(from Hellraiser - 1987)

Manufacturer: Screamin’ Models

Sculptor: Thomas Kuntz

Material: Vinyl

Scale: 1/4

The Pinhead Cenobite has become one of the most iconic figures in the horror genre. The Cenobites first appeared in a short story conceived in the twisted mind of Clive Barker. The story was developed into the film Hellraiser and once on the silver screen, they captured the fear that walks the fine line between pleasure and pain. Pinhead, in particular, embodies the ultimate evil.

This kit is one of the first models I built when I got back into model building in the late ‘80s. At the time, Screamin’ was one of the leading kit producers of licensed products. This gave them the opportunity to do large, mass production runs of kits and sell them on the open market. Unfortunately they no longer exist but they had a great line of kits.

Pinhead was a 2 piece vinyl kit that stands a whopping 18” tall when assembled. The casting was clean and neat, no air bubbles or pinholes. The parts joined at the waist and the fit was good requiring very little putty work. Kuntz captured the likeness very effectively and the overall sculpt is good. The pose is a bit static but let’s face it, Pinhead didn’t exactly dance around in the film so there’s not a lot of action associated with the character anyway. This is his classic pose.

The one issue I had with the kit was the area between the hands and the body. The mold was solid in that area leaving a large, triangular shaped space that shouldn’t be there. I’m sure it was done for ease of casting which in turn leads to cost effectiveness. But for me it was a bother. I didn’t want it there so I proceeded to cut and remove the vinyl which left a gaping hole that had to be filled and puttied. It was not a huge task and now the arms and hands are separated from the body as they should be.  I filled the bottom half of the kit with plaster of Paris to give it some weight.  

The other things I wanted to change on this kit were the tools of torture that were provided. These were shapes that you had to punch out of thin cardboard. These were extremely cheesy to me so I decided to make some of my own out of miscellaneous pieces of wood, metal, hooks, old x-acto blades, etc. Once completed these were strung around his waist.

In an effort to detail the kit as much as possible I added small fish hooks to the wounds on his chest as they were in the film.  The pins for his head were provided by the manufacturer and worked well. The only trick is to get them in at the right angle to keep the spread of the pins consist. I heated the tips a bit so they would push into the vinyl a little easier.

I painted the entire kit by hand with acrylics. I used a few washes and dry brushing to pull out some detail. Because of Pinhead’s costume there is only so much you can do with in color spectrum. Rendering the head, face and wounds was where you get to have some fun.

The box was a plain, plastic cube with stickers. Nothing elaborate but it gets the job done.