove.
Leather is the ideal choice to marry attraction and repulsion, Eros and Thanatos.
The costumes' design, between religious robe and BDSM dungeon attire creates a singular contrast.
To this sexual dark aura, we must add gashes.
Often is costume blended with flesh.
It is also usually conceived to inflict permanent suffering
to its wearer.
What is unnerving about Cenobites is that despite the constant suffering they endure,
they stay cold, amused, calm and fanatic, worshiping the pain
they present as the ultimate refinement.
Pain is what we've all humans been avoiding since the dawn of time;
seeing such creatures make a religion out of it leads us into a metaphysical uneasiness
and renders them perfectly inhuman.
Cenobites may look and dress very diversely.
Most stay humanoid, but some tend more towards the abomination,
an indescribable chimera.
The leather and piercing look may reign king amongst Cenobites, but their world has its oddballs.
It is possible to meet white or red cloth-clad demons.
One of their leaders is even decked in a Prussian general's uniform,
whilst another with facial scarification looks just like
an American soldier.
Others have an even more monstrous physiognomy, their face deformed and skin coloured.
They are followed and served by beasts like dogs or bees.
The Cenobites therefore grant their authors an impressive creative liberty
concerning their sizes and shapes.
The same goes for their temper: the disparity in their personalities
reflects how human they once were.
Some stayed rebel and act on a whim, others are cynical,
and some even try to keep a sliver of humanity in their decisions.
I consider the Cenobites as extremely innovative, as they in their own way broadened
what the cinema monster may evoke.
Their morals ambiguity, the luminous aura that follows them, their stone-cold calm
and infernal cynicism go beyond the classical cinema terror to transform it into
a venomous veneration.
One of the ways Pinhead introduces himself is the following:
Their contradiction is therefore accepted in order to place these creatures
on a more intellectual and psychological ground, to blur their motives and make them unsearchable.
Indeed, the classical Manicheism of our modern society opposing Good and Evil
bears no meaning here.
It is one of Barker's best idea in the saga.
It can be seen in the underlying philosophy of the Order of the Gash:
Cenobites don't judge humanity's actions on the Good versus Evil spectrum,
but on the Order versus
Chaos ladder.
This grants their society more complex values.
A Cenobite won't judge a serial killer on the fact that he killed someone,
but rather on his motives and the consequences of his actions.
In a way, chaos is linked to mankind and its free will, to the unknown
and life's uncertainty.
On the opposite side, order and structure are associated with control, laws, state
and oppression.
In Hell, this equilibrium is in a way personified by two strange deities
called Chidna and Basalisk.
These two antediluvian entities evoke the double helix structure of DNA and
symbolise the necessary balance between light and dark.
A quote from the master himself clearly depicts the weighting scale between these forces:
"Darkness always had its part to play.
Without it, how would we know when we walked in the light?
It's only when its ambitions become too grandiose that it must be opposed, disciplined,
sometimes – if necessary – brought down for a time.
Then it will rise again, as it must."
World order is therefore a complex layout of Chaos and Order
If this balance is broken, Chidna and Basalisk will fight, warning
the Cenobites that they must alter reality's destiny to repair
this anomaly.
Indeed, a Cenobite's job resides in selecting the people that have an influence on the World,
to convince them to join the side of Order.
But a Cenobite must also answer to his hierarchy.
If he didn't manage to influence the flow of things in the needed direction,
he will be trialled.
Each Cenobite on trial must rip his own heart of his chest for it to be weighed in a scale
in front of the members of the Order.
Let's not forget that at the end of the command chain, their supreme god
Leviathan can be found.
Cenobites are in a way the Law Enforcement Forces of a religion,
with all the oppressive and rigorous universe such terms invoke.
Pulling on mind's strings, they manipulate destinies to skew them to their own interests.
Some Cenobites were granted peculiar roles
that deepen the myth.
Such is the case of Sister Flagellum, called the "Watcher of Order".
She sleeps in deep meditation, only awoken if her god Leviathan
feels a disturbance in the equilibrium of forces.
She will infer to the Cenobites teams for the field work,
akin to a damned Task Force.
There is another major role played by a Cenobite, symptomatic
of the Barkerian narration's depth.
However, we'll have to come back to the start of everything to discuss it.
How do the boxes end up in the hands of their victims?
A box is always given, protected and retrieved by a Guardian…
In the movies, it's always a strange character that grants the box to someone else.
Even though his appearance varies with each movie, the sentence he utters while handing the box
is always the same:
First a trader, then an art seller, the guardian mostly appears
under the traits of a shaggy-bearded hobo with mad eyes,
most often linked to crickets…
It will once more be within the comics that the key to these mysterious guardians
will be given to us.
First of all, they are shape-shifters, they may take the appearance they so desire
to approach and seduce they target without alarm.
But how were these mysterious creatures created? Thank to this famous Cenobite,
granted with such a unique role.
His name is Orno, owner of his own workshop in the depths of Hell.
In order to create a puzzle guardian, Orno chooses a Damned he calls the "Raw material".
He alters his souls by placing a bit of his own demonic mind in there.
The Guinea pig is then sent back to Earth so that he may have carnal relations
with a woman.
From this relation a child will be born, and Orno makes sure he grows up as an orphan.
Once the child reaches 16 years of his sad life, Orno will reveal to him
his real nature by offering him the box of which he will become the designated guardian.
The Hellraiser Universe comes with a quite common phenomenon
we may call "Transmedia Mythological Development".
This idea consists in fleshing out a fictional universe in other media forms
than the one in was born in.
For Hellraiser, this path is actually rather frequent for a successful Hollywood franchise:
a book is adapted in a movie. If success comes, comics or videogames
are then developed to tell new stories and extend the universe.
If many adaptations are often soulless money grabs,
there are cases where such a path is beneficial for an artwork.
It was the case for Hellraiser.
Creating a fantasy film is expensive, and you are bound by rules of what
you can and can't show.
With a comic, such matters don't exist.
The only limitations lie in the artist's talent and the writer's imagination.
In his works, Barker's Hell is distinct from the classical
infernal representations.
Where a hellish Limbo of reds and heat was common,
it's a blue and freezing Labyrinth dominated by Leviathan we find here.
The fist visual depiction of Hell's labyrinth is given in the second movie of the saga,
named "Hellbound", in a sequence that convinced me
that this saga held an incredible mythological potential.
For the first time, a reconstruction chamber and the making of a Cenobite can be seen,
along with landscapes from the most vertiginous nightmares.
Perspective feeling in the distance, wealth of senseless architectures,
bottomless pits…
The main inspiration of this representations comes from the works of Piranesi,
a great XVIIIth century Italian engraver.
He one day took the decision to create 16 etchings representing nightmarish
imaginary prisons.
In this suffocating world, we enter a monumental architecture of many sultry and dirty dungeons,
bridges leading to nowhere and spiral staircases.
Pulleys, chains and other torture instruments also interweave everywhere.
If this labyrinth reminds us of the Minotaur's, it also evokes Escher's
mathematical architecture.
He can be referenced without risks, as a shot of the movie shows one of the artist's pieces.
For Piranesi, the link is also strong when we contemplate the entrails of the labyrinth
with its multidirectional corridors, abysmal stairs and general function
of soul prison.
The fact that Barker wanted to quote Piranesi to make of his Hell an almost prison-like
and freezing place is original, and perfectly suits the Cenobites.
On top of the labyrinth's walls the Cenobites can walk and meet,
but mostly pray Leviathan, hovering above this gigantic area.
However, once you've stepped off of the labyrinth's ridges to enter its innards,
you enter a dark and dense zone, with interweaving stairs leading to different
torture chambers and infernal administrations.
This place's depth seems endless, akin to the tortures that take place in it.
As the Cenobites were at some point human, it is quite logical that they would keep some activities
of their past life.
Don't be surprised to learn that you'll also find within the Labyrinth some archives,
medical blocks, an armoury, but also a bar, a theatre,
or political meeting rooms.
Finally, above this Labyrinth hovers Leviathan.
This name originates from the Bible, where Leviathan is described in different books as
a marine monster that rebels against God.
Such a name was symbolically chosen for his place in Hell
In Hellraiser, this shape in darkness is also presented as the God of Flesh,
Hunger and Desire, or Lord of the Labyrinth.
Creating a god in a fiction work is a complex process,
even more so if he is meant to be shown.
What form to give such an abstract idea? Barker opted not for another
demonic abomination, classic and outdated, but for a surprising and mathematical shape,
perfectly symbolising the concepts of Order and Structure.
Indeed, Cenobites' god is octahedral, whose sides are reminiscent of the esoteric ornament
of Lemarchand's boxes.
Leviathan gravitates, solitary, towering Hell.
It beams black light rays, infiltrating your soul to reveal to yourself
all your sins.
This entity's origins are unknown, but many evidences point to the idea
that it was present since time immemorial.
It is even said it could be the Fallen Angel of the Scriptures.
Most importantly, this strange god makes Cenobites
It has the ability to transform any human being in a monster of suffering
and has, thanks to his reconstruction chambers, total freedom over the grotesque
and terrifying shape you will be granted.
Leviathan doesn't speak directly; one must go into its entrails in order to communicate with it.
One may reach them by crossing a deploying wall,
revealing endless steps.
Once within it, Cenobites must play on an organic organ made of Hell Damned
in the hope that their God will listen.
In the movie, the only external language is a tetanic foghorn spelling
the word GOD in Morse code.
We have now reached Hell's peak.
After this hard journey, we may already notice that the only thing equalling Hellraiser's darkness
is its black aestheticism and mythological sophistication.
Something stuck me while writing this episode:
each other Mythologics iteration had a chapter dedicated to the Catholic religion.
Be it Freddy and his position towards, Hell, Bloodborne and its Pantheon in quest of procreation,
or even Berserk and its multiple references to the Inquisition…
All these artworks seem to have in common the necessity to reference
the catholic mythology.
For Hellraiser, the least we can say is that Barker has a personal
approach to the matter.
Like the man himself, it is surprising and complex…
In a book of conversations with Peter Atkins, one of the saga's great scriptwriter,
Barker talks about this issue.
He directly confesses trying to make his writings match the rhythm of the Bible,
his favourite.
He in a way worships the Christ figure.
On the contrary, his vision of the Church and its dogma transpires the most protesting
reject possible.
His work admirably translates the author's oscillation between fascination for the biblical writings
and symbols, and detestation of what men of the Church made
of God.
The saga is sprinkled of play with religious symbolism, often to turn their
values on their head.
The world Cenobite itself references an existing religious way of life.
Indeed, opposing the hermit way of solitude and contemplation, the Cenobite monks
live in community.
By referring an existing Order, Barker may critique the religion
whilst borrowing lexical fields and symbols.
Pinhead is only a nickname, his real title is "Hell Priest", and the monster
even mimics the appropriate gestures.
Moreover, Cenobites only have disgust for the God of Men.
This classic sentence by Pinhead is a perfect illustration of it :
Barker's hellish vision isn't made of horned demons cooking us
in a pot full of molten rocks, but of a calculating religious order based on suffering.
If we wanted to go further, we could wonder if the Cenobites' concepts
aren't actually very close to the Catholic religion.
For christians, the founding act of their belief is the crucifiction
of a messiah, who became martyr to save mankind.
One can said that this act of torture began catholic religion.
To the point where the symbol worn by this religion's servants is a torture instrument.
Even if it is justified as the act of supreme love, it is undebatable that
this myth bases its genesis on man's suffering and sin.
Exactly like the Cenobites.
It is fascinating to see that the Christ figure also has its own new interpretation
with the feminine figure of Morte Mamme.
In the Barkerian myth, she is Leviathan's sister, that it imprisoned in a stone tomb,
millennia ago.
She is dubbed Priestess of Chaos, and the image she represents
isn't very mysterious.
Another anti-dogma snub from the author, telling us how Jesus is in reality a woman,
that she is the impulse of life and chaos and that her goal is the destruction of Cenobites.
Impossible not to read a political dimension into this when we know women's
place in most religions.
Clive Barkers seems fascinated by the original biblical tales
and the symbolic power of all those myths, all the while lashing at the pure maleficent
looseness of our modern religions.
There is a quote from him that I first had trouble understanding
"God is imagination, and imagination is God".
It most likely certain that many of you haven't grown accustomed yet to horrific creations,
and for which this universe is tainted, shocking, depressing or repulsive.
This may motivate us to ask ourselves a question: how can we imagine such things?
Isn't creation's goal to generate beauty, transcendence, pleasure
to the eyes and senses?
And I, in admiration before such a universe, have I issues?
Am I a glaucous character myself, for feasting on such metaphorical darkness?
Strangely, what I see in it is the exact contrary.
Barker himself said that pornography is to some what theology
is to others.
Everything is matter of perspective.
I personally see in this work an incredible ode to creation.
A love letter to the surrealist adventure entailed by any creative process.
Finally, I see in Hellraiser a reflection on the Artist's sacrifice.
After three months of living in this universe, it started conquering my dreams too.
One night, I dreamt of this comic cover.
A painter's palette can be seen.
Brushes are made of tears and paint of hemoglobin.
I suddenly felt like I understood.
Clive Barker explains that he writes like one paints, and that painting can only come
from blood.
Nothing surprising then in finding here our last family of candidates to damnation:
the Artists.
Haunted by and implacable and ravenous need, they are often
visited by Cenobites.
These come searching for a blind composer, two writers, a mad painter…
The creator's work resides in separating structure and chaos, to put his souls
in the configuration that an artwork is.
In Hellraiser, but mostly in life, Art is sacrifice, an occupation for a monk
whose sole god is his imagination.
It is a life where available places are scarce, where waiting
and training is infinite, where you must suffer the opinion of people that rarely understand you…
The artist's freedom is paved with many obstacles: how to earn enough to eat?
How to reach out to people's feelings? How to feel excited about our own creation?
How to surprise ourselves, astound others and strike
hearts and minds? How to survive in a world that does all it can to suppress dream itself?
Barker is a free mind, a man that fights every day against the idea of death,
a man for which the imaginary is mankind's greatest mystery.
a man for which imagination is God.
A man, finally, that isn't scared of going head on into the abysses and extirpate
resplendent jewels from their darkness.
I don't know if you've ever felt what it's like to virtually meet a creator.
I am usually quick at marveling on a multitude of subjects, but feeling an intimate artistic shock
when facing the mind of an artist is a rare occurrence.
And it's what happened to me with that character I had been contemplating
from far away for the last few years, without knowing anything about him.
During a sleepless night, I attempted something I usually shy from:
knowing everything about the creator of whom I'm exploring the works of.
I am primarily interested in the work itself, and have sometimes been disappointed
by the human hiding behind it.
But with Clive Barker, the feeling was opposite. Towards 4 a.m. and after 20 interviews,
I had the sensation of having found a mentor, a brother, an incredible role model.
The sequence that struck me the most was an interview where Barker faced
an assembly of young people his age.
All the public's questions are curiously reactionary and distrustful.
The first Hellraiser had just been released, and all were suspicious regarding the work's
singularity and violence.
Barker went on a soft, comprehensive and sensitive advocacy over the power
and need of horror tales, on the peculiar beauty they possess.
On the meaning they convey.
Seeing him justifying himself in front of people that did not understand his sensitivity touched
my at the deepest level; and his kindness baffled me.
I therefore think often of his mantra
"Be regular and orderly in your life,
so that you may be violent and original in your work".
One of the saga's beauty is the ambition of the concepts, the creative freedom
and symbolism it holds within itself.
What sight it is to contemplate the birth of a world with its geography and macrocosm,
to follow its heroes and iconic demons brawl in an abysmal mythology,
with its so many possible lectures.
If in the opening I was talking about a cathedral, it is because each detail of this universe
is coherent, precisely carved and allows a thousand different things, never rejecting any.
It is in this that we recognize the work of a goldsmith of horror, a watchmaker of imagination…
That would take the path of art to show us what life can't.
The artwork then becomes likes a revelation talking to all, like a metaphorical
vision of our world.
I would like to conclude, heart-sore, this journey in the meanders of this total artist
by one of the quotes of which he had the secret:
"That which is imagined can never be lost".
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