This article contains mild spoilers for Hellraiser.Despite being known by audiences as "Pinhead," the name of Jamie Clayton's character in the 2022 Hellraiser remake is actually "the Priest." Referred to colloquially as Pinhead, the main antagonist of the Hellraiser film franchise has become one of the most famous figures in horror cinema, even with the series severely dropping in quality after the 1987 original. With the acclaimed 2022 remake, Clayton maintains the Cenobite leader's reputation, but the movie doesn't lean into the character's popular nickname.
The Pinhead character originated in Clive Barker's novella The Hellbound Heart in 1986 and then appeared in the first Hellraiser movie a year later, written and directed by the author himself. In that installment, the part was played by Doug Bradley, whose performance as the lead Cenobite proved so popular that he would go on to appear in every Hellraiser movie afterward. Bradley left the franchise with 2005's Hellraiser: Hellworld, after which the character would be portrayed by other actors in further entries, most notably Sense8's Jamie Clayton in David Bruckner's 2022 Hellraiser reboot.
Pinhead is the popular name used to refer to the lead Cenobite character in the Hellraiser franchise, yet neither Doug Bradley's original portrayal nor Jamie Clayton's iteration actually goes by that moniker. In Hellraiser 2022, Jamie Clayton's character is named the Priest, keeping with the portrayal in Clive Barker's novels The Hellbound Heart and its sequel, The Scarlet Gospels, where the lead Cenobite is called "the Hell Priest." The use of the name the Priest also helps to develop the religious allusions present in the Hellraiser reboot as well as in Barker's original work.
How Pinhead Became The Name Used In The Hellraiser Franchise
Pinhead became the name used for the character in the Hellraiser franchise thanks to the crew working on the first movie. It began as a nickname used by the production team to refer to Doug Bradley's lead Cenobite character. Eventually, the name Pinhead even appeared on the film's call sheets to refer to the role. The nickname was then discovered and adopted by Hellraiser fans, to such a degree that the name Pinhead was actually used to refer to the character on screen in Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth and several of the other, lesser sequels.
Although the name Pinhead has stuck with Hellraiser fans and become the character's moniker as far as pop culture is concerned, Clive Barker's 2015 sequel novel The Scarlet Gospels revealed that the Hell Priest despises the nickname. This echoes the author's own opinion on the name, as Barker hates its connection to the character. He feels that a nickname like Pinhead is undignified for such a serious character. Fortunately for the author, David Brucker's 2022 Hellraiser remake honors Barker's wishes by referring to Jamie Clayton's character as "the Priest," instead of as "Pinhead."