Pinhead VS Tall Man (Hellraiser VS Phantasm) Multiverse Match Prediction Blog

“Hell is empty and all the devils are here.”

- William Shakespeare

Pinhead, demon to some, angel to others, but you may refer to him as the hell priest of Hellraiser!

Tall Man, when you go to hell, you don’t see heaven, you see the Phantasm!

While they were once mortal men, after a huge event in boths lives, they are forever changed as killers who will hunt you down until your penance is achieved in sweet bloody murder. And with the aid of mystical objects that come in the form of specific shapes, a brand new hell awaits.

Before We Begin

We will be using all media for both that exists including the five Phantasm films, Mike Tyson Mysteries, the eleven Hellraiser films, Dead By Daylight, as well as any books and comics for either.

However we will be excluding Pinhead’s amped form and Lucifer's Armor from Pinhead (2011) #16-#20 and The Scarlet Gospel for the sake of fairness, wouldn't be fair to give Pinhead two nonstandard things and leave Tall Man with nothing now would it?

Background

Pinhead

“The box! You opened it, we came!”

Elliot Spencer lived in the 1900s as a british soldier serving in WWI who became disillusioned from life and humanity, leading him to experiment with torture and pain, coming across a mystic box he found which opened his eyes to a fresh new world of hell, becoming a creature known as a Cenobite and dawning a new apperance with pins stuck in his face, now known as the Pinhead.

Pinhead would have a new purpose and now be a part of a group of cenobites and rise among the ranks of them with the power of his understanding of pleasure and pain, putting sinners through suffering never known before.

Tall Man

“You play a good game boy, but the game is finished, now you die!”

Jebediah Morningside lived in the 1800s as a Kind Hearted Mortician, who just so happened to serve in the American Civil War, he eventually grew a weird fascination with interdimensional travel, when he completed his own machine to travel worlds. He stepped right in, not much later he walked out as a new man, one that was the personification of evil, he became the Tall Man.

The Tall Man's purpose is to become the Lord of the Dead, traveling town to town to steal the corpses of those who had long passed, and kill the town's remaining population to turn them into his own dead slaves.

Experience and Skill

Pinhead

In terms of experience, even before Pinhead was a part of the Cenobites (who have been around before 400 B.C) for roughly 104 years (comparing WWI - 2018). He was a british soldier with military combat experience, but after he was turned into a hell priest, he has been torturing sinners and battling off other Cenobites for many years.

Pinhead is a fairly good schemer in terms of intelligence skill, having convoluted schemes all go according to plan and knowing perfectly what makes a person tick, just to properly make their torture a true hell.

Lastly Pinhead should have very good endurance as Cenobites do not need to eat, sleep, or breath (unless they are speaking).

Tall Man

Back when Jebediah Morningside was a normal man in the 1800’s, He was intelligent enough to create the dimensional gate, where he learned how to draw power from the Red Planet.

Tall Man is a very cruel and sadistic being, he once ran over a dog numerous times just cause he felt like it, although it's to be expected, as he has killed thousands for over 37 years at least. with the latter of which being spent creating a global apocalypse.

Arsenal

Pinhead

Puzzle Box

The iconic Puzzle Box can create spaces that didn’t exist beforehand, generate smoke and blood, generate electricity (firing huge blasts), create portals, create light, create chains, give visions, dismiss Pinhead and other cenobites back to Hell (as well as humans), and obviously summon the Cenobites themselves.

In Dead By Daylight however, Lament Configuration gives a gauge for Pinhead that (if filled up) will start spawning chains to attack his opponents.

Hooks and Chains

Pinhead is very well known for his iconic hooks and chains which he uses to torture sinners before they can properly go to hell.

His chains can be electrified, contain extra blades, and be controlled through computers.

Whip

Whippy.

Sickle

Slicey.

It can also pop out as a chain for long distances.

(smaller version)

(dual smaller versions)

Knives

Pinhead has some knives and other torture devices on his person.

Chainsaw

Chainsaw Man or something idk I didn’t read the manga.

He also has a smaller one.

Skin Disguise

Pinhead is very proficient in disguising as a human (second example) as well as emulating voices.

Also being a woman.

Armor

From his battles, Pinhead wore armor.

Crushing Machine

A very awesome machine Pinhead made on the fly to kill a cenobite pet.

Okay maybe it’s less awesome.

Tall Man

Sentinels

Tall Man’s main method of murder, his sentinels. The sentinels are created via telepathic creatures removing brains and trapping it inside a flying metal sphere.

Of the regular silver variety, they have razor sharp blades and drills, lasers, buzzsaws, spikey explosives, and eyes.

Tall Man has a whole lot of these.

But of the Golden variety, they have two spinning blades and buzzsaws which can come out of Tall Man’s face and are much stronger than the previously mentioned silver sentinels.

Colossal Sentinels

Tall Man’s global apocalypse sentinels, they can blast huge lasers which can split skyscrapers in half and tank gunfire.

Tall Man has at least five of these.

Dimensional Fork

Tall Man’s dimensional fork can transport people to his own dimension, char the ground, suck things inside of it, time travel, and can be summoned by the Tall Man at will.

Minions

Demon Cop: A very durable minion that is disguised as a cop.

Gravers: Gravers are strong minions of Talk Man, especially if they are in the military variety.

Humans: Tall Man with his mind manipulation or replacing organs with sentinels can convince humans to follow his word and mindlessly attack anyone he wishes them to.

Lurkers: Lurkers are reanimated corpses made of human flesh, which can endure a lot of damage and has impressive agility.

Zombies: Pretty much what you expect, the zombies can also come back even from dying again if their limbs are still intact.

Alien Virus

While not seen how Tall Man had this, we do see its aftermath where it blows up the infected’s head.

Abilities

Pinhead

Weapon Summoning

Pinhead can summon chains also out of his face, summon barbed wire from his fingers, summon a dual drill machine, and even summoned 27 chains at once.

Regeneration

When having his pins sent back into his head, any wounds Pinhead had prior are regenerated.

He can also heal from bloody punches to the face within seconds.

Cenobites can even live when impaled and with their hearts removed.

Telekinesis

Pinhead can explode people with just a flex of his hands.

He’s also used it to grab things, shake rooms, explode fire hydrants, etc.

Flight

Very majestic.

Portal Creation

Pinhead can use his cube to travel from Hell to Earth within moments after solved.

Pinhead also can just simply create portals back to Earth from Hell if he so chooses, as well as other Pinhead’s having the same power.

He can also see events happening on Earth via these portals.

This is much more prominent in Dead By Daylight where he can create portals where his chains can come out of.

Physical Enhancement

Pinhead once enhanced someone to have supernatural empathy so he could feel the pain of others around him and future pain he will experience.

(second example of enhancement).

If he so chooses, Pinhead can also do the opposite and blind someone.

Telepathy

Pinhead has such strong telepathy that he can communicate with a future version of himself.

Mind Manipulation

Pinhead can take over the minds of others for a limited time, and if he can defeat their spirit in the mindscape, can take over as long as he wishes.

Other Pinhead’s can take away memories and give people amnesia.

And in this music video, Pinhead can mind control a massive group of people.

Disease Manipulation

Pinhead can give people several diseases at a whim and take them away.

Transmutation

Bro got turned into a painting lol (Pinhead can also do it to himself presumably).

He can also transform items into different shapes,

Other Pinhead’s can transform Cenobites into regular humans again.

Misc. Powers

Some powers not really worth getting an entire section;

Acid Blood: With just a simple incantation, Pinhead can turn his blood acidic.

Age Acceleration: Pinhead can accelerate the age of a baby.

Cenobite Creation: Pinhead can turn people into Cenobites.

Cold Manipulation: Pinhead can turn a room so cold it can freeze people solid and can turn water into ice (also liquifying himself).

Dream Manipulation: Very vague but it’s implied that Pinhead is attacking someone through their dreams while sitting next them in the real world.

Electricity Manipulation: Pinhead has shown the ability to mess with electrically powered machinery, he can also create it.

Explosion Creation: Creates explosions.

Fog Manipulation: Pinhead can create massive fogs which bring agony to all caught within and mutate limbs.

Heat Manipulation: He can melt things.

Illusion Creation: Pinhead can alter how people see him.

Life Manipulation: Pinhead can give inanimate objects life and pull life force away from opponents to heal himself.

Metal Manipulation: Pinhead can make metal things longer than they previously were beforehand.

Reflection Manipulation: Pinhead can make himself appear onto a reflective surface for communication.

Shadow Manipulation: He can cast his shadow onto a surface that wouldn’t make sense with its illumination angle and take the form of it.

Shapeshifting: Can transform himself into a human disguise.

Teleportation: Pinhead has teleportation, where he can pop up right behind people or even teleport via a wall, he also has used it in the comics.

Time Manipulation: When in Hell, Pinhead can put people through a time loop of suffering, other Cenobites in the comics can also freeze time.

Toxin Resistance: Pinhead completely ignored poisonous gas.

Tall Man

Superhuman Strength

Tall Man has much greater strength than any average person, as first seen by Mike in the film, he can be seen carrying an entire coffin by himself.

Telekinesis

With just a thought, Tall Man can control objects/people with his mind.

Also being able to cut, push, and jam.

Teleportation

Now you see him, now you don’t.

Or vise versa in this case.

Mind Manipulation

The Tall Man’s mind manipulation has many capabilities such as projecting illusions that can be overcome to those without fear, calm down sentinels, give false memories, and telepathically communicate.

Dream Manipulation

Tall Man has more mental capabilities more focused towards dreams such as giving nightmares, show his own memories, appearing in dreams, wake people up, and can be intangible while inside a dream.

Shapeshifting

Tall Man can change his appearance to that of a woman, spawn bugs from his head, hands turn clawed, and fingers turn into bugs.

Regeneration

Tall Man over time can heal any damaged injured limbs.

Portal Creation

Tall Man can create a portal to the dimensional fork room at will.

Resurrection

Via the connection of the red planet, The Tall Man has over 10,000 clones which will appear after a Tall Man is killed.

Misc. Powers

Cage Creation: Tall Man creates a small cage.

Heat Manipulation: Tall Man can make things heat up with just a glance.

Intangibility: Since Tall Man operates from a different dimension, he can change his level of reality at will to be tangible or not.

Photograph Manipulation: Tall Man appears to have the ability to manipulate photos.

Technology Manipulation: Tall Man can shut down certain parts of machinery such as car brakes.

Feats

Pinhead

Overall

Strength

Speed

Catches bullets with his mouth (Supersonic)

Durability

Tall Man

Overall

Strength

Speed

His sentinels can keep up with cars

Durability

Weaknesses

Pinhead

Dismemberment from weapons blessed by gods
His pins being removed
Magic Runes
Any Hellraiser after 4

Tall Man

Very straightforward fighting style
Cold Temperatures
Vibrations
Mike Tyson Mysteries

Before The Verdict

Cenobite Scaling

As you can probably tell from Pinhead’s overall section, there is a lot of scaling to other Cenobites.

This would come from the fact that Pinhead is a leader and is well respected among his group as opposed to working as a singular being like some of the other Cenobites, and unlike other Cenobite leaders, he is described to as one of a select few of 5 and has actively slain other cenobites before that are comparable to him.

Overall, just not really much reason to think Pinhead would be vastly weaker than any other Cenobite and should reasonably be on par if not superior than most.

Star - SS Pinhead

Even without either of Pinhead’s two amps there have been two separate occasions in the Hellraiser comics with Star - Solar System and beyond feats.

The first of which came after a Cenobite forced an unborn baby out of a woman who becomes a star in the end, this can be taken as a metaphor but there’s nothing much to imply it specifically is either. Every Hellraiser comic beforehand and afterwards takes things fairly literally at a face value and doesn't show a particular sign of things being perceived as a metaphor. This wouldn’t ordinarily be enough evidence to support Pinhead being at this level of power but with the second feat, it can be perceived as fairly consistent.

We hardly ever see a Cenobite at their full power, especially those such as Pinhead who is one of the greatest Cenobites in all of their history, which makes sense as they have basically no challenges across the series they cannot do.

Which is why it makes sense there is such a casual feat with a Cenobite tearing open his chest to reveal pure space filled with planets and stars separate from our own solar system, and we know that this would be the Cenobites design trait as he has nothing different to make him a Cenobite besides that, there is no Cenobite across the series that doesn’t have some kind of physical deformity or skin color change so it would make logical sense that this Cenobite’s trait is that of having pure space inside of his chest.

It also has no evidence to support it being an illusion other than an attempt to disprove it being a Cenobite’s character trait, as it would make no sense to be an illusion where this Cenobite tries to scare a sinner he doesn’t know, for no reason, with no reason whatsoever to perform a illusion that we have not seen across the series at any point.

Overall while it’s up to interpretation to have the two feats be considered as consistent for the series, it is hard to deny the feats as they are would not be how they are portrayed in the panels.

Pinhead’s “Amps”

Briefly going over the what would be considered usable and what wouldn’t for Pinhead;

In the comic Hellraiser (2011) Issue #12, in his human form, Pinhead eats some bugs which give him power to tank a shovel blow to the face, smack the current Pinhead (Kristy), and could kill Edgar. As well as summoning an army of skinless creatures.

Later in Issue #14, he ate a gold amulet which let him do the big 100+ Megaton Feat.

While he does not specifically lose these powers at any point, it is not really brought up again after his amp introduced in Issue #16.

In Issue #16, Pinhead gains godly power to grow as large as the planet itself. However, he loses it later in Issue #20.

And lastly, Lucifer’s Armor from The Scarlet Gospel which Pinhead used and has never shown to have it again afterwards.

Planet Tall Man

He isn’t.

His source of power is The Red Planet, not that he is The Red Planet lol.

Summary

Team Pinhead

Stats

Right off the bat with stats you may notice that Pinhead has a pretty solid advantage here;

Starting with strength and durability, Pinhead has been in far more combative scenarios compared to Tall Man even before they were both turned. Pinhead served as a soldier during WWI and was in the middle of several battles, of which he carried on this experience when fighting other Cenobites and experienced fighters such as Marshall Law.

So there’s already a big disparity between one having fought people like their opponent already, along with Pinhead having much more powerful attacks behind him.

The Tall Man may appear impressive when seeing his Large Building and Island strength feats, but in actuality The Tall Man would not scale physically to his Colossal Sentinels nor would his sky color changing be applicable to his physical might. There’s not much to suggest that the Tallman’s magic power would scale to his physicality at all and has been injured/killed by much weaker forces.

Overall, it either wouldn’t scale or would be an outlier.

Comparably let’s look at Pinhead’s power, him detailing a subway is already nearly 4 times stronger than the RPG that majorly damaged The Tall Man. Then we can look at Pinhead’s potential over 100 Megaton level power when he was powered by a golden amulet he ate. While can be a bit dubious to use because Pinhead never is explicitly said to keep this power, he never explicitly loses it either and it does not fall upon the rule of not using Pinhead’s quote, “amped up deity form nor will he receive Lucifier’s armor.” As Max said.

Which if used, would make Pinhead’s mid-end VS Tall Man’s RPG feat a difference of 71,428,571,428.5 times.

And now for the fun part, Pinhead’s high end of Star - SS and beyond, not even gonna bother saying the difference between this because I’m sure you get the picture lol.

And now quickly onto speed, Tall Man has shown basically no real speed feats other than his sentinel keeping up with a car. Comparably Pinhead and other humans in the Hellraiser verse can casually dodge/catch bullets. A gap of ~18.6 mph vs 852.2 mph, as well as Pinhead’s being reactionary and Tall Man's being just actual movement speed.

No matter how you’re cutting it, Pinhead is the physically superior of the two and will only need a few - one blow to kill Tall Man.

Arsenal & Abilities

Starting off with arsenal, while Tall Man’s might have a more powerful selection in scale, Pinhead has much more arsenal of items Tall Man would never see coming.

Tall Man has never quite faced off against an opponent who has chains, a magic box, whips, chainsaws, and crushing machinery.

The only item Tall Man would have experienced would be a knife, which chopped off his fingers in the original film.

Connecting also to his abilities, Pinhead can pretty handedly deal with the sentinels with his electricity manipulation to shut them down, heat manipulation to melt them, telekinesis to stop them, or simply just breaking them with a single hit.

The only major weapons that would do damage would be his Colossal Sentinels and Alien Virus, of which we don’t even know if Tall Man could survive either if he drops those in the same area as himself.

Pinhead could also escape both by becoming a liquid, shadow, painting, etc. and then just teleporting out of the area of the laser or virus.

It’s also entirely possible that Pinhead could just ignore the virus considering he can negate toxic gasses and remove diseases, not an absolute certainty but a possibility for sure.

Which also connects to the point of abilities, of which Pinhead has everything Tall Man has but better and more.

Both match each other in telekinesis, teleportation, regeneration, shapeshifting, mind manipulation, dream manipulation, portal creation, heat manipulation, etc.

However, Pinhead has;

More experience with telekinesis and teleportation, better regeneration with his pins instantly healing him and Tall Man requiring time, both have almost identical shapeshifting, Pinhead has mental defenses against mind manipulation as well as having ways to stop Tall Man from attacking him or taking over the Tall Man period, both match each other in dream manip, both have BFR options with portals with Pinhead’s being superior as he is more powerful in hell while Tall Man has to do two BFR(s) to his Dimensional Fork room and then to the Red Planet (as well as the Dimensional Fork being able to damage Tall Man with its vibrations), and lastly both matching each other with heat manipulation.

Pinhead also has weapon summoning, flight, physical enhancement, disease manipulation, transmutation, acid blood, mutation agony fogs, time manipulation, metal manipulation, age acceleration, cold manipulation, etc.

Most if not all of them would be highly effective or deadly against Tall Man, especially the cold manipulation which is one of Tall Man’s biggest weaknesses.

Tall Man was frozen completely solid within seconds when stuck in a regular freezer, Pinhead can freeze water solid instantly and create a room in hell which did the same thing that killed a Tall Man.

The only unique powers Tall Man could throw out would be photograph manipulation (useless), technology manipulation (only would work on the crushing machine), intangibility (useful but not mattering as much with the speed gap), cage creation (useless), and resurrection.

This is the major aspect in Tall Man’s favor against Pinhead, Pinhead would have a very tough time making sure Tall Man is truly dead after his over 10,000 clones are destroyed along with his minions and sentinels.

The solutions here would be

A. Pinhead’s stats are so great that he would just kill all of them instantly because Tall Man can get off any abilities (most of which wouldn’t be able to work against Pinhead anyways).

B. Tall Man will give up eventually as he has in the films before, but especially here against an opponent that so severely destroys him with every life.

Either would be a fine enough solution for a solid W for the Pinface.

Team Tall Man

Stats

It’s no secret that Pinhead, from what's been given so far, is A LOT stronger than Tall Man. However, Stats will not play a huge factor in Tall Man's victory.

Arsenal & Abilities

Pinhead puts up a LARGE arsenal of Weapons, particularly plenty of killing methods. However this is all for not, due to Tall Man's seemingly impossible immortality. It’s a common trope within Phantasm where the Protagonist or another side character would harm the Tall Man in a particular way that should kill a human, and another one would just walk right out of a portal, leaving Tall Man always coming back, which screws pinhead over in a couple of ways;

1. Pinhead has no permanent kill options to bypass the Tallmans Immortality, which means he will slowly but surely begin to lose faith in actually KILLING the Tall Man.

2. Pinhead also has to face Tall Mans horde of Sentinels and Undead, no matter how many Cenobites you could argue on are Pinheads side, theres no way all of them can handle Building destroying Spheres and Thousands maybe Millions of Zombies. Which will definitely overwhelm Pinhead, given he has to keep up with not just the Tall Man, but all these creatures as well.

3. As mentioned previously in the last two points, Pinhead will slowly get overwhelmed and unmotivated, as much as he enjoys “sweet suffering” He’s slowly being worn down, giving Tall Man the perfect opportunity to get in his best killing move, the Virus.

The Virus as mentioned earlier, can infect anyone and cause their head to swell up and explode, Pinhead has shown NO resistance to Viruses like it. and before anyone says “he can survive acidic gas!” Gas and Genetic Diseases are two different things and work very differently.

Hell, if Tall Man really wanted nothing is stopping him from turning intangible, where Pinhead can’t physically harm him. and can inject the Virus pretty easily.

Tall Man also has Time Travel, so what’s exactly stopping him from going back to before Pinhead was transformed into a Cenobite and killing him then and there?

Now let's address some things Pinhead can do and why they can’t or don't work.

1. The Chains!! With Tall Man's TELEKINESIS!!!! He can also control any Chain (or Weapon) that Pinhead throws at him.

2. Shapeshifting!!! If Pinhead tries to shapeshift into a Tall Man himself it’d be pretty easy to recognize him in comparison to other Tall Man Variants, given his way of speech and personality is way different.

3. Cold Manipulation!!! The main thing going against Tall Man is this ability Pinhead has, but let’s remember the context. He only did this within a cramped room, all Tall Man has to do is get out of the room, which he can do thanks to his intangibility. Even if you wanted to give the benefit of the doubt, Tall Man would just respawn somewhere else and destroy the room with a sphere.

Pinhead definitely is strong, and a worthy contender, but Tall Man has the patience, army, and powerful arsenal to wait Pinhead out and deliver the final blow.

Verdict

Pinhead