Book of Blood

Happy October 1st!! "One day closer to Halloween, one day closer to Pumpkin Pie...." So yes, I am supposed to be writing about Lon Chaney but I promised a review of Clive Barker's Book of Blood and damn it... I keep my promises. I didn't promise that the review would be any good however....... so here we go.

I may have been having a fit of hysteria when I originally wrote about this film. Number One: It was on SyFy channel and it didn't totally suck..turning my world and highly cultivated sensibilities upside down. Number Two: I had been having a bit of insomnia which is why I watched this in the first place. Number Three: I worked a 7 day stretch (poor me) and anything over 5 days pretty much renders me useless. Thus, I wrote that I liked this film. Which I did, but I really should not have mentioned it. I watched an obviously "chopped" up version. The "theatrical" release should be out on DVD soon and I bet it will make a whole lot more sense than this thing did.

Mary checks out her Halloween costume.

Clive Barker's Book of Blood is based on the framing stories (Book of Blood and On Jerusalem Street) from the Books of Blood. I had read about this adaptation in Rue Morgue and was sad to see it ended up on the SyFy channel, home to such films as Aztec Rex and SS Doomtrooper. But I gave it a chance and I was impressed when somebody got their face ripped off in the first 5 minutes. I thought "This is a Clive Barker film!!" Jonas Armstrong stars as Simon, a young man with psychic abilities who may be able to speak with the dead. Sophie Ward plays Mary Florescu, a researcher that hires Simon to investigate a haunted house- Ghosthunters style. The fit hits the shan when Simon and Mary get it on. Sex ALWAYS leads to bloodshed or worse in Clive Barker's world.

I love haunted house stories and this is a good one, despite being all chopped up. I will get the DVD, just to see what I missed (sex and gore) and for the special features (Clive Barker speaking please.) Book of Blood is not as good as Midnight Meat Train, so it you are torn between the two choose the later. But it is a damn site better than the other SyFy Channel film I watched this week: Children of the Corn. Awful casting, awful special effects, awful editing........just awful. But, it restored the balance because this is what I expect from SyFy. (note: I do like SyFy's shows. I love Ghosthunters in particular. But the films are god awful. I mean, not even so bad they are good awful. Just awful. It took me 3 days to get through Children of the Corn.)