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FIRST LOOK

First Look: Clive Barker's Book of Blood

by Alex Billington
February 11, 2008
Source: ShockTillYouDrop.com

I'm warning you now - don't read ahead if you're the slightest bit squeamish. There are a few very brutal and disgusting photos that only true horror fans should be interested in seeing. I might say Clive Barker is insane, but I'd rather call him a genius. He has written some incredible horror stories and provided plenty of inspiration for many horror movies throughout history. His collection of short stories, known as the Book of Blood, is currently being adapted into a feature film. While there are numerous volumes and numerous stories contained within the Books of Blood, director John Harrison is adapting just one about a paranormal researcher and a college student.

Thanks to our friends at ShockTillYouDrop.com for getting a larger version of the teaser poster that's currently being shown to buyers at the European Film Market.

Clive Barker's Book of Blood

The plot is described as: Paranormal researcher Mary Florescu's investigations lead her to Simon McNeal, a college student who appears to be channelling messages from the dead. As their erotic relationship develops the line between the worlds of the living and the dead become blurred and finally collapse in a stunning and astonishing climax. And IMDb has a different take, too: A paranormal expert discovers a house that is at the intersection of so-called "highways" transporting souls in the afterlife. With both plot descriptions, it sounds like we've got a very interesting horror movie in the works.

The Books of Blood were originally published in 1984 and 1985 in six volumes. With the publication of the first volume, Barker became an overnight sensation and was hailed by Stephen King as "the future of horror". You can read more about them on Wikipedia or pick up a copy from Amazon.com.

Clive Barker's Book of Blood is being directed and co-written by John Harrison, director of TV's "Tales from the Darkside" who is making his second feature film. The film is being produced by Matador Pictures but does not yet have a distributor. Expect Book of Blood to arrive sometime in late 2008 or early 2009.

Explore tags: First Look, Hype

C-Young

The photo above gives new meaning to the term "skin flick". I'll be looking for more on this one in the future. Not much to go on as of yet...
Curtis

I'm always in for a great horror flick.
http://www.mariasphoto.com whynot

The picture where she is holding that skin is pretty horror to me. I believe I will have a nightmare tonight because of that.
http://www.firstshowing.net Alex Billington

Hey, I warned you not to read ahead!! Now look what's happened...
avoidz

And all he wanted was a face-lift
http://www.drduvel.net Dr.Duvel

I started reading this book years ago, dropped it pretty quickly. Rubbish.
tzarinna

I wish we had an update on the progress. Especially after all the drama with Lionsgate The Midnight Meat Train. I'm certainly looking forward to this.
emir

Clive Barker is the reason horror has been going in the wrong direction since the late 80's. I've never been a big fan of Barker. Books of Blood were in my view poorly written. The narratives had huge flaws, rank with tautology, overwritten, with weak dialogue, characters, and phallically obsessed. Barker's obsession with genitalia never did it for me. It's puerile. Characters getting hard-ons at the least unexpected moments is plain ridiculous. He wallows in gore like an evil kid stirring his fingers in blood and mucus, or in Barker's case, stirring his fingers in the eviscerated vagina of a gay virgin. He is also another of those horror writers who equates sexual abuse with horror and thinks all women wander about having constant periods. His morality is suspect too, and seriously unhealthy. In too many of those stories from Books of Blood he wants us to sympathise with demons -(nothing wrong in that for a horror story, and it's been done before he did it). But in one story these demons have gang raped a young woman. Barker then tries to convince us that these beasts are loving, caring, gentle souls. When King said Barker was the future of horror, he was right because look what happened shortly after Barker - horror went into a rapid decline and Barker switched to Fantasy. The sooner Barker B-gone, the better.
Stuck@work

In response to #8: You're an idiot. Barker has incredible range, incredible control of language, and fantastic sense to detail. He pushed the genre of horror to new boundaries for popular fiction...you're just jealous, or a prude. Enjoy your Dean Koontz.
the_arsonist

Clive Barker is great and his work is suberb and unique. Emir we don't need any religious or moral advice from you if you don't like, stop reading it. I'm sure we'll have Barker for a long long time and i know I will enjoy it.
werd

man..i dont know what to think of this movie. i saw Midnight Meat Train and LOVED IT.. granted the story was originally VERY short, and they added more things to the movie to make it longer, BUT DID NOT CHANGE THE STORY. this story, was really..just...not that involved..so unless im confused because i havent completed any of the books of blood past vol 2, I dont see how this has enough full story to make a movie. IMO, it was just a introduction to the whole idea that is the compilations called "books of blood".. am i wrong?
the_arsonist

There's a second story linked to the first called THE BOOK OF BLOOD (A POSTCRIPT): ON JERUSALEM STREET, this story is in Books of Blood 6
c?en

I am trying to compare the translations of the Midnight Meat Train to Turkish, so I have examined the book throughly. I think, Barker indicates his own style through the short direct speech sentences, mostly descriptions, not the development of the characters, but the chain of the events, light&dark connations, the unexpected ends, horroric details like blood, slaughter, hammer...etc. Not as a translator, but as a reader I really got surprised when I learned that Mahogony was just the 2nd protoganist in the "Subway Slaughters":S and dear Leon had to be the new 2nd while he was trying to take the photo of the truth. How poor Leon is!!! How ruthless Newyork is:S And when I wrote this, i remembered a sentence in the begining of the book: "It was proof of living in that city" Jajaja really this should be the back side of the "promised land"...
Heather Elliott

This movie was revolting. The people that made it should be ashamed. These wonderful works by Clive Barker have been violated by this movie. I am proud of Clive Barker for not actually directing this. It never touched on a single actual "Book of Blood" which are short stories, since the movie didn't even allude to that. Also, the sex scenes were too racy and normal to even remotely be attached to Clive Barker's name. If you follow his work, you know that it is a rare occurrence that simple heterosexual sex ending in orgasm and a night in bed together happens. Clive usually throws in a cenobite or at least minimal mutilation. I believe that these people that made this movie, slapped "Clive Barker" on the title and figured it would make money. They didn't get my 18 dollars. Also, the "how books of blood were made" idea of the movie, was not enough substance to even make four paragraphs in a book, let alone a movie. I want my two hours back.
Ronald

The film of ''Book of the Blood'' is so fantastic.Its a best horror movie that i haven seen!!!! It's story about a death want to tell a story to the human. A human was mock them so their so very angry and attack them. We must respect them like we're respect other human. Its to dangerous if us mock them. And a boy,Simon McNeal,was fake it vision. He was want to influence Mary's brain but,all of his secret was know from Mary. Mary is a psychic researcher in his school.The awesome is,Simon's flesh was crave of the death. The crave is like a word.And this word is claims and narrator. Wow!!! that's awesome. That's why i'd like this film and i wanted to read its book.