In the original Hellraiser movie, Kirsty Cotton comes face to terrifying face with The Engineer, one of Hell's strangest and creepiest creatures. Seeing as it hails from the delightfully twisted mind of Clive Barker, it's no wonder that the Hellraiser movie universe is one of the most visually striking in horror history. It's also no wonder that Hellraiser is probably the mainstream franchise with the most "WTF?" moments in horror history, regularly featuring imagery likely to drop the jaw of even some of the most jaded fright fans.
This is especially true of the first two Hellraiser films, which also happen to be the ones Barker personally had a hand in crafting. Barker wrote and directed the first Hellraiser, based on his own novella The Hellbound Heart. Barker then wrote the story for, and executive produced, 1988's Hellbound: Hellraiser 2. Afterward, the quality of the series quickly dropped off, and it's probably not a coincidence that happened after Barker exited the creative side.
One memorable character introduced in the first Hellraiser movie, but sadly never seen in any of the sequels, was The Engineer, an inhuman monster encountered by Kirsty. The Engineer is a triumph of monster design, even if some of the special effects making it move aren't the greatest, and it's worth looking into its background.
It's unclear how exactly The Engineer came to be, but it is known that it isn't the only member of its kind. Some popular theories have held that The Engineer was once a person, and was actually the first human to open the gates of Hell thousands of years ago. The time it's spent in Hell since, under the influence of the lord Leviathan, has twisted and changed The Engineer into its current form, the hideous monster seen in Hellraiser the movie.
Oddly enough, in Barker's story The Hellbound Heart, The Engineer is presented completely differently, and is actually the leader of the Cenobites that Kirsty encounters, not Pinhead. It also creates the various torture devices used by the Cenobites on those condemned to Hell, and is in charge of making sure the Lament Configuration makes its way to a new person after its previous user has been claimed. In one particular Hellraiser comic, it was implied that The Engineer was in fact a creature from an inner circle of Hell, and was an ancient demon that had always been there. Still, there's no specific official canon explanation for its birth or existence.
It's not entirely clear why The Engineer is called that in the movie universe, or what exactly the creature does. It seemingly attempts to eat Kirsty, chasing her down a corridor while gnashing its giant teeth, but beyond another quick appearance near the end of the first Hellraiser, it's never onscreen again. The Engineer was actually supposed to be featured in Hellbound: Hellraiser 2 as well, but its scenes were deleted from the final cut for unknown reasons.
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