What actually happens
Never solve a puzzle box in an empty park
A wealthy investor and art collector named Roland Voight throws a party at his mansion and invites a sex worker, Joey Coscuna, to solve a mechanical puzzle box. A blade springs out and cuts Joey, a portal to another dimension opens, and chains tear him apart. Six years later Riley McKendry, a recovering drug addict, shares a home with Colin, Nora and her estranged brother Matt. Riley and her boyfriend Trevor find the box in an abandoned storage warehouse. After Matt accuses her of relapsing, she storms out and solves the puzzle in an empty park, though the blade misses her. A group of mutilated humanoids called the Cenobites shows up and asks for another sacrifice. Matt finds Riley incapacitated and accidentally cuts himself on the box while trying to wake her. He goes to a restroom to clean the wound and develops a headache. Riley watches the box change shape, hears Matt scream, and finds the restroom empty.
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The box has six configurations and a lawyer who knew it
Riley assumes the box made Matt disappear, so she and Trevor find Serena Menaker, Voight's former lawyer, at an assisted living facility. Menaker had hidden the box in the warehouse, and she tries to take it back from Riley, but the blade cuts her and the Cenobites abduct her later. At Voight's abandoned mansion, Riley reads his journals and learns that the box has six configurations, and that each one needs a victim marked for sacrifice by the blade. When all six are done, the holder gets a gift from Leviathan, the entity who rules Hell. Riley then sees a vision of Matt and is horrified to learn that he has been flayed.
A rearview mirror shows more than it should
This is the scene to brace for, and it comes around the middle. Colin, Trevor and Nora pick Riley up from the mansion. Nora finds a switch that opens a secret passage, and Trevor accidentally shuts her inside. A mutilated Voight, who has been hiding in the walls, jabs her with the box. The group flees to find help, and the Cenobites take Nora. In a decrepit hallway their leader, the Priest, taunts and tortures her and flays her to death. Riley sees this reflected in the rearview mirror, and the van crashes, after which the Priest appears. The Priest offers to swap Matt for two sacrifices, and Riley refuses. Riley is then told to sacrifice two people or herself. The Chatterer injures Trevor, and Riley solves the next configuration and stabs the Chatterer, and he gets torn apart as the next sacrifice.
Steel doors keep out Cenobites and nothing else
The group retreats to the mansion because its steel doors will stop the Cenobites from coming in. Trevor rests, while Riley and Colin plan to catch the Cenobite called the Asphyx as the last sacrifice, but Riley drops the box. Voight picks it up and stabs Colin. He explains that he wanted sensation after finishing his sacrifices, but got a contraption that twists his nerves at random. He also tells Trevor in private that he employed him to find suitable humans. Voight completes the final configuration, traps the Cenobites, and demands that they ask Leviathan to free him. Leviathan appears above the mansion. Riley takes the box, opens the steel doors, and rescues Colin by stabbing Trevor, which marks him as the final sacrifice. The Priest tells Voight that a reward can be swapped for something else but never taken back. He takes the Priest's offer of power, which heals him, and Leviathan then impales him on a large chain and lifts him away.
The ending, explained
With the sacrifices finished, the Cenobites offer to bring Matt back to life. Riley realizes that their gifts come with pain, so she turns the offer down and accepts that Matt is dead. They accept her choice of the Lament Configuration, which means a life of regret and short, bitter suffering, and then they disappear. The box goes back to being a cube. Riley and Colin leave the mansion, and Colin asks her whether she made the right choice. She does not answer. In Leviathan's realm, Voight is violently turned into a new Cenobite.
The post-credits ruling
Nobody has confirmed whether there is a scene after the credits.
✓ Spoiled safelyDog status: fine, no dog dies.
Questions people ask at 1am
Is Hellraiser scary?
Yes, Hellraiser is a 6 out of 10. The dread is medium and the gore is frequent and graphic, with mutilation and flaying, so it is mostly body horror.
How does Hellraiser end?
In Hellraiser, Riley sacrifices Trevor and refuses an offer from the Cenobites to resurrect her brother Matt. She and Colin leave the mansion, and Voight becomes a new Cenobite.
Does the dog die in Hellraiser?
No dog dies in Hellraiser, and no other animal dies either.
Is there a post-credits scene in Hellraiser?
Nobody has confirmed whether Hellraiser has a scene after the credits.
Who are the Cenobites in Hellraiser?
The Cenobites are mutilated, sadistic beings from another dimension who appear when someone solves the puzzle box. Their leader is the Priest, and they answer to Leviathan, the entity that rules Hell.
