Livre de sang

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

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.

Saw this movie on 7th of march at the fantasy film fest nights in Hamburg. What a mess of a film. Unbelievable Characters with unbelievable actions without any point. Dramatic situations change into scenes like this: "OK, something supernatural just happened here what i was working and waiting for all my life, which i have never expected to happen, and which scared the hell out of me, but hey, although its dangerous and i am wounded - ah, lets just have sex..." ??? The plot jumps from one "topic" to another and everything is getting so confused that you just don't get the goal of this movie. Was it about ghosts, childhood trauma, erotic fantasies or about voyeurs? All these Topics put together in one movie make all the good, dramatic aspects look just laughable. The climax was simply ridiculous too, so to sum it all up - it was a mess of a movie with some good attempts, shocking effects and some nice visuals, but complete absence of credibility. Not worth watching it.

I am a huge Clive Barker fan, but this is a weak adaptation. It is hard to stretch a very short story into a full-length film. Still, this script could have maintained the intelligence of the story more and the direction could have communicated Barker's distressing world view better.

I have three main gripes.

First, the story's focus: the film turns the original story's dysfunctional mentor relationship between the older female researcher and the younger male medium into a full blown, treacly love story. Ugh!

Second, the tone: many scenes feature little more than furtive glances, longing looks, or sudden, eruptive declarations of love/hatred, which makes the movie too often feel more like a telenovela or an episode of Red Shoe Diaries than a horror film.

Third, the film's vision of the supernatural: in the short story, the "ghosts" gleefully wreak havoc on the living. In the film, they just want to be heard. As if this diminished characterization of the avenging spirits weren't cloying enough, the film features a very long parade of see-through CGI phantoms, all of whom look like they just marched over from Disney's Haunted Mansion.

Despite my complaints, the film has flashes of true Barker-- the young girl being flayed as her parents helplessly watch, the creepy séance scenes (hey- wasn't that Pinhead?), and the film's framing story (where Jonas Armstrong gets the chance to show that he can indeed act). Also, the film makes great use of Edinburgh locations to create an unrelentingly bleak Barkeresque atmosphere. It also makes great use of Jonas Armstrong's lacerated, naked body to generate the kind of exquisitely wrong homoeroticism that is pure Barker.