Hellraiser: Revival is messed up, and that is meant in the best way. The franchise upon which it’s based on doesn’t pull punches, and has scared, aroused, disgusted, and interested people for four decades, and the game tries to follow suit in all regards.
From the very first minute till the last, it never lets up, and there are some truly horrifying and disturbing moments that will leave you wondering exactly how it didn’t get cut from the final game, and how likely it’ll be to outrage and shock people. This is a comprehensive list of the worst Hellraiser: Revival has to offer, in the best way.
WARNING: There are spoilers throughout this list, including specific endings spoilers. Read on if you’ve finished Hellraiser: Revival, or if you don’t care.
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1. Bruno’s Introduction
At the beginning of the game, after your introduction to the labyrinth, Pinhead and the other Cenobites, and Marlowe’s torturous introduction, you’ll have to escape the compound and save yourself. You’ll be naked, covered in cuts and bruises, and in need of some real help. Instead, as you’re exploring the compound and seeing everything they get up to, including murder, rituals that’d make some witches and Satanists squeamish, and much more I won’t spoil, you run into Bruno.
Or more appropriately, you first run into his office, where you have to figure out a unique nail skull puzzle, and can spectate as he tortures some unfortunate woman for his own enjoyment. Then, when you think it can’t get any worse, you head downstairs into the very room he’s in alongside her, and have to sneak through, the whole time hearing the sounds of discomfort and pain from her, and his gleeful pleasure of the whole ordeal. This isn’t the last time you’ll see Bruno, but as proper first impressions go, this is one that’ll be difficult to beat.
2. Charlotte’s Transformation
The unfortunate woman mentioned above? Well that’s Charlotte, and it turns out she may not have been quite the unwilling participant as you first thought. Later in the game after Bruno’s Introduction, you’ll have worked your way through a sex club and almost escaped the cult, but after a brief ethereal chat with Sunny, you’ll turn tail and head back in to grab the Lament Configuration Box.
You’ll end up in a Cult’s robe downstairs in a ritual chamber, with Marlowe, Bruno and a few other Cult members standing around staring at Charlotte all chained up, ready for her ‘transformation’. Pinhead and the other Cenobites turn up, judge her, and then disappear. She bursts into flames and then transforms into what can only be described as a mixture of human a Pterodactyl. It has to be seen to be believed, and the way she moves as she chases after you is horrifying.
3. Sean’s Ending
As you progress through the story, especially after Charlotte’s transformation, you’ll begin to find out a lot about her former partner. When you’re looking to pick up and find the three missing statue parts, there are numerous notes, recordings and photos involving the two’s history, and how Charlotte came to end up where she was, but also how Sean dealt with it all.
Unfortunately for Sean, as you come to the end of that section, and begin your fight with Charlotte for her heart, you find he has succumb to his worse thoughts, and given up. Hanging from a tree, still sorry to Charlotte at the very end, he chose the only way he thought he had left. After the previous hour or so of getting to know him, it’s a somber and depressing moment for the character, especially with the fight that follows.
4. The Circular Trip Through the House
Right after you’ve fought Charlotte, and in the midst of making your way through the labyrinth to give Sunny Charlotte’s heart, you’ll end up in a version of Aidan’s house. You’ll be working your way through the same layout time and again, seeing a different version each time, and unveiling more and more of the relationship between the two, and how it may not have been the rosy picture first shown in the game. Toxic and dangerous, it shows that not everything is as it seems on the surface. Plus, it’s just really creepy, especially THAT scene in the bathroom with the shower. You’ll know it.
5. Sunny’s Revival
The subtitle of the game will make a little more sense after this section of the game. You head into the Labyrinth at Pinhead’s behest, in order to find and save Sunny, your partner. Pinhead tells you that you need to give some blood for the revival ritual to work, and you do.
What spawns is Sunny, or rather, part of. She’s writhing in pain on the bed you shared only hours (in game time) earlier, as she’s naught but a skeleton and a few sinews. She’s begging Aidan for help as ‘it hurts so much’, and the groans and moans are acted a little too well, leaving a haunting mark on you long after you leave the room to help fulfil your promise to bring her back in full.
6. The Massacre at the Fetish Club
Sometime after you revive Sunny in Hellraiser: Revival, you’ll end up in the Cult’s Fetish club. Joined to the club you were in earlier, you’ll go through numerous different rooms and areas. At first, it’s empty bar a few Cult members determined to kill you, but when you make your second pass through it, you’ll come across hundreds – yes hundreds – of bodies seemingly out of nowhere.
These bodies are a mixture of The Unworthy, club-goers and the Cult members, but they are everywhere. Limbs strewn haphazardly, torsos in corners and heads rolling around in the toilets. It’s a proper massacre, and for the longest time it’s completely unexplained, at least until you get towards the end of the level, and that adds to the tension of what you’re going into. Brilliantly done, but unfortunate for the poor people in bits.
7. Sister of Mercy’s Death
Perhaps one of the only characters throughout the entirety of Hellraiser: Revival that you’ll feel sorry for, but the Sister of Mercy is like Charlotte, in the sense that she was promised much more from the transformation than she got. She expected to become an angel, but instead became a warped vision of… well, you’ll see. Her notes, recordings, and conversations with both you and Marlowe reveal that she’s not the full believer that every other devout follower is, and actually wants the cult to stop to a degree, and Marlowe to pull back on his own ascension as ‘the ritual doesn’t work’.
While she’s still a murderer, and a piece of work, she does show some humanity towards the end, and her death cutscene shows a different, vulnerable side to her that’ll have you questioning it, unlike the other boss fights you’re almost cheering for at the end.
8. Marlowe’s Transformation
Marlowe, the leader of the Cult, and a huge pain to Aidan, finally gets his comeuppance at the end of Hellraiser: Revival, although not completely at your hands. Long before the events of the game, he’s been attempting to ascend and make his way to becoming a Cenobite alongside Pinhead and Co. Unfortunately for him, all the signs he believed that were pointing towards him doing exactly that, he’s misunderstood and misconstrued.
Having forced Bruno into a rapid ascension rite for him, it all goes wrong, and after being chastised by Pinhead, he ends up transforming into a hulking mess of a monster, in a similar fashion to both the Sister of Mercy and Charlotte. His boss fight is as sad as it is the culmination of everything before it, with him whining and moaning about having things going wrong for him, it not being his fault, and how he’ll fix it. Needless to say, that doesn’t happen.
9. Sunny’s Betrayal
As you progress through Hellraiser: Revival, you’ll have saved Sunny from the Labyrinth, killed three senior Cult members for their hearts, and countless hundreds of others in the journey to them, and then she turns around and betrays you, admitting she’d made a deal right at the beginning, and she was manipulating you to her own ends.
Thematically, this isn’t exactly out of character, with the flashbacks and memories showcasing a toxic, less than idealistic relationship between the two, but after all the effort, sacrifice (including his right arm!), Aidan has been through, it was a disheartening, if not appropriate, ending to their relationship. It does leave you with a choice though.
10. The Endings
Thanks to Sunny and her own machinations, Pinhead has ascended to a new type of Cenobite, and takes Sunny and the other Cenobites into the innards of the Revealer – a new dimension full of new sensations, as he puts it. What comes next, we don’t know, but the choice is given to you. You can stay human, deal with life as it is, and try and move on, or follow Pinhead and Co into the new dimension, becoming a Cenobite and living a life absent of mediocrity, as one of them puts it.
Effectively, your choice becomes living with trauma, PTSD, and only one arm now, or becoming a twisted being devoid of anything other than sensation, pain and pleasure.
There are many more disturbing and disgusting moments in Hellraiser: Revival, believe me, but these make the cut as some of the worst. As film adaptations go, this game hasn’t pulled back and perfectly encapsulates what film-goers have known for years – Hellraiser can make even the best of us squeamish.
For your next read, check out our review of Hellraiser: Revival, or our top tips to make your life easier when playing.
Luke Addison is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Thumb Wars. Having previously been a part of multiple outlets over the years, including building an entire gaming team from nothing to something, he thought it best to forge his own path and answer only to himself. As likely to be found playing the latest game as he is in the kitchen relaxing (by cooking), he always brings the same bold and brash attitude to everything he does, with a heavy leaning on sarcasm and dry wit!
