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This book explores the diverse literary, film and visionary creations of the polymathic and influential British artist Clive Barker. It presents groundbreaking essays that critically reevaluate Barker's oeuvre. These include in-depth analyses of his celebrated and lesser known novels, short stories, theme park designs, screen and comic book adaptations, film direction and production, sketches and book illustrations, as well as responses to his material from critics and fan communities. The book examines Barker's earlier fiction and its place within British horror fiction and socio-cultural contexts. Selected tales from the Books of Blood are exemplary in their response to the frustrations and political radicalism of the 1980s British cultural anxieties. Aiming to rally those who stand defiant of Thatcher's polarising vision of neoliberal British conservatism, Weaveworld is revealed to be a savage indictment of 1980s British politics. The book explores Barker's transition from author to filmmaker, and how his vision was translated, captured, and occasionally compromised in its adaptation from page to the screen. Barker's work contains features which can be potentially read as feminine and queer, positioning them within traditions of the Gothic, the melodrama and the fantastic. The book examines Barker's works, especially Hellraiser, Nightbreed, and Lord of Illusions, through the critical lenses of queer culture, desire, and brand recognition. It considers Barker's complex and multi-layered marks in the field, exploring and re-evaluating his works, focusing on Tortured Souls and Mister B. Gone's new myths of the flesh'.
The Books of Blood , first published in six volumes in 1984 and 1985, collectively add up to the most important work of British horror fiction of the 1980s. Together, the stories gathered across these volumes are often cited as revolutionising modern horror: my 1994 collected edition of Volumes 1–3 comes proudly emblazoned with two cover blurbs by
against the tyranny of realism itself – its limits, strictures, and demands. But also its possibilities: the opportunity cost incurred by Barker's policy of relentless ‘fantastication’ has been heavy indeed. 3 Barker first came to international prominence with Books of Blood (1984–85), a collection of thirty stories of which only one (and
–20. Clive Barker's writing has been indelibly marked by Stephen King's enthusiastic endorsement calling him ‘the future of horror’. While there is much in the various stories that comprise the Books of Blood to suggest this, it is a rather misleading term, and has been confounded repeatedly by his exploration of the fantastic and imaginative over a focus on the gory
are widely regarded in the horror community; fans, scholars, and artists in the field continually point to Barker's career as a polymath as being far-reaching and significant. Despite these accolades, scholarly engagement with his work beyond the hugely successful Books of Blood and the Hellraiser series has been strangely stagnant. His numerous works in fiction, film, and art have come to
stories that haven't been optioned would make good movies. One of them is Dread which would make a very nice movie if it were handled properly.’ 8 And in the audio commentary of the bonus features of The Midnight Meat Train Blu-ray, he says that for him it was an ‘obvious candidate for a movie’. If the Books of Blood can or should be adapted on film, 9 it is
the mid-1980s, having moved from experimental theatre to breakout success as a horror writer with the Books of Blood (1984–85) and the novel The Damnation Game (1985). In 1985 Barker wrote a screenplay for the low budget horror feature Underworld (1985), and also had his Books of Blood short story ‘Rawhead Rex’ (1986) adapted
become a major motif deserving of critical attention. As I will argue, corporality in Barker serves to articulate a characteristic type of fleshy horror – what I have elsewhere called ‘body gothic’ – that became the writer's trademark after the huge success of the Books of Blood (1984–85). 3 However, this proposition needs further qualification. Unlike other writers who
Like a flawless tragedy, the elegance of which structure is lost upon those suffering in it, the perfect geometry of the Spector Street Estate was only visible from the air. ‘The Forbidden’, Clive Barker’s Books of Blood , V, 1