Why Rick & Morty’s Hellraiser Spoof Worked Despite Being So Difficult

Although Rick & Morty has spoofed plenty of iconic horror movies, the show’s Hellraiser parody is one of few takedowns of the franchise that actually succeeded. Adult Swim’s animated hit Rick & Morty has parodied all manner of genre fare. The anarchic series has a soft spot for horror, in particular, taking apart everything from slasher movies to vampire stories over its five seasons.

Usually, Rick & Morty pokes fun at horror conventions, tropes, or franchises by focusing on their internal logic. For example, The Purge parody featured on Rick & Morty ended up unintentionally predicting a later movie in the franchise as Morty questioned whether the Purge was an immediate success, or if citizens required some convincing about its potential efficacy. This approach helped Rick & Morty create one of few successful Hellraiser parodies in season 5.

Originally created by iconic author Clive Barker, the ‘80s horror franchise Hellraiser is infamously tricky to parody thanks to its twisted premise, extreme gore, and mature themes. The idea of sadomasochistic demons who derive sexual pleasure from torturing and mutilating human victims isn’t as easy to laugh at as, for example, cornier villains like Freddy Krueger or Jason Voorhees. However, by poking fun at the idea of its villains mixing pleasure with pain and using this to undermine their scare factor, Rick & Morty managed to make the Cenobites funny in a way that no earlier spoofs of the famous series could pull off.

Much like Rick & Morty’s heist movie parody pointed out the silliness inherent in the crime movie sub-genre, the show’s approach to Cenobites made their creepy conceit much less frightening by having the demons thrilled by awkward social faux pas as much as gorier types of pain. Typically, parodies of Hellraiser focused on spoofing the recognizable appearance of Pinhead and his minions, but Rick & Morty kept the Cenobites looking typically gross while turning their taste for agony into a love of cringeworthy moments. It was a subversion of what constitutes “pain” for the Hellraiser villains and one that made the once-intimidating villains impossible to take seriously.

Furthermore, while many of Rick & Morty’s season 5 stories leaned toward the more poignant side of things, the show’s Hellraiser parody was also helped by the surrounding episode having a particularly silly premise. The idea that Rick would defeat the demons by pointing out the internal inconsistency of their love of pain drew even more attention to how little sense there is underpinning the iconic monsters, making Cenobites even harder to take seriously. Even lovers of the Hellraiser franchise were hard-pressed to explain exactly how pain would work on a demon that feels pain as pleasure, ensuring that the spoof managed to defang the horrors of the famous series. Between this and discovering that the seemingly ferocious Cenobites enjoy an embarrassing gaffe as much as gruesome torture, Rick & Mortyensured that fans of Hellraiser will never be able to take the movies seriously again.

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Cathal Gunning
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Cathal Gunning has been writing about movies and TV online since 2020. His obsessions include The Simpsons, Stephen King, the Scream series, and the horror genre in general. He has spent more time thinking about Stranger Things than the writers of Stranger Things, and he has never seen a Star War.

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