Hellraiser Movies to Watch Before Hellraiser: Revival

By Morgan Vale · Updated October 6, 2026

There are eleven Hellraiser films. Hellraiser: Revival uses two of them. The developers repeat it in every interview: they went back to the novella and “the first and second movie”, and “tried to blinker other influences out”.

The short list

That is the whole list. The game takes place about 20 years after the first movie, and the developers say there are no cameos from Frank, Kirsty or Julia.

What to know if you watch nothing

• The box: puzzle boxes open a door to another dimension. In the films it is the Lament Configuration; the game introduces a new one, the Genesis Configuration.
• The Cenobites: beings who took sensation so far that pain and pleasure became the same thing. They do not see themselves as evil; they give people the experience they asked for. “Demons to some, angels to others.”
• Pinhead: their leader, the Hell Priest. Calm, articulate, more interested in suffering than killing. In the later films he was once a man named Elliot Spencer.
• The Labyrinth and Leviathan: an endless realm of corridors and personal torment, ruled by the geometric god Leviathan. The game goes there.

Should you watch the rest?

Fans on the Hellraiser subreddit have been counting down to launch with one film a day, so there is plenty of discussion if you want to go further. The 2022 reboot is its own continuity. None of it is needed for Revival.

The other Pinhead game

If you have played Dead by Daylight, its Pinhead chapter (2021 to 2025) was a separate licence and is not connected to Revival’s story.

Next: the game’s story and characters, spoiler-free