By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues
I was recently made aware of just how many movies and television shows the younger generation have never heard of, never mind seen. So to that end, we look back at some characters you really need to see before you kick the bucket.
Before she kicked ass in Star Trek Deep Space 9 as Jadzia Dax for six seasons, Terry Farrell headlined the third movie in the Hellraiser franchise and being totally biased, this is my favourite one. While Jadzia faced all manner of aliens and mysteries none could prepare her for anything more fantastic and terrifying than going toe to toe with Pinhead and his new breed of Cenobites.
In Hellraiser Hell on Earth, she plays Joanne Joey Summerskill, a frustrated and troubled reporter who works for channel 8. She is feeling repressed by her news boss who wants her to show more flesh to become an anchorwoman which she refutes. As fate would have it, she becomes a pawn in the battle between Pinhead and his human half, Elliot Spencer. In the previous movie, Pinhead was split into two entities who are now in constant battle for control of his soul; a battle that finds Joey plunged into the biggest and deadliest story of her career.
At the emergency room she meets a young teenager called Terri who has brought a young man in for treatment. She tells Joey she met him at a nightclub, the Boiler House. Joey hears the commotion and runs in to see the man being pulled apart by hooked chains that seemingly come out of nowhere. He explodes. Her boss does not believe her as she has no proof. Determined to find the girl, she goes to the Boiler Room in search of her. Terri finds her instead striking a deal to stay at her place in exchange for information.
Terri gives Joey the cube, the Lament Configuration, the young man had while he lay in the street and that the cube is where the chains came from. Joey confides in her that she has bad dreams about the death of her father in Vietnam. That he lay wounded while the helicopter flew off leaving him behind to be tortured at the hands of the enemy. As Elliot Spence, Pinhead’s human form, was a military man this allows him to form a connection with Joey.
Driven to solve the strange death, Joey learns of the bizarre statue that the owner of the club J.P. bought thanks to Terri. However, the shop has been closed and nothing has been sold from it in months. Checking inventory records they discover the statue came from the Channard Institute (as seen in the second movie) and unbeknownst to him it contains Pinhead himself. The statue is in fact the Pillar of Souls and thanks to J.P. the demon has begun harvesting innocent women and growing in power. Once he has fed enough Pinhead will be able to leave the pillar and walk the Earth.
Spence tells Joey she has to stop him as she witnesses Pinhead’s origins when he opened the box to indulge in his primal sexual urges. The only way is to fuse both sides of his being together once again. Too late, Joey arrives to find Pinhead has murdered everyone in the Boiler Room and new Cenobites have been born. One is the DJ who fires CDs from his mouth slicing his victims. The other is Joey’s friend, cameraman Doc who is now fused with his equipment to become Camerahead. J.P. has become Pistonhead.
As the streets explode around her Joey races for her life as Pinhead and the Cenobites pursue her for the Lament Configuration. She manages to send them to Hell but Pinhead uses her dreams against her. He poses as her father using her love for him to convince her to hand over the cube. Now all powerful Pinhead traps Joey in a machine that will turn her into his latest Cenobite. But Elliot bursts in and fights with his evil self managing to fuse them both back together. Joey is able to free herself and the Lament Configuration has turned into a diamond shape. She stabs Pinhead through the heart sending him back to Hell. She has only one last thing to do. Joey tosses the cube into the newly laid concrete of a building. However when built, the building interior reflects the markings of the Lament Configuration.
For me I like this movie becaue it uses a strong female lead against which Pinhead falls again. Farrell does a great job of portraying a strong woman being held back in her career by chauvinistic men while at the same time mourning a father killed before she was born. She can only imagine how he would be which is why she hands over the Lament Configuration to a disguised Pinhead so trustingly. He does what evil does best; they take something normal and that comforts us and twists it to suit their needs. Joey always knew that evil gave reporters their most gripping and rating grabbing stories but she gains a whole new insight into what evil truly is here and the lengths humans will go to indulge in extreme sexual pleasures. At the same time since there is a Hell then there must be a Heaven where her father is and one day she will see again.
It also shows her that even in Pinhead part of him is still good which means that though the battle between good and evil will rage across the millennia, good will always find a way to win.
The Time Warriors and Beyond 