Frank Cotton cannot squeeze enough pleasure out of life. He lives for pleasure. Pleasure is his god, and his god doesn't deliver. So he longs forbidden occult pleasures that will "redefine the parameters of sensation" and "release him from the dull round of desire, seduction and disappointment that had dogged him from late adolescence" (5). By manipulating the puzzle of Lamarchand's box he creates a gate for the Cenobites to enter his world. But the pleasure they revel in is torturous pain. Scars and punctures cover their bodies. In them "he saw nothing of joy, or even humanity, in their maimed faces: only desperation, and an appetites that made his bowels ache to be voided" (7).
This is the book that was the basis for the movie Hellraiser. It is a chilling look at the destructiveness of unchecked lust.
Some people find it funny that I love horror so much, but this book is a perfect example of why I do. Horror is really nothing more than simplified morality tales. In this case, Frank Cotton's selfishness is his own undoing. In one passage, we discover how shriveled his soul actually is: "he had encountered nothing in his life - no person, no state of mind or body - he wanted sufficiently to suffer even passing discomfort for" (59). The hedonist meets a fitting and hellish demise.
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