Book of Blood

Plot synopsis:
A hooded, disfigured young man is eating at a diner, being watched by a stranger. The stranger is Wyburd (Clive Russell), who has been stalking the young man, Simon (Jonas Armstrong). Wyburd convinces Simon to join him in his truck, where Simon passes out and awakens strapped to a table. Wyburd offers him a choice: a slow death, or a quick and clean death by telling the story of the Book of Blood, a series of scars and inscriptions carved on Simon from head to toe. Opting for a clean death, Simon reveals his story.
A young girl is violently raped and beaten in her bed while her parents stand outside screaming her name. An unseen force rips her face off, killing her. Several months later, paranormal professor Mary Florescu (Sophie Ward) and her partner Reg Fuller (Paul Blair) investigate the house to unlock its mysteriously murderous past. Mary encounters Simon McNeal, a seemingly clairvoyant young man to whom she develops an attraction. Simon reluctantly signs on to assist, and the three of them move in. Reg spots a terrifying ghost and dies from a fall. Mary sees Simon is attacked twice by ghosts; the second time, the ghosts carve into Simon's flesh with nails and glass shards, and Mary understands: she is the key to opening the way for the ghosts; her powers were what awakened them. She swears to the ghosts that she will tell all of their stories. The ghosts heed her words and depart, allowing Simon to survive the ordeal.
Simon reveals to Wyburd that he was from then on cursed to be the book on which the dead write while Mary wrote books and made millions off of the stories portrayed on him. As she aged, he remained the same youthful appearance, only more scarred with new stories for her to write. He admitted he couldn't take it anymore, so he fled, hence the reason Wyburd was hired to remove his skin. Wyburd, unmoved, lives up to his end of the bargain and kills Simon quickly. After placing his skin neatly into a suitcase, he waits for his payment. Blood suddenly starts pouring from the case, slowly filling the building that Wyburd is trapped in, and he drowns. Mary arrives, and is unfazed by Wyburd's body. She opens the suitcase, pulling out Simon's intact skin and smiling, as she begins to read the stories still being written upon the flesh.

Tags: prank, murder, flashback

Review:
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.
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.
While I haven't read the source material (book by Clive Barker), I'm sure it is a far better and more complex story to be found there, which didn't translate to the screen.Apart from the pacing and a story twist that will leave with a bad feeling (again, I don't know if it's the same in the novel), what really gets to you, is the fact, that the actors are pretty dull.
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.
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.
Acting was very good, sometimes a bit wooden but it never gets to a point where you can't believe the story.If you are a fan of Hell-raiser (the first couple of them anyway), see this movie, the same suspense and fear pervades this film.
Since I am a huge Clive Barker fan and have read the Books of Blood I had very high expectations for this movie.
I didn't feel like I was experiencing Clive Barker's stories at all.
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..." ???
I expected it to be an anthology comprising of some of the more memorable stories, but what I got was quite different - and ultimately I was quite pleasantly surprised.The movie itself is not based on The Books of Blood, but rather the eponymous "Book" itself - a man named Simon.
However there is enough creativity here to make the story interesting.One of the strengths of this picture is that while it embraces cliché at time, it knows how to use classic spooks and suspenseful tones rather than blood and gore.
The acting is a mixed bag, and while the film can use cliché to its advantage (Actually making classical ghost effects somewhat creepy again) the use of it in some of the scare scenes don't work.
It is one of the better films based on a Clive Barker piece, and it has the imagination of all the other stories that were told.
Clive Barker released a series of short stories back in 1984 through 1986 called the Books of Blood; exploring themes of fantasy and horror.
His background has allowed him to release great titles like Hellraiser (based on Barker's The Hellbound Heart), Nightbreed (A tale based on H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos), Lord of Illusions (The Last Illusion), and Midnight Meat Train (which also happens to be another short story from the Books of Blood).
This particular films draws influence from two of his short stories, The Book of Blood and On Jerusalem Street (a postscript).
Still, this script could have maintained the intelligence of the story better 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.
Mommy is in the light!"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).
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.
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.
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.
And while I enjoyed the film, it is plagued by mediocrity at every turn, so much so that by the end, you are almost taken completely out of the film, because you're tired of waiting for it to get good.The biggest problem lies in the script.
Everything is very by the book, and like so much of the film, bland and mediocre.Before I jump into the performances, I want to say that none of the actors are bad.
I've only read the first half of one of Clive Barker's books, The Great and Secret Show, but that, along with several movie adaptations of his work, has given me a pretty firm handle on what gets the guy's juices flowing: death, sex, pain, blood, naked men, hell, perversion, good and evil, ghosts, damnation, demons, and eternal suffering...
Based on the opening story to his 'Books of Blood', it covers a lot of those themes, delivering supernatural occurrences aplenty, loads of atmosphere, ghost rape, flaying, a brief glimpse of Jonas Armstrong's tallywhacker, a fit bird in hot-pants having her face ripped off, and lots of general strangeness in an old house that turns out to be an intersection on a spectral highway, where the dead spill over into the world of the living.Movies based on Barker's work range from the pretty awful (The Plague, Rawhead Rex) to the bloody awesome (Hellraiser, Candyman); Book of Blood sits comfortably somewhere in the middle.
The direction from John Harrison is competent enough, the acting is fine, and the effects are surprisingly good for such a comparatively low-budget film, but being adapted from what is essentially the introduction to a collection of short stories, plus elements taken from one of those stories, it lacks some of the depth and complexity to be found in his best cinematic offerings..
Usually Clive Barker flicks are too concerned with blood and guts gore, which this one also has some scenes...but this movie was more supernatural and ghostly or creepy than gory.
Driven to arrive at a secluded mansion, a paranormal investigator and a psychic find that the house sits at a location where souls pass through to the afterlife and that the dead want their story told but require human skin in order to tell it to others.This here had a lot of potential but ultimately it really let itself down big time with several really big flaws that shouldn't have been there.
I don't think i'll even bother watching another adaptation of Clive's work unless he gets of his bum and directs it himself.
Did you know that Clive was so annoyed with the earlier adaptation of Rawhead Rex that he insisted on directing Hellraiser without any experience in movie making.
However, once you get over the blood and the scarred skin, you realize it is just another movie about a haunting with some added special effects.
Actually I can't imagine a movie that would outBarker a Clive Barker book.
Clive Barker is a talented writer and I like all movies adapted from his books but I rated it lower because there wasn't enough Doug Bradley he only showed up in the last 30 mins and was on scream for about 5mins.
I didn't really got the story until I read some reviews after the movie.Not really horror except for 2 scenes - the backstory and the creepy end.
In the very beginning the viewer meets the main character who actually tells us the story "how he ended like this".There are a hot teacher, tough guy obviously not her husband and a freshman (student).There is a haunted house where things are supposed to happen.The backstory of the house is the only good thing about this movie - scary and brutal, there is violence, blood, skin torn apart.
It is no secret that it was the promise of another Clive Barker horror story that lured me in to watch "Book of Blood".
And the synopsis for the movie also did sound fairly interesting.As the movie came to an end, I was left with a sensation that this was definitely not the best of material from Clive Barker.
At best, then the storyline can be summarized as being generic.It should be said that the acting in the movie was adequate, and people actually managed surprisingly well in the face of having a very generic and predictable script to work with.The concept idea of the story behind "Book of Blood" is quite interesting, but it suffered tremendously under a very generic script, which hardly did the concept idea much justice.There were some interesting enough scenes throughout the movie, and I did like the way that the main character served as a medium for the entities at the gateway.
And it was quite graphic at times, and that worked in favor of the movie - providing you can stomach things like that, of course.What topped off the experience was the ending of the movie.
And it didn't serve the movie in any positive way, quite the opposite actually."Book of Blood" had potential to be a good and interesting horror movie, but it just failed horribly given the poor script and the direction that the movie took at the end..
Had the curve of production quality been reversed I would have struggled to make it through to the middle of the film.Obviously, a great story from Clive Barker, which I still feel film portrays fairly well.
Since we, as an audience, don't identify with the characters on any personal level, this movie lacks the emotional story that it could have had.
I don't even know if you could call in a "love story." The relationship between Simon and Mary is never fully explained and, like I said before: Since we, as an audience do not identify with the characters there is no emotional content there.
There is a lack of depth to the backstory or the kind of casual banter that allows viewers to get comfortable with the characters.However, I wish that, just for once, the unfolding of a horror story didn't depend on the characters making unforgivably stupid decisions and unfathomable choices.This isn't a terrible film, and it is good to see Barker's stories getting onto the screen again..
CLIVE BARKER'S BOOK OF BLOOD is an adaptation of his work that comes across as a traditional haunted house flick, albeit with a few Clive Barker-style flourishes.
The reason I watched this was down to the fact I once had an interest in Clive Barker who despite a somewhat pretentious writer could spin a good horror yarn .
One wonders about the obstacles the story might have since the original story by Barker is merely used as a literary device by the writer to book end a series of short stories , one of which THE MIDNIGHT MEAT TRAIN shows one of the problems elongating a short story beyond its natural length To be fair writer/director John Harrison has made an interesting haunted house thriller .
Horror Clive Barker Style that almost gets ruined by the lack of a real story.
"Book of Blood" contains several trademarks of Clive Barker's earlier work.
This is a big shame since "Book of Blood" had a lot of potential into creating a new horror icon.If you can overlook the slow pace and the lack of story then you can enjoy this movie since it is full of suspense,scary moments and even some pretty erotic scenes..
Further the dead want someone to listen to them and tell the world through a book of blood.Tales of haunted house seemed to be an exhausted theme for horror movies; however, Clive Barker reinvents the terror of this theme in "Book of Blood".
Normally I don't like a story in a story and here it wasn't any different in the beginning but in the end when they came back to the present time some cool things happen in which you can re-find the writer of hellraiser mister Clive Barker.
A room within the house could very well be a gateway for the dead wishing for their stories to be heard, and Mary might've found a "lightning rod" in a student of hers attending the local university, Simon McNeal(Jonas Armstrong), whose claims of clairvoyance might benefit her new book.
I'm a huge fan of Clive Barker's books, I think I read them all.
So I'm always very keen on any Clive Barker adaptation I come across.I saw a trailer of this movie and I was so intrigued that I didn't rest until I found the DVD in the store.
Okay, the atmosphere was creepy and sinister and we started out with some weird action (a skin-peeling that was cleverly done) but after that the movie sort of collapsed into a terrible bore since nothing much happens.
Usually, my past experience with Clive Barker adaptations has been rough and not-very-memorable.Other times, Ghost stories always seemed to involve some happy, Upscale yuppie family moving into some idyllic country house and then the Audience is supposed to thrill to the horror of the Perfect Little Yuppie Children being threatened by some ectoplasmic nasty.
I really like watching horror movies, and this one had the bonus of being more about the paranormal than just a slasher-type.
The oddest part I found with the movie was (spoiler)the professor getting upset that the student was faking the activity in the house *after* she herself had a strange experience, and making a comment like "I wanted it to be real".
A minor let down from the master of horror Clive Barker; BOOK OF BLOOD finds an expert of the paranormal, Mary(Sophie Ward), renting an old Georgian house in Edinburgh, because of the tales of mysterious deaths in an attic room.
Professor and student start sexual relationship, student turns out to be a fake who sets up paranormal activity in house being researched, when project is set to be shut down student shows back up and swears he didn't fake all activities and just to prove it runs upstairs where ghosts just happen to appear at the right time to try to tie up the lose ends of this horrible story.
In his recent past, Simon had been helping author / professor Mary Florescu (Sophie Ward) conduct some research, by investigating a "haunted" house where a horrible, mysterious murder had taken place.There's enough here that is by now overly familiar (including the fact that Simon was a haunted individual with the power of second sight, a la 'The Dead Zone') to prevent "Book of Blood" from being anything special or great.
Director / co-screenwriter John Harrison, who adapted the Clive Barker stories 'The Book of Blood' and 'On Jerusalem Street', does manage a fairly good balancing act here, combining mood, atmosphere, pathos, gore, sex, and nudity into a reasonably effective whole.
As the gentlemen towards the end of the movie says "You tell a good story, friend.
Loudly.Redeeming qualities:Special effects - The writing on the young man's skin looks really nice when it first appears.The pecker shot - Not really my thing, but it firmly establishes that this is not a Hollywood movie.The sex scenes - Well.....
They're the only time the actors actually show some emotion, albeit of the physical kind.Conclusion: The sex scenes were the best thing about this movie - How bad must a horror flick be to elicit such a statement?.
I honestly don't know why Clive Barker didn't sue to get his name removed from this terrible disaster of a film, since by all reports it's nothing like his book.
It's been quite some time that I've seen a film nudity couldn't help, but this one manages ably.Nothing about the story really makes sense.