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Clive Barker found joy in painting at the age of 45, two years after the release of Lord of Illusions ( 1995 ), his third and last feature as a film director. 1 Speaking in the documentary Clive Barker: The Man Behind the Myth ( 2007 ), the artist described his encounter with the medium in a wistful voice: ‘It was like opening a door
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'.
conflicted collisions between sexuality and horror. Following Hellraiser , Barker would direct just two other feature films, Nightbreed (1990) and Lord of Illusions (1995), both of which continued the engagement with themes of transgression, sexuality, and the body. This chapter will examine how each of Barker's directorial efforts deals with these issues in relation to
, Lord of Illusions , which incorporates characters from his fantasy novels into a film merging film noir, dark comedy, and graphic horror. The final result, financed and released by MGM and United Artists, again suffered production and marketing difficulties. 8 By the late 1990s, Barker's negative experiences led him to take up a more consistent ongoing role as an executive
), Barker was prompted to direct what would become his final feature film. Lord of Illusions , based on his short story ‘The Last Illusion’ from Books of Blood , Volume 6, achieved moderate critical and commercial success with his film noir gothic tale of a magician and a cult leader whose shared Faustian pact entwines their fate in a nihilistic dance of magic and immortality. Featuring a strong cast
films offer specific sets of pleasures (both visual and narrative) in light of the views expressed by female fans. (Whilst Lord of Illusions is also significant in terms of its representations of pleasure and pain, it is less highly regarded or discussed, and will not for the most part be specifically included.) With a particular focus on feminine spectatorship and
also instrumental in Freddie Francis’s Dr Terror’s House of Horrors (1965), William Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist III (1990), Peter Jackson’s Dead Alive (1992), Sam Raimi’s The Gift (2000), Clive Barker’s Lord of Illusions (1995), Ernest Dickerson’s Bones (2001) and Rob Minkoff’s The Haunted Mansion (2004). A pack of falling cards is shown as an
fiction within the mode, despite the critical reluctance with its (perceived) trappings. Many of Barker's stories, films, and novels – Coldheart Canyon , The Hellbound Heart , and Lord of Illusions , among others – contain these familiar patterns which Hogle defines as an overarching element of the Gothic