Frank Cotton

"Come to daddy."

- Frank Cotton

Frank Cotton is the main antagonist of the 1986 horror novella, The Hellbound Heart, and its 1987 film adaptation, Hellraiser.

He was portrayed by Sean Chapman. His skinless form was portrayed by actor Oliver Smith.

Hellraiser
The  brother of Larry Cotton, Frank, believing that he has experienced everything the world has to offer, buys the Lament Configuration puzzle box from a merchant in Morocco and brings it back to his dead mother's home in America. Solving the puzzle box, Frank opens a portal and summons the Cenobites who transform the house into Frank's personal Hell, and tear him apart with their hooked chains. After he was in pieces and fully in the control of the cenobites, they take him and his Hell back to Leviathan. His brother, Larry moves in with his wife, Julia as they shared the house with Frank occasionally.

When Larry cuts his hand on a rusty nail and bleeds all over the spot where Frank was ripped apart, Frank manages to escape Hell. He then begains to regenrate flesh. A heavily decayed being, Frank reveals himself to Julia who had a previous relationship with him, and promising his love to her again, manipulates her into bringing him sacrifices to feed his hunger and regenerate his old body. Julia brings Frank atleast three men as sacrifices, but after an encounter with his niece Kirsty Cotton, he loses the Lament Configuration which appeared with him and was the key to his freedom. Kirsty bargains with the cenobites, Pinhead, Butterball, Chatterer and Female to deliver them Frank in return for sparing her soul. In the meantime, Frank kills and takes the skin of Larry to complete a human visage and disguises himself for Kirsty when she arrives home.

Frank has sex with Julia and not too long after Kirsty returns to the house. Frank tries to trick her into believing that he's her father before she discovers the truth about Frank and that he killed her father. Now the enraged Frank, whose skin was made imperfect from a scratch from Kirsty, tries to kill her with his switchblade. Accidentally stabbing Julia and leaves her to die, but she manages to drag herself to her room with the Lament Configuration where she personally summons the cenobites and they string her up with multiple hooks while she dies slowly and painfully. Meanwhile, Frank chases Kirsty around the house and is eventually caught by the Cenobites after Kirsty tricked Frank into revealing himself and the cenobites rips Frank apart with their many hooks, sending him back to Hell.

Hellbound: Hellraiser II
Later, after Kirsty has been institutionalized, Frank appears before her, pretending to be her father and leaving her a message written in his own blood asking for help. This makes her believe that her father is trapped in Hell and Kirsty goes in to save her father unbeknownst to her that she was really going after her twisted and insane uncle. When Kirsty enters Hell, she finds herself in Frank's personal Hell, a chamber filled with writhing female forms where Frank can never sate his lust. Attempting to rape Kirsty, Frank loses his human appearance. Kirsty causes him to catch on fire and Frank is finally defeated. Julia appears and after Frank beckons her to him, she tears his heart out from his back and quoted what Frank said when he first betrayed her (Nothing personal, babe).

Trivia
In the original novella, Kirsty is not related to Frank in any way, but just a friend of Rory's, whom Larry is based on.