Main cast: Jonas Armstrong (Simon McNeal), Sophie Ward (Mary Florescu), Clive Russell (Wyburd), Paul Blair (Reg Fuller), Romana Abercromby (Janie), Simon Bamford (Derek), James Watson (Jimmy), and Doug Bradley (Tollington)
Director: John Harrison
Given that I recently reviewed Books of Blood, it may be fun to revisit Book of Blood, a far earlier effort to bring a small part of Clive Barker’s Books of Blood anthology. Unlike the other movie, this one ditches the anthology format and combines instead the story that bears the same title as the anthology along with The Book of Blood (a postscript): On Jerusalem Street. This makes perfect sense, as the stories combined present the whole origin story of the Book of Blood, with the rest of the stories in the anthology being the stories told to the owner of the book in question.
A grizzled man for hire, Wyburd, captures his target, a badly scarred man called Simon McNeal, and reveals to Simon that he has been paid to kill and skin that man. However, he is intrigued enough to want to know Simon’s story, so he offers a quick death to that man in exchange for that story. Hence, Simon begins to talk.
It turns out that Simon was part of Professor Mary Florescu’s team, along with Reg Fuller, to investigate the paranormal going-on in a house said to be haunted by malevolent forces. How the book came to be from this event, as well as Simon’s role in the whole thing, is something that will be revealed to Wyburd as the story progresses.
Of course, whether Wyburd appreciates having the grisly details of Simon’s past is a different story altogether! You know what they say about knowing too many secrets, especially dark, dark ones.
Now, movie adaptations of Clive Barker’s works, with perhaps the sole exceptions of the first two Hellraiser movies, are a truly mixed bag, ranging from horrifying to polarizing. Even the ones that I like tend to skate by due to how charming-awful those movies can be.
This one is no different. It has some issues, especially with fake-looking special effects and a middle that drags a bit, but at the same time, it cleverly makes up for it by having Jonas Armstrong sauntering around naked and showing everything for the most part. Mr Armstrong’s Simon is a charming con that takes advantage of Mary’s attraction to him for what he hopes to be an easy score, and this is where the movie also succeeds admirably in capturing the eroticism of Mr Barker’s works. The love scenes here aren’t sexy as much they are just prelude to horrifying things to come, and the whole thing works beautifully. In many ways, this is as close to a sexy-scary Clive Barker story as a movie adaptation of his works can get.
Also, I should point this out: there are no cheap jump scares here, despite it being a horror film set in a haunted big house. No idiots walking in deliberately dark corridors in utter silence only to have an abrupt sound destroying one’s ear drums as a CGI visage suddenly pops up behind the idiot only to then vanish again—nope, none of that crap that plagues horror movies of today, and thank goodness for that. Oh, and when Simon does walk around in corridors, he does it completely naked. That’s so much better.
The plot could be done better. For example, it makes no sense for the ghosts to wait so long to show themselves, aside from the obvious plot reason, and the side plot about Simon’s psychic abilities feels unnecessary. Also, some of the scenes may seem terrifying when read on a page, but they look ridiculous on film—especially Wyburd’s fate.
Hence, while I don’t think this a great film by any mean, the Clive Barker fan in me appreciates what it tries to do. I like that it manages to capture the essence and the atmosphere of Mr Barker’s story well, combining it with body horror to visually heady effects. Plus, the story itself is both fascinating and macabre, even if the execution could have been better. Of course, pretty people showing skin is always good in a film of this kind, so kudos for that too.
