system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
[Hellraiser] If I open the box what will determine if I am tortured for eternity or turned into a cenobyte?
gpt
The Cenobites as seen in the movies are flesh incarnations of various spirits; Pinhead, for example, is the flesh-suit of the Cenobite Xipe Totec (who was worshiped as a god in Aztec culture). So your body will only be turned into a Cenobite if one of those spirits requires it, probably because someone destroyed the flesh-suit they had been using previously.

This conversion is done by the Engineer, the usually-unseen leader of the Cenobites. The conversion process does not destroy the human soul, as evidenced by the fact that Pinhead was able to revert to human form. Instead, it's more like a kind of possession; the human soul is dominated by the Cenobite spirit, and has little or no control, but still experiences everything the Cenobite does, in all its horror.

The Engineer can also create Cenobites, or at least Cenobite-like creatures, when they are required to carry out a task. The Channard Cenobite is probably the best example, but in later movies, Pinhead would have a handful of early victims transformed into Cenobites just because he needed the muscle.

Also, you're going to be tortured for eternity anyway. The Cenobites themselves are constantly tortured. They are a religious order, and their "religion" is experience. They plumb the depths of pleasure and pain until they become indistinguishable. The only real difference is that the Cenobites welcome their torturous existence, whereas their prisoners would flee from it, if they could.