It's another dimension, it's not about punishment, it's about suffering. The film ever addresses this when the physchiatrist (Pinhead) says "Some call them Cenobites. Others call them demons and say they take you to Hell". he places these as alternatives... and whislt Josepth may perceive them as demons we KNOW they are Cenobites and they take you to their dimension for pain, pleasure, experiments in suffering.
That said, what infrno is about is Josepths own destruction of beleif. Frank in HR1, for all his badness, was HONEST about himself. Joseph isn't. He deceives himself, he places HIMESELF in a Christian, morale situation. He evn says he believes in fidelity... yet claims "I live in a different world". Josepth essenially makes EXCUSES for his behaviour, does all this stuff whislt believing in certain morales but considering himself an exception. Whatever you say about Frank, he never made excuses for himself.
This is what msot likely annoys the Cenobites, Joseph's own denial. So the elaborate game their playing is showign Joseph that, on his morale terms, he ISN'T an exception. They're detsroying his self-belief.
Thus they show all the things he's done through his actions. Beating his informant. betraying his wife, using prostittues as peices of meat, ignorning his fmaily and being cold towards them. he betrays and potentially frames his partner and abandons his parents. Pinhead doesn't nessessarily care about all this but, ythe point is, Joseph DOES. And when confronted it utterly breaks his spirit, the shell of the man and as the film ends we're left with a broken, trapped man who has no faith in himself... he's suffering.
It's not a physical suffering but the Cenobites have eternity to know your flesh and this is as good a place to start as any, a mental break down before the real fun begins.
- Scarecrow
The Hellbound Web Hellraiser Forum - www.cenobite.com/forum/
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gnosis81
16 years ago
ooooh, okay.
i had to read your post 3 times before it actually sunk in!
thank you, that clears up many pot holes for me!!
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fallen_anakin
13 years ago
Not to sound cocky or anything but I understood it the first time I read it. But yeah basically Joseph's hell is his own torment and grief. Well at least there is one thing. He is not a sociopath. The reason why is that he would not be bothered by the guilt of things he did if he was a sociopath. The guy may be a little slimey but he does have a conscience. Ironically I think that if he WAS a sociopath the Cenobites would have left him alone. They knew that Joseph would be tormented when faced with what he did.
The scary clown doll is hiding under my bed.
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