Hellraiser (2022) is a supernatural horror film directed by David Bruckner, screenplay by Ben Collins and Luke Piotrowski from a story with David S. Goyer. A franchise reboot, eleventh installment overall, and second screen adaptation of Clive Barker’s 1986 novella The Hellbound Heart after the 1987 film, it stars Odessa A’zion as a recovering addict who obtains a mechanical puzzle box that summons Cenobites—humanoids who thrive on pain as pleasure. Jamie Clayton plays the Priest (Pinhead), with Adam Faison, Drew Starkey, Brandon Flynn, Aoife Hinds, Jason Liles, Yinka Olorunnife, Selina Lo, Zachary Hing, Kit Clarke, Goran Višnjić, and Hiam Abbass. Released via Hulu in North America after Fantastic Fest 2022, it earned mixed-to-positive reviews as the strongest entry for many since the original—praised for tone, faithfulness to Barker’s repulsive glamour, and Clayton’s Priest; dinged for rushed character work and length. For kink-horror viewers, the 2022 film restores Cenobites as fashion-forward sadomasochists and makes the box’s “gifts” explicit contracts of sensation, power, or lament.
Plot: Voight’s Orgy Gift, Six Configurations, Riley’s Choice
Hedonistic millionaire Roland Voight forces homeless sex worker Joey to solve a puzzle box at a mansion orgy; a blade cuts Joey and chains rip him apart. Six years later, recovering addict Riley McKendry lives with estranged brother Matt, his boyfriend Colin, and roommate Nora. Riley and boyfriend Trevor find the box in an abandoned warehouse. After a fight with Matt about relapse, she solves a configuration in a park but misses the blade. Cenobites appear and demand another sacrifice. Matt finds her incapacitated, cuts himself on the box waking her, then vanishes from a restroom as the box changes shape.
Riley and Trevor track Voight’s former lawyer Serena Menaker, who tries to seize the box, is cut, and is taken by Cenobites. At Voight’s abandoned mansion, journals explain six configurations—each needs a victim marked by the blade—after which Leviathan offers a “gift.” Riley sees flayed Matt. Colin, Trevor, and Nora arrive; Nora is trapped in a secret passage and stabbed with the box by mutilated Voight inside the walls. Cenobites abduct Nora; the Priest tortures and flays her. After a crash, the Priest offers Riley an exchange: Matt for two sacrifices, or sacrifice two others or herself. Riley refuses the Matt trade; after Chatterer wounds Trevor, she solves a configuration and marks Chatterer as sacrifice.
They retreat to the mansion’s steel doors. Voight stabs Colin with the box, reveals he hired Trevor to find victims, completes the final configuration, traps Cenobites, and demands Leviathan free him from the nerve-twisting contraption he received when he asked for “sensation.” Riley retrieves the box, frees Colin by marking Trevor as final sacrifice. The Priest warns Voight his reward can only be exchanged, not revoked; he accepts “power,” is healed—then Leviathan impales and lifts him. Cenobites offer to resurrect Matt; Riley declines, accepting regret (the Lament Configuration’s gift of bitter, brief suffering). The box returns to cube form. Leaving, Colin asks if her choice was justified; silent Riley drives on while Voight is transformed into a new Cenobite in Leviathan’s realm.
The film’s kink architecture is contractual and hierarchical: each configuration is a marked offering; “gifts” of sensation and power are traps; declining resurrection is choosing the lament of living with loss over Hell’s eroticized agony. Clayton’s Priest glides as runway sadism—“red flesh and raw meat, but make it fashion.”
Cast Highlights
- Odessa A’zion as Riley McKendry
- Jamie Clayton as the Priest (Pinhead)
- Goran Višnjić as Roland Voight
- Brandon Flynn, Drew Starkey, Adam Faison, Aoife Hinds, Hiam Abbass among supporting players
Long Development: Remakes, Rights, Bruckner
A remake was publicized from 2006–2007 with Barker writing or producing; Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo were eyed, then Marcus Dunstan/Patrick Melton rewrites, Pascal Laugier (clashing over teen-commercial vs serious tone), Christian E. Christiansen, and others. Hellraiser: Revelations (2011) was rushed to keep rights while reboots stalled. Patrick Lussier and Todd Farmer briefly developed a different story focused on the box’s world; they were dropped. Barker announced he would write/direct with Bradley returning (2013), then said a loose-remake draft sat undelivered at Dimension for years.
After Halloween (2018) revived legacy horror, Miramax eyed new Hellraiser. May 2019: Spyglass’s Gary Barber announced a remake with David S. Goyer writing/producing. April 2020: Bruckner set to direct Collins and Piotrowski’s script (collaborators on The Night House). Barker regained U.S. rights after legal dispute (December 2020). Odessa A’zion cast June 2021; drag performer Gottmik auditioned for Pinhead after a RuPaul’s Drag Race Pinhead look. Filming September–October 2021 in Belgrade, Serbia. Jamie Clayton was revealed as Pinhead after wrap; Bradley declined a cameo, wanting his Pinhead legacy intact and citing COVID complications—Bruckner accepted.
Release, Viewership, Reception
World premiere as a Fantastic Fest secret screening 28 September 2022 (Austin); Beyond Fest Santa Monica 4 October; Hulu U.S. streaming 7 October 2022. Spyglass and Paramount handled international; UK streaming from late October 2022; UK DVD 27 March 2023. Whip Media, Reelgood, and JustWatch tracked it among top streamed films in early–mid October 2022.
Rotten Tomatoes: 67% of 147 reviews positive (average 6.3/10)—consensus: a gift after subpar sequels, unlocking the franchise track. Metacritic: 55/100 from 25 critics. Katie Rife (Polygon) criticized characters and length but praised design and Clayton, ranking it possibly second-best after Hellbound. Dave White (TheWrap) praised Cenobites’ “repulsive glamour.” Mark Hanson (Slant) called it toothlessly retrograde. Bruckner expressed sequel interest (2023); producer Keith Levine confirmed development talk with Bruckner (2024).
For bdsmwild readers, the 2022 Hellraiser is where the series again treats the puzzle box as a serious instrument of consensual-sounding damnation: you open, you mark, you receive a gift you may not want—and the Priest still frames eternity as exquisite ordeal rather than cheap jump scare. The six-configuration ladder makes sacrifice explicit mathematics; Voight’s “sensation” reward is a nerve-torture harness that reads as the franchise’s cruel joke about tops who order extreme sensation without understanding the contract. Riley’s refusal of Matt’s resurrection is the ethical hinge adult viewers recognize: some gifts from Hell are not mercy, only more exquisite bondage to regret.
Why This Reboot Matters on a Kink-Horror Map
Where late Dimension sequels often reduced Pinhead to a guest star in other people’s thrillers, Bruckner’s film restores the Cenobites as the main aesthetic event—silent runway figures of flayed glamour—and restores the box as a multi-stage ritual rather than a one-button monster summon. Casting a trans woman as the Priest (Clayton) also reframes the Hell Priest without turning the role into a joke cameo; the performance is cold, precise, and closer to Barker’s original “explorers of experience” than to late-series one-liners. Paired with Voight’s mansion-as-dungeon and Trevor’s paid procurement of victims, the film sits firmly in sadomasochistic horror cinema: power, marked flesh, bargained agony, and the knowledge that saying yes to the wrong gift can rewrite your body forever.
