Uncle Frank Is Back From Hell and Somehow Still Horny: Frank Cotton Enters the Hall of Killers
There are easier ways to deal with boredom than purchasing a mysterious puzzle box and opening a gateway to an extradimensional realm of sadomasochistic torture. Take up golf. Buy an air fryer. Start collecting stamps. Frank Cotton, unfortunately, is not a man interested in sensible hobbies. The human monster at the centre of Clive Barker’s Hellraiser has already exhausted most conventional pleasures when we meet him, so he goes looking for something stronger. What he finds is the Lament Configuration, the Cenobites and the fairly important life lesson that when a strange bloke sells you a magical box promising pleasures beyond human imagination, perhaps ask whether the package includes being ripped into approximately 400 pieces.
Frank Cotton is now bringing that spectacular record of poor decision-making to the Hall of Killers, where he takes his place in the Second Class Tier. Frank might have been overshadowed by Pinhead in the decades since Hellraiser was released in 1987, but go back to Clive Barker’s original film and there is no question who is causing most of the domestic unpleasantness. Pinhead and his fellow Cenobites might have chains, hooks and a dress code suggesting the world’s least welcoming nightclub, but Frank is the selfish, manipulative bastard actually driving much of the story. Without Uncle Frank, the Cotton family could presumably have spent the film arguing about wallpaper and whose turn it was to put the kettle on. Instead, people are being murdered upstairs and a skinless sex pest is living beneath the floorboards.
Uncle Frank Has Found a New Hobby
Frank’s problems begin because ordinary pleasure simply isn’t doing the job anymore. His pursuit of increasingly extreme experiences leads him to the Lament Configuration, which he takes back to the Cotton family home and solves in the attic. The box works. This is important because normally when you buy something mysterious from a bloke in a foreign marketplace, the biggest danger is discovering you’ve paid £300 for something available in B&M for £12.99. Frank gets exactly what he paid for, except his definition of ultimate pleasure and the Cenobites’ definition turn out to have some fairly significant differences. Hooks tear into his flesh, chains pull him apart and the Cenobites collect what remains.
It should be noted that Frank isn’t some innocent fool who accidentally presses the wrong button while trying to programme the boiler. He actively seeks the box because ordinary experience no longer satisfies him. That distinction is crucial to Hellraiser. Frank’s supernatural punishment doesn’t suddenly transform a lovely bloke into a monster. He was already selfish, predatory and willing to use other people before the Cenobites arrived. Opening the Lament Configuration merely introduces him to several individuals who are even more enthusiastic about extreme experiences than he is, which must have been particularly irritating.
Getting torn apart should have concluded Frank’s Hall of Killers application before we’d even printed it, but Hellraiser has other plans. Frank’s brother Larry later moves into the house with his wife Julia and accidentally cuts his hand while moving furniture. His blood spills onto the floor where Frank was taken, triggering one of the greatest resurrection sequences in horror cinema. Frank begins rebuilding himself beneath the floorboards, emerging as a hideous collection of bones, muscle and exposed tissue. Most families discovering something like that in the spare room would immediately contact the police, an exorcist and possibly Rightmove. Julia has a slightly different reaction because she recognises the creature as the man she previously had an affair with.
Julia, Could You Pick Up Some Milk and Three Murder Victims?
Frank needs blood to reconstruct his body, and Julia agrees to help him get it. She begins bringing unsuspecting men back to the house under the pretence of sex before attacking them and providing their bodies to Frank. With every victim, more of Frank returns. Flesh, muscle and tissue gradually rebuild around him until he looks increasingly human, although for quite some time he resembles somebody who has ignored every piece of advice on the back of a packet of sun cream.
This arrangement also tells us everything necessary about Frank’s relationship with Julia. She is risking everything and committing murder after murder to restore him, while Frank treats her principally as a useful delivery service with surprisingly flexible opening hours. Whatever Julia thinks existed between them, Frank’s priorities remain Frank, followed by Frank, with Frank in a very respectable third place. Romance is alive and well in the Cotton household, although several of its participants no longer have skin.
Then Kirsty discovers what is happening. She encounters the partially regenerated Frank and escapes with the Lament Configuration, eventually solving it herself while recovering in hospital. Unfortunately, this summons the Cenobites, who aren’t particularly interested in whether she read the instructions first. Kirsty saves herself by revealing that Frank escaped them and offering to lead them back to him. The Cenobites suddenly discover that their favourite missing customer has checked out without settling his bill.
Frank’s response to the situation is exactly as reasonable as everything else he has done. He murders his own brother.
And then he wears him.
Frank Cotton, Family Man
After killing Larry, Frank takes his brother’s skin and uses it as a disguise. This means Andrew Robinson effectively becomes Frank during the final section of the film, joining Sean Chapman, who portrays Frank in his human form, and Oliver Smith, who plays the resurrected Frank. Most horror villains are lucky to get one memorable appearance. Frank manages three different actors in the same movie because even his face has commitment issues.
There is something wonderfully horrible about how far Frank’s betrayal of Larry goes. Sleeping with your brother’s wife is already going to make Christmas dinner awkward. Murdering him and wearing his skin crosses a line even the most forgiving family WhatsApp group is unlikely to recover from. Frank attempts to convince Kirsty that he is still her father, but she eventually realises what has happened and his increasingly unstable disguise begins betraying him.
Things get even worse for Julia. During the confrontation, Frank accidentally stabs her while trying to kill Kirsty. After everything Julia has done to bring him back, Frank doesn’t exactly drop the knife and begin composing an apology. He consumes what he can from her and continues after Kirsty. Julia has murdered multiple men for him, protected him while he regenerated and helped him escape Hell, and Frank responds to her death with roughly the emotional devastation of discovering Deliveroo forgot the garlic bread.
Fortunately, Kirsty has already contacted the closest thing this universe has to customer services.
The Cenobites arrive.
Jesus Wept
Frank’s escape finally ends exactly where it began. The Cenobites catch him with their hooked chains and prepare to reclaim their missing prisoner. Frank, having escaped Hell, consumed multiple victims, murdered his brother, stolen his skin, betrayed Julia and attempted to kill Kirsty, discovers that perhaps keeping a low profile would have been the wiser strategy. He is torn apart again, bringing his extraordinarily messy return to life full circle.
Even that doesn’t completely finish Uncle Frank. He returns in Hellbound: Hellraiser II, where Kirsty is tricked into believing her father might be trapped in Hell. Instead, she discovers Frank, who has lured her there. His personal Hell is beautifully appropriate: Frank is surrounded by the promise of sexual gratification but can never actually reach it. For a man whose entire downfall began because normal pleasure wasn’t enough, eternal frustration feels less like supernatural punishment and more like somebody at Hell Headquarters really did their homework.
Julia eventually turns the tables on him in Hellbound. The woman Frank once manipulated has become considerably more powerful, and their reunion ends with her killing him. Once again, Frank discovers that exploiting everyone around you is a business model with surprisingly poor long-term prospects.
Second Class for the Man Beneath the Floorboards
Frank Cotton deserves Second Class because, despite appearing principally in the first two films, his importance to the original Hellraiser is enormous. Pinhead became the franchise icon, but Frank is the engine of Barker’s first film. His search for extreme pleasure brings the Cenobites into his life, his resurrection leads Julia to murder for him, his betrayal destroys his brother, and his attempt to remain free puts Kirsty directly in the path of the Lament Configuration. The Cenobites may have ended up on the posters, lunchboxes and T-shirts, but Frank is the horrible little family problem that sets everything moving.
He is also responsible for some of Hellraiser’s most unforgettable imagery. His reconstruction beneath the floorboards remains an extraordinary piece of practical body horror, while the skinless Frank is almost as visually memorable as Barker’s Cenobites. More importantly, the supernatural doesn’t provide an excuse for his behaviour. Frank doesn’t become awful because he opens the box. He opens the box because being Frank Cotton has already taken him about as far as conventional human depravity can go, and he wants to see whether there’s a premium membership available.
So welcome to the Hall of Killers, Frank Cotton, where a place in Second Class is waiting. Please make yourself comfortable, keep your hands away from any suspicious puzzle boxes and refrain from sleeping with the wives of other inductees. We appreciate that last request may prove difficult, but there are rules here.
And Frank, one final administrative matter. You absolutely cannot wear another member’s skin to move into a higher tier. We’ve checked. It still counts as Second Class.
