Book of Blood

I first saw this almost a decade back on a dvd which I own. Revisited it recently cos i am planning to watch the new adaptation. It is based on Clive Barker's Books of Blood n has Doug Bradley in a tiny role. After a young girl is violently raped and beaten in her bed n her skin ripped off, a paranormal expert and her cameraman investigate the house to unlock its mysteriously murderous past.

The film moves at a very slow pace, there r few characters n locations. It has a gory skin ripping scene, tight tits n gets a bit spooky at times, the water fountain scene is well shot.

I saw this at the fantasia film festival. Since I am a huge Clive Barker fan and have read the Books of Blood I had very high expectations for this movie. But it really let me down. It was not very exciting at all. None of the characters were interesting. I didn't feel like I was experiencing Clive Barker's stories at all. The effects were cool and there was plenty of violence just like I expected. But I didn't relate to any of the characters like I did in the book. It was still interesting to see a budget take on this type of story and I was definitely creeped out by some of the events in Tollington House. But it was almost like I kept waiting for it to get good, and it never did.

This film pleasantly surprised me. Recent Clive Barker adaptations haven't really been masterpieces (though thankfully there always has been enough talent involved to make them interesting, at least). "The Plague" (2006) just wasn't much to write home about. "The Midnight Meat Train" (2008) was better, but it basically just tried to blow your socks off with extreme violence & bloodshed. And now, "Book of Blood" might just be the finest recent adaptation so far. It relies more on mood & atmosphere and all this is handled well. A duo of paranormal investigators - Mary Florescu (Sophie Ward), the professor & Reg Fuller (Paul Blair), the technician - moves into a reputed haunted house. Mary invites student Simon McNeal (Jonas Armstrong) to come along, for she believes him to have psychic abilities that might tap into the house's paranormal activities. But distrust soon rises between the threesome as they try to determine what's real and what's not in this house of hauntings.

Granted, the story remains pretty thin throughout the film, but director John Harrison takes this as an opportunity to not only create an eerie mood and build tension, but also to work on the main characters. There's a disturbing sexual tension growing between mentor Mary & student Simon which escalates in some keen exposure of betrayal. Actress Sophie Ward is an awesome woman and left a great impression on me with her toned-down performance. Both the pro- & epilogue make the movie a bit oddly structured, but it helped to flesh out the story a bit (pardon the pun). The film oozes with that sort of old school British Gothic vibe, but it's much darker portrayed than usual, adding a great deal of atmosphere to the picture. It's a rather little film, don't expect to be blown away, but it's a well-made effort and a clean adaptation carrying on the spirit of Clive Barker's work splendidly. I have yet to see his other recent outing, "Dread" (2009), but I've heard decent things about it already.

A young man, captured for his unique skin, is about to be flayed by a bounty hunter. But first, he tells his story of how his skin got the way it is: torn to shreds and covered in unique markings. He is, literally, a book of blood.

This is a work of Clive Barker's, originally two of his short stories combined together. The Barker themes are evident: like "Hellraiser", the dead have a gateway to this world through the flesh and blood of the living. And that gateway is connected to a certain place in space (in both cases, an upstairs room of a house). Even Simon Bamford of "Nightbreed" and "Hellraiser" shows up to continue his ubiquitous run in Barker films.

John Harrison directs this film beautifully. Between him and the cinematographer, they make a gorgeous film with a perfect setting and mood. It's delightfully haunting, and the gore effects are enjoyable (there is a face-ripping scene that stands out as one of the film's highlights). While I enjoy Harrison's "Tales From the Darkside" better, I think this better showcases his artistic abilities.

The problem with "Book of Blood" is an issue not unique to this film: it is adapted from a short story, and to stretch a short story into a full, feature film just does not always work. Some of this film is strong, but other parts just drag or seem extraneous. It could have been shortened to an hour and would have been a superior film, most likely. Chicago critics Jon Kitley and Aaron Christensen suggested that it could have been an anthology, mixed with Barker's "Dread" and "Midnight Meat Train". This is a fine suggestion... but too late now, giving us three average films rather than one superior film.

Horror Society rightly concludes that "this movie wasn't a disappointment", as it was no worse than I expected when taking my seat in the theater. Though, to be honest, my expectations were not overly high -- I had only the barest interest in this film and had heard nothing good about it. Clive Barker fans will need to see this one, but others can do fine without it. The Blu-Ray is a bare bones release, so if you're looking for features to plump this film up, you're screwed. Worth seeing? Maybe. A must-see? Definitely not.

I read Clive Barker's 'Books of Blood' years ago and instantly fell in love with them; they had a wonderful combination of horror and fantasy, fear and humor. I've been pinning for them to be filmed for years and I finally got my wish to marginally mixed results.

A parapsychology professor and her assistant have been trying to prove their theories about the afterlife and beyond when an opportunity presents itself in the form of a house with a long paranormal history and a university student who seems to be a psychic. They decide to use his abilities to try to tap into the house's energies, but things are not as they seem and the experiment goes in ways no one could have guessed.

First things first, I had a few issues with the film. First was the bookend story segments that surrounds the plot; the movie essentially spoils the best part of the story from the very first seen. The second (and bigger) problem the movie has is the running time; at 100 minutes the movie is too damn long. This is based on a short story (two actually) and there is just not enough driving plot to justify the length. A good 20 minutes needed to be trimmed off, as is the movie is gets pretty slow at parts. The last real problem I had was that the stories this is based on weren't the best stories from the books, they were just the first stories in them; the reason for this seems to be that a series of films based on the books is in the works and they wanted to start from the beginning, 'Pig Blood Blues' (great story) is apparently up next.

Having said all that I still enjoyed the film more than I was frustrated by it. Even though this wasn't the best story from the novels it is still an engaging tale of the macabre and features some occasional excellent horror imagery. The principal actors in the limited cast are all suited nicely to their respective rolls and the character dialogue has a pleasantly moody cadence to it.

The visual and gore effects are (relative to the genre) fairly limited, but what is on display packs quite a visceral punch. One particularly memorable moment involves a poor girl getting her face peeled like an orange. That being said, this is not a gore film, despite what the DVD box would have you believe.

The setting and location of the film (Scotland) fit the story well and provide a Gothic backdrop for the action. The house were most of the film takes place is a appropriately grim without feeling like a clique spook house.

Despite the some slow sections in the middle and the unfortunate story reveal early on, it manages to be a creepy tale about death and beyond.

7/10