#books of blood

[omercifulheaves]

In The Hills, The Cities Art by John Bolton

[borninwinter81]

I've been rediscovering my love for Clive Barker this week due to finally managing to see The Ultimate Cabal Cut of Nightbreed (some kind soul has uploaded it to YouTube) and then re-reading Cabal, the book it was based on.

Cabal is amongst my favourite books ever written (though as a bibliophile that list is extremely long!) and one of my favourite movies. I originally saw it in the early 90s when I was probably far too young, and read the book not long after.

I backed the Occupy Midian campaign in 2012 when the lost footage was being searched for and reintegrated into the movie, and I attended a screening of one of the early edits where I met Nicholas Vince and Simon Bamford (Kinski and Ohnaka in Nightbreed, but better known as two of the Cenobites from Hellraiser). This led to the eventual DVD/Blu-ray release of The Directors Cut (which I got a physical copy of) and then The Ultimate Cabal Cut (which I didn’t, and which I haven't seen until now).

It's an oversimplification to call Barker's work horror, especially in Cabal/Nightbreed - this was the mistake the production company made when originally editing and marketing it.

Clive Barker's vision shows us the beauty of the weird, the macabre, the abnormal, and the supernatural, and the true horror in his work comes from the "normal".

In Cabal/Nightbreed his monsters are not evil, they're simply different - undead, mutants and supernatural beings, a metaphor for anyone who has ever felt othered by society. Midian is a place where they can live safely with no fear or judgement. The evil characters are "naturals", humans who hate and fear the monsters for being different even though they pose no threat, and ultimately try to destroy them.

As a member of the LGBT community it's easy to see where Barker's motivation for this metaphor came from, but it could equally apply to just about anyone who feels like they don't fit in. Certainly as a lonely, bullied, weird child when I first read/saw it, who then grew up into a reasonably weird adult, I'd love for the monsters to come and take me away to Midian.

Anyone seeing this who isn't familiar with the book/movie, I'd urge you to look them up, as well as others by Barker. More of my favourites by him are Imajica, Abarat and of course The Hellbound Heart, filmed as Hellraiser. The Forbidden from short story anthology The Books of Blood was also filmed as Candyman.

Below I've linked The Cabal Cut of Nightbreed. Even if you know and love the original theatrical release I'd still urge you to watch this (quick as you can in case its removed due to copyright!).

In addition to doubling the movie length from 1 hour 40 mins to 3 hours 20 mins, a number of the actors voices have been re-recorded as they were overdubbed in the theatrical version for some reason, notably those of Rachel, and Lylesberg, played by Doug Bradley. It was a crime to remove that man's beautiful voice and wonderful to hear it back where its meant to be.

Also, rather than being a standard horror movie heroine who seems to be there only to scream and be rescued, in this version Lori comes across as much stronger and more well-rounded character.

As it says in the opening text, although much of the footage was of good quality there are some sections where all they had available were degraded VHS tapes, some of which were without audio. This means the editing is also a little clunky in places. However the makers of this version wanted to include everything they possibly could in order to bring it in line with the original shooting script and Clive Barker's epic vision for the piece.

[fanofspooky]

Scream Queen - Britt Robertson

Requested by anonymous

[jackrussellterror]

"... there was worse in the world than dread. Worse than death itself. There was pain without hope of healing. There was life that refused to end, long after the mind had begged the body to cease." - Clive Barker, Dread (Books of Blood Vol. II)

another window into my fibro flare. i feel so trapped within this painful and weak body

[evileldestdaughter]

midnight meat train the short story is suspenseful, thrilling, leaves you wondering 'oh my god how can this happen?!'

midnight meat train the movie (2008) is so boring and i hope bradley cooper gets butchered on a train

[weirdlookindog]

Clive Barker (b. 1952) - Books of Blood 1-6

[pantalonesdezebra]

so...i did a quick pin up pinhead

[chemsexholmes]

[heavenlycinema]

Books of Blood 2020

Dir. Brannon Braga

“People like Simon like to prey on grief.”

[bagofbonesmp3]

"The earth was gone from beneath him. He was a hitchhiker with a god: the mere life he had left was nothing to him now, or ever. He would live with this thing, yes, he would live with it - seeing it and seeing it and eating it with his eyes until he died of sheer gluttony. He screamed and howled and swung on the ropes, drinking up his triumph. Below, far below, he glimpsed Judd's body, curled up pale on the dark ground, irretrievable. Love and life and sanity were gone, gone like the memory of his name, or his sex, or his ambition. It all meant nothing. Nothing at all."

– Clive Barker, In the Hills, the Cities

[semper-legens]

55. Books of Blood vol 4-6, by Clive Barker

Owned?: No, library Page count: 450 My summary: A collection of horrific tales and supernatural sights from one of horror's darkest masters. A sinister legend haunts a council estate. A man volunteering as a guinea pig for science experiments starts tearing people apart. A magician's mysterious death prompts strange figures to appear on his doorstep. And a woman recovering from cancer is stalked by death… My rating: 3/5 My commentary:

So, funny story. A while back, a friend and I watched Candyman, the 1992 horror film, and its more recent…sequel? Remake? It's a little between the two, honestly. In looking up the film, we discovered that it was an adaptation of a Clive Barker short story - one set in our native Liverpool, to be precise. I was interested in the changes that the adaptation might have made, since apparently in the original the story is not an allegory for racism and instead has a different focus. She very kindly did some digging and found a pdf of the book that the story was contained within online. But, me being me, I decided to take a quick trip to the basement on the off-chance that we had a copy. And lo and behold, I found it! So here's Clive Barker's Books of Blood - featuring the original Candyman, and a whole lot more.

But because that's the reason I picked it up, let's talk Candyman! The original version of this story is set on a fictional estate in Liverpool, as opposed to the real Chicago projects. The protagonist is researching graffiti, not urban legends, and the Candyman is white and has very minimal backstory. He's an urban legend, same as in the movie, but no origin story is given, he just…is, and needs to prolong his existence through the power of belief. Mary-Anne, the woman from the estate that Helen befriends, actually loses her son, and it's implied that she and the other people on the estate sacrificed him as an offering to the Candyman. Those are the major changes that the story went through to become the film - in all other aspects, it's very similar, and follows roughly the same beats. The big thematic difference is that the story is much more obviously about class than race specifically. Helen going to the run-down, graffiti-covered estate is contrasted immediately with her high-class social circle and their lavish parties, as well as their apparent disregard for the people of the estate. I did take some issue with this, however, as both sides are portrayed pretty stereotypically, with the estate characters in particular being shady, insular, and cultishly connected to the Candyman to the point of child murder. It was a good story…but I think I liked the film more.

The rest of the stories in the collection were a mixed bag, I'm afraid. The best of them straddled the line between the horrific and the ridiculous well; the worst wound up just too silly or too macabre to hold my interest. And within that, there were many outdated views that were just unpleasant to read. One story dealt with the mass-murder of indigenous people in the Amazon - sure, the murderers were meant to be seen as wrong and got their comeuppance, but the framing of the story left a lot to be desired. A couple of them used the idea of men dressing as women as something grotesque and absurd. That's not to say that there was nothing worthwhile in the remaining stories - the one about the man subject to an experimental aphrodisiac who was driven mad by it was weirdly gripping, and the woman stalked by Death who possibly appears as a man before her was spooky and spine-chilling in all the right ways. It's just that there were a lot of things I wasn't so pleased with, and a few of the stories just couldn't keep my interest more than a page or two, I didn't care about what was going on. I'm glad I read it, but I probably wouldn't care to read more.

Next up - my heart is a chainsaw.

[omercifulheaves]

Japanese editions of Clive Barker's Books of Blood

Edit: Added the last two Art by Aoi Fuijimoto

[music-for-them-asses]

I just finished the Clive Barker short story Sex, Death and Starshine. I loved it!! It might be my favorite of this volume (Books Of Blood, vol 1). It reminds me of the Bauhaus "Spirit" video. Just the right amount of creepiness, weirdly happy ending, and perversion!

[fanofspooky]

scream queen britt robertson

Scream Queen - Britt Robertson

[sonofcelluloid]

son of celluloid is one of my favorite clive barker stories, so seeing your url always makes me smile a bit thanks

hell yeahh!:) the first time I read it was right before going to sleep and it was sooo creepy and unsettling (and beautiful??) first thing I did when I woke up was check if the url was available. felt like a lottery winner that day. son of celluloid is like a son to me

[workmantwerkman]

she was liquid; a boundless sea in a single body, a deluge in a small room, and I will gladly drown in her, if she grants me the chance.

-Clive Barker, Books of Blood Volume II, Jacqueline Ess: Her Will and Testament