Revelations is the ninth Hellraiser film, released in 2011.
Two friends disappear during their vacation in Mexico, and the truth behind it is about to wreck two families with Cenobite-related trickery.
Hellraiser: Revelations contains examples of:
- Brother–Sister Incest: Steven and Emma start kissing on his bed until she starts having disturbing flashes. Subverted; it later turns out to be her missing boyfriend Niko wearing her brother's skin. But she didn't know that, and still willingly made out with what she thought was her brother, which Niko calls her out on. This hints towards what Pinhead later says about Emma having a seed of twisted desires within her.
- Call-Back: To the first and second film:
- Niko is essentially a younger Frank, and even his first opening the box is a visual callback to Frank doing the same.
- Niko stealing someone else's skin, like Frank did in the first film. As did Kirsty in the second, albeit in a non-villainous way.
- The Cenobites are again pure Sense Freaks like in the first two films, without the Motive Decay of the later ones.
- As established in Hellbound, the Cenobites are not fooled into taking the wrong person when someone is forced to solve the box, instead focusing on the person whose idea it was.
- Deal with the Devil: Played with: Niko tries to make a deal with Pinhead like Kirsty did, but Pinhead takes one look at the person he wants to trade for himself and realizes she's the kind of person who will open the box of her own accord one day, thus making her worthless as a trade.
- Final Girl: Emma is the only character left alive after all is said and done.
- Foreshadowing:
- When Steven first shows up out of nowhere after being missing for so long, he appears to be completely shellshocked because of whatever's happened to him, and his dialog is very similar to the dialog Frank had with Julie when he first resurrected. It's a hint that "Steven" is actually the character who takes Frank's place in the plot, wearing Steven's skin.
- Emma making out with her brother (even though it turns out not to be her brother later on) hints at what Pinhead's opinion of her will be.
- Here We Go Again!: The way Emma contemplates the box at the very end after she's become the Final Girl and the Cenobites have left suggests that Pinhead's assessment of her is right on the money; despite knowing the consequences, she will indeed open the box of her own free will to escape her severe dissatisfaction with everything a normal life can offer.
- Irony: The flashbacks to Niko and Steven's trip make it clear that Niko is the insatiable hedonist who bullies an increasingly disturbed Steven into going along with whatever he does. In the end, it turns out Steven is far more receptive to the Cenobites than Niko.
- Karma Houdini: See Nice Job Breaking It, Hero, below. By killing Niko, Ross ensues that he won’t suffer eternally at the hands of the Cenobites. What was meant as Revenge Before Reason accidentally becomes a Mercy Kill.
- Little "No": Pinhead sure likes to overuse this trope for some reason, which is something that Phelous found amusing in his review of this film.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Just before Pinhead drags Niko away, Ross shoots him, saying that he has more of a claim to Niko's life than anyone. Niko thanks him with his last breath, as he's now spared an eternity with the Cenobites. Pinhead, annoyed, promptly explains to Ross that the suffering Niko would've endured is beyond what vengeance would call for, and calls him out for having acted purely out of a selfish need to be the instrument of vengeance himself. To satiate their appetite and claim their debt of flesh, they take his wife as a replacement for Niko. Oh, and Ross is slowly dying of blood loss, so his last moments alive are with the knowledge that he condemned his wife to a Fate Worse than Death.
- Take Me Instead: Defied. Ross pleads with Pinhead to take him instead of his wife; Pinhead is uninterested.
- That Man Is Dead: Explained by Pinhead about Steven at the end of the film, when he appears in front of everyone in his Cenobite form. It is further affirmed by Steven not hesitating to mutilate Niko's mother and not sparing his mother, despite remembering his blood relation to her.
- Twist Ending: The second Pinhead is Steven, the skin-stealing trick hasn't fooled Pinhead at all, and Niko's bargaining chip is worthless.
- Wham Line: During the climax:Pinhead: Trade? No.
