Therumancer said:
Clive actually didn't have much to do with the rest of the Hellraiser movies or the extended mythology. Indeed his stories draw on and referance each other to an extent, including a couple of recurring characters (like a detective with the last name D'amore, can't remember the first name, it's been a while, but he's the protaganist of "Lord Of Illusions" played by Scott Bakula... a movie which blew, and wasn't even all that close to the story it was based on which is half the problem I think). It's involved some series trope changes like where "Pinhead" who was simply called "The Engineer" in the story (though the proper name is used in some of the later movies) is made out to be a bigger deal than he was in the scheme of things.
Pinhead's role as The Engineer is sketchy at best. Part of the issue comes down to two points: first is that, according to Clive Barker, "Pinhead" is a placeholder name for the character, and that his actual name has yet to be revealed (his Cenobite form, not his human form. He's still Elliot Spencer) This would imply that The Engineer is a different entity, and that "Pinhead's" real name will be revealed in "The Scarlet Gospels" (whenever that comes out) The other issue is that, while the description doesn't match, the weird creature in the hospital hallway in Hellraiser is now considered The Engineer, both in the movie and in the new comic series by Clive Barker. This gets even weirder when, if the new canon comic series is anything to go by, it's strongly hinted that the human manifestation of Leviathan could be The Engineer mentioned in the original novella.
The better a person you are if you wind up in hell the better the chances you'll become one of them, where if you set off to become one of them or are an evil douchbag they are likely to just torture you. There even being one guy they show in a story who winds up begging for eternity to be made one of them "as promised" for all of the stuff he did in their name... which they are never going to do.
Was that from the new comic series? I remember that happening early on with a guy named Samuel, but perhaps it's happened multiple times before. As for the transformation process, this has a weird rule-set. While most who use the Lament Configuration, knowing full well what might happen, don't turn, the main four (Pinhead, Female, Butter Ball, and Chatterer) are all implied to have actively sought the Configuration out. Elliot Spencer especially, with Hellraiser 2 showing he actively opened the Configuration. The other issue is that, if Barker's comic series is considered canon, that a new Cenobite is chosen less because of their innocence/guilt and more on the whims of Leviathan, usually to serve whatever game he's playing.
