- "I'm taking over this operation, and you girls will be my first patients."
- — The Doctor (Philip Channard transformed as a Cenobite) in Hellbound: Hellraiser II
The Doctor was a malevolent Cenobite that served as a willing servant of Leviathan, the lord of Hell. As a human, Dr. Philip Channard was a co-founder of the famed Channard Institute. He spent a lifetime trying to unlock damaged minds when in truth his own mind was the most damaged of all. He became obsessed with his collection and documentation of the puzzle boxes that had such history attached to them. Using the wisdom he gained, Phillip used a mental patient as an offering atop of the mattress that Julia was murdered on to bring her back to life. The doctor continues to feed Julia until she is regenerated.
Dr. Channard then takes a young mute girl from his institute, to solve the puzzle to the box. Once solved The Box summoned the Cenobites and opened a gateway to a giant labyrinth. Within the labyrinth, Channard is forced by Julia into a Cenobite machine. Leviathan (the Lord of the Labyrinth) gave him his rebirth and obliged him to execute all of his putrid fantasies.
History[]
Youth[]
As a young boy, Philip Channard found out he had a certain bloodlust as he found himself mutilating a small animal which he killed. This form of animal abuse in childhood is a common trait among serial killers and an early indicator of psychopathy. This would set the wheels in motion for future events.
As a start to his journey into the abyss, and inspired by his dark past, Channard became a celebrated neurologist and co-founded the famed institute for the mentally unstable called the Channard Institute. He spent a lifetime trying to unlock damaged minds, when in truth, his own mind was the most damaged of all. He became obsessed with his collection and documentation of the Puzzle Boxes, malefic devices that could supposedly open the pathway to Hell, and much of the history that was attached to these dark relics. For years, Channard secretly experimented and abused the mentally unstable to help him unlock the secrets to Hell.
Hellbound: Hellraiser II[]
A young Philip Channard mutilating a small animal
Still haunted by the terrible experience and visions of unspeakable horror that destroyed her family, Kirsty Cotton has been admitted to the Channard Institute, a psychiatric institute run by the noted neurologist and psychiatrist, Doctor Philip Channard. Interviewed by Dr. Channard and his assistant, Kyle MacRae, Kirsty tells her account of the events depicted in the first Hellraiser film, and pleads with them to destroy the bloody mattress her murderous stepmother, Julia Cotton, died upon. Despite her frantic urging, MacRae is the only one who seems to believe Kirsty.
Kyle discover Channard's obsession - his collection of several Puzzle Boxes.
However, it is later revealed that the obsessive Dr. Channard has been searching for the Lament Configuration for years. He also keeps several mentally disturbed patients locked in the maintenance level of the hospital. Suspicious of Channard's intentions, the doctor's assistant sneaks into his house and discovers Channard's obsession with the secrets of Hell - including a collection of various Puzzle Boxes and diagrams depicting various body parts, as well as a chalkboard with mysterious writing on it.
After hearing Kirsty's tale, Channard has the mattress that Julia died on, brought to his home. Kyle witnesses Channard bringing back a deranged patient (from the maintenance level) and has him lie on the bloodstained mattress. He then proceeds to cut himself deeply with a straight edged razor. The resulting bloodflow frees Julia from Hell, as it did with Frank Cotton in the first film, though Julia's physical form is immediately whole, albeit without her skin, due to the amount of blood. Kyle watches on in abject terror, horrified by what he's witnessed.
Meanwhile, Kirsty meets a young patient named Tiffany, a young patient who has suffered severe trauma and become mute, having not spoken for years. However, she demonstrates an amazing aptitude for solving puzzles and becomes one of Dr. Channard's favorite patients. Lusting for knowledge about Hell, Channard brings Julia more corpses for her to feed on, and slowly reforms her body as she gets her skin back. Julia instructs Channard to have Tiffany open the gateway to Hell by having her solve the Lament Configuration so she could show Channard the sights of the Labyrinth.
Kyle goes back and informs Kirsty about what he saw and that he now believes her. They go to the house together and Kirsty finds a picture of Captain Elliot Spencer before he became the Hell Priest, Pinhead. Kyle heads to the attic and discovers the grisly remains of several bodies. Julia, now completely regenerated, appears and kills him, consuming his essence and completing her regeneration. Kirsty hears the commotion and rushes up to the attic, and walks in on the scene. Horrified and enraged, Kirsty attacks Julia, but is knocked unconscious.
Channard kidnaps Tiffany and he and Julia use her as a proxy to unlock the Lament Configuration puzzle box and enter the world of Pinhead and the Cenobites. Here it is learned that the act of opening the Lament Configuration is not in and of itself reason to be targeted by the Cenobites. As Pinhead states, stopping his fellow Cenobites from attacking Tiffany, it is "not hands that call [them], but desire." Thus, it was Channard's desire who made him use Tiffany to open the box and he is the Cenobites´ target. When Kirsty enters Channard's office, she finds the box Tiffany had used and frantically tries to return it to its normal configuration. The Cenobites find her, Pinhead seizing the opportunity to change the box to a more complex configuration and lock open the doors to the labyrinth. Pinhead tells Kirsty she is free to explore the maze but they'll be waiting to capture and torture her.
Transformation[]
- "...and to think, I hesitated."
- — The Doctor Cenobite, upon exiting the Creation Chamber, after being transformed by Leviathan.
Channard undergoes the painful transformation into a Cenobite
Channard and Julia enter the Labyrinth of Hell, which is run by the god Leviathan, who dwells in the shape of a gigantic version of the Lament Configuration, an elongated lozenge rotating in space above the labyrinth and emanating black beams which makes Channard remember some of the atrocities he has committed. Julia calls Leviathan the "god of flesh, hunger, and desire...Lord of the Labyrinth." Julia betrays Channard to the Labyrinth to be turned into a Cenobite, revealing she has a mission to bring souls to Leviathan, including Channard's. She tricks him into a large chamber resembling the Lament Configuration box itself where he is attacked by large, bulbous, stinger-laden apparatuses that pump him full of vile fluids and wrap piercing wires across his face.
The Doctor Unleashed[]
Dr. Channard, following his transformation into the Doctor Cenobite
When released, Dr. Channard had been transformed into the Doctor Cenobite, a being of pure evil bent on enacting Channard's deepest sadistic fantasies. Typically, when a Cenobite is created, they have no memory of their past life until reminded explicitly that they have not always been what they currently are. Channard, however, was very different from his Cenobitic colleagues. He remembers everything from his past life, including his former career path, which he remembers so vividly he speaks almost exclusively in doctor's humor. He looks different from his counterparts, as well. They all had gray or flesh tone skin, whereas he was turned blue. He was further modified by the Leviathan itself by means of connecting the Doctor to itself with a phallic cord, which drills itself into the Cenobite's skull and attaches it to the back of the Doctor's head, thus making the Doctor an extension of itself. Kirsty and Tiffany make their escape back to the hospital but the Doctor Cenobite finds them and gives chase.
Kirsty encounters Pinhead's Gash including - Butterball, Chatterer II, and the Female Cenobite. Kirsty gives Pinhead the picture of Elliot Spencer and reminds them that they were all human at one time, until pain got the better of them and Leviathan erased their minds. The Doctor Cenobite arrives to capture Tiffany, while the remaining Cenobites all choose to protect Kirsty. Feeling sympathetic toward Tiffany and Kirsty's plight, Pinhead's Gash attempt to defend them by confronting the Doctor and Pinhead himself attempts to kill him. Pinhead attacks Channard with hooked chains but the doctor severs them with his tentacles and razors. Because they have chosen to protect Tiffany and Kirsty, they have willingly disobeyed the agenda of Hell and can no longer be trusted as Leviathan's agents. Channard then begins shooting spears and kills the other three Cenobites (reverting them back to human form) and turns Pinhead's face into his human form, Elliot. Elliot smiles at Kirsty and allows her to escape before Channard slits his throat.
Leviathan takes direct control of the Doctor Cenobite
In the time it took to destroy Pinhead's Gash, Tiffany and Kirsty fled Pinhead's torture room and stumbled upon Julia's skin, retrieved the reconfigured puzzle box Tiffany solved and found their way to the top of the Labyrinth were the Leviathan is located. Tiffany then attempts to solve the reconfigured puzzle box, however, the Doctor intervenes, Kirsty attempts to protect Tiffany but is thrown aside causing Tiffany to drop the puzzle box. The Doctor then attempts to herd Tiffany into the Creation Chamber by brandishing bladed weapons at her. Once transformed into a servant of Leviathan, she would then be incorporated into the Order of the Gash as a Cenobite.
However, Kirsty later tricks Doctor Channard by donning the deceased Julia's skin, giving Tiffany the opportunity to finish the Lament Configuration puzzle, killing Doctor Channard, altering Leviathan into the box shape of a Lament Configuration, and allowing them to return home and close the gate between the two worlds.
Kirsty and Tiffany leave the now unoccupied hospital. Two men are removing what remains in the doctor's house and one of the movers comes across a blood-stained mattress on the floor. As he bends down to examine it, two arms reach out from the pool of blood, killing him as they withdraw, taking his upper half with them. When the second mover finally enters and observes the scene, a large spinning pillar rises from the bloody floor, decorated with several Cenobite faces inset, including Pinhead's. Staring at the ghastly faces, one of them (the vagrant from the first film) speaks to the mover, asking his usual question: "What is your pleasure, sir?".
Reckoning[]
The tattoo of the Doctor Cenobite on one of the massive folds of Griot
After the Vasa Iniquitatis won the battle against chaos, Praetor Abatur held a tribunal to weigh the innocence of their hearts. Griot III came to record the outcome, and he read off some of the events Pinhead was involved in, one of which was dealing with Dr. Channard/Doctor Cenobite.
Physical Appearance & Behavior[]
Before his transformation, Dr. Channard appeared as a normal human male in his early to mid forties. As a Cenobite, he was clad in the same black leather garments as all Cenobites and had deathly grayish blue skin. Metal wires, similar to cheese wire wrapped around his head, cutting into the flesh. An impossibly long tentacle had clamped itself to his head and seemed to carry him everywhere, making it appear as though he were floating above the ground. This tentacle also contained what appeared to be a giant lobotomy drill, which would constantly shred and rearrange Channard's brain matter, keeping him completely deranged.
As a human, Channard was cold and calculating, feeling no empathy or care for any of his patients. He was endlessly fascinated by the Lament Configuration and desired to unlock the secrets of Hell, and when he became a Cenobite, he embraced the pleasurable tortures that Hell offered and gleefully shared the gift of suffering with others. When attacking, Channard would let out a disturbing, resonating cry.
Abilities[]
The Doctor Cenobite appeared to move by levitation, but he was actually being carried everywhere by a monstrous tentacle that extended from the depths of the Labyrinth. He would attack by sprouting thin, black tentacles from his hands which would end in spikes or blades and other implements of pain. He could launch these tentacles as projectiles to skewer his victims.
Trivia[]
- It is unknown how Channard got so many unknown puzzle boxes in his possession. It can be assumed that like the others before him, he traveled the world hunting for these boxes, convincing those who gave them to him that he wanted to solve its secrets the traditional way, only to then collect them and study their separate behaviors by giving them out to the patients of his mental hospital. He would do this most likely to see what they did without putting his own life in danger.
- Dr. Channard's fascination with the occult is apparent during scenes featuring a room in his house dubbed by cast and crew as the 'obsession room'. Notable features include the following: Various drawings and paintings of occult symbols, a chalkboard covered in both astrological and occult symbols, organs in jars, pencil drawing of faces in pain, Egyptian symbols and drawings of pyramids, three replicas of the lament configuration in bell jars, an anatomical poster of a skinless man, an alter, a replica skinless body in a glass case laying in the supine position. He also has a scrapbook containing more hand drawn pictures of the lament configuration, several newspaper clippings with titles such as 'Children of the Vortex,' 'Puberty and the Link with Psychic Phenomena,' 'The Labyrinth of the Mind' and 'Is Death the Fourth Dimension?'. The scrapbook most notably contains a photograph of Captain Elliot Spencer, Pinhead's former human self.
Notable Quotes[]
- "The mind is a labyrinth, ladies and gentlemen, a puzzle. And while the paths of the brain are plainly visible, its ways deceptively apparent, its destinations are unknown. Its secrets still secret, and, if we are honest, it is the lure of the labyrinth that draws us to our chosen field. To unlock those secrets. Others have been here before us and have left us signs, but we, as explorers of the mind, must devote our lives and energies to going further. To tread the unknown corridors in order to find ultimately, the final solution. We have to see. We have to know."
- — Dr. Philip Channard, Hellbound: Hellraiser II
- "The doctor is in."
- — The Doctor Cenobite, Hellbound: Hellraiser II
- "I recommend amputation."
- — The Doctor Cenobite, Hellbound: Hellraiser II
- "And to think, I hesitated."
- — The Doctor Cenobite, Hellbound: Hellraiser II
Sources[]
- Hellbound: Hellraiser II (Film)
- Clive Barker's Hellraiser #16 - Devil's Brigade, Part Seventeen: Hell Hath No Fury, This, I Saw, Devil's Brigade Finale: Reckoning
Gallery[]
