9 Once Terrifying Horror Villains Rendered Lame By Sequels

Pinhead is one of those instantly iconic characters who sears himself into your brain, which is probably why he adorned the posters for the original Hellraiser. This is despite the fact he's not the main villain (that’s Frank), he's only got about ten minutes of screentime and he wasn’t even called Pinhead back then; he’s credited as Lead Cenobite.

He was a terrifying, otherworldly figure who delighted in inflicting pain, and unlike most villains he's quite chatty. The sequel explored his backstory some more but wisely kept him as a looming threat. It was clearly only after the second movie that producers realised his popularity, and set out to exploit it.

He turns into a wise-cracking Freddy figure in part three, went to space in part four and straight to video for the next five movies. He lost his menace somewhere around part three, and not even the best efforts of actor Doug Bradley could help.

It's doubtful the next film - subtitled Judgement - will do much to restore his dignity.