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King - good books, crap films

Stop laughing at the back there!

This isn’t to say King’s novels aren’t good. Most of them have good, if rather one dimensional, stories that appeal to a mass audience by not becoming bogged down in complex plots and metaphysical ramblings that prevent a lot of Clive Barker’s books reaching a wider audience. It may be for this reason that many of the adaptations fail to live up to the novel’s successes, there’s not as much substance for a director to get his or her teeth into. There’s very little else to “Christine” than a car possessed by the devil, hence a film that does nothing more than feature a car that drive’s off by itself (shopping trolley’s do this all the time without the devil’s help and they’re not scary!). Or it could just be that directors such as Mary Lambert (“Pet Semetery”), Daniel Attias (“Silver Bullet”), Lewis Teague (“Cujo”) and Ralph Singleton (“Graveyard Shift”) could never reach the heights of George Romero (“Creepshow”), Kubrick, Reiner or Brian De Palma (“Carrie”) in getting the best out of King’s visions.

“Beware the moon and stay on the path…”

# posted by The Horror Video @ 10:29 AM 0 comments

I watched this movie with Jen the other night, it was the second time I'd seen it and the first time for my wife to be, but I'd forgotten how good it was. It was directed by Neil Marshall, the man responsible for the excellent "Dog Soldiers", and represents an unashamed return to balls-to-the-wall, pulls out all the stops, horror.

The title has a double meaning, as most movie titles do, the descent referring to the six friends' situation as potholers, and the descent into madness. A brief synopsis of the plot shows our female lead, Sarah, lose her husband and daughter in a pre credits scene ( a simple but brilliantly realised set piece that shows you don't need to see a car flip over countless times for it to be exciting). Fast forward a year later and she meets up with her friends once again to go down a pothole. However, not far into the excursion there's a cave-in but, not to worry, there are three entrances to this cave. Not so because the woman who led them there, Juno (Nathalie Mendoza from "Hotel Babylon") has led them down an unexplored cavern as part of an ego-trip.

Now the film is pretty terrifying before any subterranean monsters show up. Marshall makes full use of the dark and inescapable surroundings meaning that I was already scared before one of the "Crawlers" showed up and the gory fun begins, and I do mean gory. There's no let up in the blood stakes for the final half an hour, eyes are gouged out, heads pick-axed, guts ripped out, throats slit, necks plunged. It is extremely graphic which is something of a throwback. Even recent, tough to watch chillers such as "Wolf Creek", "Saw" and "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" don't have as much on-screen gore as their 80's counterparts. This one has it in spades.

I've already mentioned the descent into madness. There is a theory that the "Crawlers" don't exist and are, in fact, a figment of Sarah's growing psychosis. The reasons are several. Even before she gets out of the hospital in the opening scene we witness an hallucination, through which two of her friends emerge. Fast forward to the shack where she stays with her friends a year later and the hallucinations continue, the camera lingers on a bottle of pills quite deliberately. As they walk towards the gaping chasm, one of the girls mentions a side-effect of potholing that says lengthy exposure to the dark can bring about hallucinations. This would go some way to explaining the fact that, initially, Sarah is the only one that sees and hears the "Crawlers". She would have left behind the pills, thinking she'd be back before needing another dose, but the time down below, combined with the potential for hallucination, brings about the psychosis. It would also explain the near-hour long running time before the first "Crawler" attack (initially seen through a camcorder). This theory falls flat when some "Crawler" scenes don't include Sarah, but could this be Sarah herself comitting the acts and imagining them in another way? We are being asked to follow her story after all.

Juno is the villain of the group. It's implied that she slept with her husband and was partly responsible for the vacant actions that led to the crash that killed him. Sarah attacks her and leaves her for dead after learning she killed her best friend in the cave (accidentally), could this also be her way of rationalising the murder of Juno who, though responsible for their predicament, hardly commits a crime punishable by death? It's an interesting idea that requires a third watch at some point, once my nerves have returned after the second viewing.

The end is also contentious. Sarah, having awoken from another hallucination that suggests she had escaped, sees her daughter in front of a birthday cake. This is a recurring image although something is different on this occasion. Unlike the other three or four times, the cake has 6 candles instead of 5. Now this could represent her birthday, the first such hallucination is just after the accident and could simply haver referred to her daughter's age ( a year on there would, of course, be 6 candles). It could also refer to the number who have been killed, in which case Sarah is also already dead, reunited with her daughter. The American version doesn't have this final image, ending when a "Crawler" attacks her in the car. Perhaps that was not the hallucination and the "Crawler" had, in fact, killed her in the car after she'd escaped leading to the beyond the grave hallucination.

Whatever the true meaning, the movie did what it set out to do, it scared me. Jen's first reaction when it ended was "that was a horrible film", no doubt the director would have been pleased with that response. It made us both jump several times (Jen screamed at least twice), isn't that what horror films are supposed to do.

"Beware the moon and stay on the path"

# posted by The Horror Video @ 10:16 PM 1 comments

A major player in the horror industry, Clive Barker’s had success in the film, publishing and gaming industries but is best known as a novelist and artist. He burst onto the scene with his six “Books of Blood” volumes that harked back to the good old days of Poe and Lovecraft with a distinctly modern twist. Blending the horror story with romance, melodrama, crime and fantasy it marked a new benchmark in horror anthology work that was quoted by Stephen King as “The future of Horror”. He wasn’t wrong.

His debut novel “The Damnation Game” was an international best seller and won universal acclaim for its pot-boiling build up and twist on the Faustian legend. It served as a precursor to many of his latter novels in that it worked towards a suggestive climax of other worlds and dimensions that would be explored in future projects.

“Weaveworld” came next and marked the transition from horror to adult fantasy, telling the story of an ancient world protected from mankind by existing within the weavings of a rug. This sounds ridiculous but marks one of Barker’s themes of another world kept hidden from us despite being under our noses. What sets Barker’s second novel apart from many other fantasies is their firm grounding in horror. This is a graphically gory novel with some horrific goings-on alongside some of the beautifully realised descriptive prose of Weaveworld itself. The wraiths stick in the mind, as does Shadwell’s twisted relationship with Immacolata, and the mental image of a magical world imprinted onto Liverpool never leaves you.

“Cabal”, to be filmed by Barker himself as “Nightbreed”, brought in another common theme of mankind as the monsters. The title village is ‘a place where the monsters go’, the souls of societies misfits live again in a place where they can show their ‘true face’. Hunted down after death by men who don’t understand them and can’t see past their inhuman appearances and shapeshifting abilities, the novel doesn’t quite live up to the ideas. However, it’s another example of a barker work that juxtaposes the disgusting with the beautiful in one moment and has more than enough moments to still stand as a superior work.

Other works of note include the Books of the Art starting with the truly incredible “The Great and Secret Show” and its inferior sequel “Everville”, the Tolkien-esque epic “Imajica” and “The Hellbound Heart” that became “Hellraiser”, all cemented his reputation as a metaphysical author capable of taking you to worlds you never dreamt of, and scaring you at the same time. It always seems strange to me that Barker’s reputation is that of a horror author when few of his novels beyond the short stories can be put into that category.

Unlike many of his counterparts, Barker has also delved into the world of the children’s novel, creating three compelling works perhaps a little too dark and complex for today’s “Harry Potter” generation. “The Thief of Always” reads like a Grimm Fairy Tale crossed with a Terry Gilliam film, telling the story of a young boy seduced by the sinister Mr Hood’s promise of magic and miracles at his holiday house. A cautionary tale that would no doubt frighten young readers, but isn’t that what it’s all about? Illustrated throughout with glorious sketches of mutated wonders and bat-like creatures, this is a moral tale, a modern day fable that will delight youngsters and adults.

Then of course there’s “Abarat”, the first two parts of a planned quartet, the subject of an 8 million pound deal with Disney that was offered without a page being written. Adapted from 400 original paintings by Barker, it deals with another youngster, Candy Quackenbush, bored with life and goes in search of something more exciting, she finds it. In true fantasy fashion she winds up in the magical world of Abarat, a land of 24 islands, each representing an hour of the day with a mysterious 25th island shrouded in darkness. She discovers she’s been there before and has a pivotal role to play in the future of the world as she holds the key to preventing the Abarat being taken over by the Lord of Midnight. Incredible stuff that once again displays the theme of monstrous looking creatures being far from villainous, and of a world within our world of which we are not aware. All this with the glorious full colour paintings that inspired the novels.

It’s impossible to give a full run-down of each novel in the small space a blog can offer but this should help as a guide to Barker’s work:

RECOMMENDED: Weaveworld, Imajica, The Great and Secret Show, Thief of Always, Books of Blood. Abarat,

VERY GOOD: Damnation Game, Abarat, Sacrement, Hellbound Heart, Cabal

AVOID: Everville

I may return to the subject of Clive Barker either through his films or a retrospective on one of his novels, there’s so much scope it’d be difficult to leave alone. Until next time, keep safe and hope you find something here to facilitate the bedtime reading.

“Beware the moon and stay on the path…”

# posted by The Horror Video @ 9:47 PM 0 comments

When people think of horror they think of adult situations, blood, gore and violence without thinking about its most ardent followers…children! Some of the most famous stories and monsters originate from kids stories, including the witch in “Hansel and Grettel”, the goblin in “Rumpelstiltskin”, the Troll in “The Three Billy Goats Gruff” and the wolf in “Little Red Riding Hood”. The Daily Mail and other ill-informed rags always holler the argument “What if a child saw this movie?”, and for the most part they’re quite right, would you allow your child to watch “A Nightmare on Elm Street” or “Hellraiser”? Of course not, but without a second thought you’d read one of the aforementioned stories of kids in peril, at risk from a monster that wants to eat, kill or maim them within the stories. The simple reason for this is kids love to be scared and know the difference between fantasy and reality all too well. Just ask yourself what you were scared of when you little? When was the first time you were really scared? Did you shiver at night from listening to these stories? Me neither!

I’ll share something with you about the first three times I was really scared…

1. I remember watching the TV, it was one of those early afternoon detective programmes and I must have been younger than 5 because I was living in Newark, Notts, we moved shortly before my 5th birthday. A woman pulled back the blinds and a burglar with suckers on his hands and knees was staring back at her, upside down. This terrified me and the fear of opening the curtains to see someone staring back is still with me today.

2. Again I was in Newark and my parents were out, we had a babysitter in. I was in bed and could see a shadow behind the wardrobe that appeared monstrous to me and I began to cry. The babysitter came in and asked what was the matter, I said there was a monster behind the wardrobe; she moved something out of site. When I woke up and looked behind the wardrobe, the only thing there was my moneybox, shaped like an eagle. I still get frightened by films and noises that keep things hidden and out of sight, the suggestion that something’s wrong.

3.I had moved to Harrogate but every summer spent a week with my best friend from Newark, Darren, and one particular year there was a big news story. A man nicknamed ‘The Fox’ was breaking into people’s houses and killing them, I was scared out of my mind he was going to attack my parents when I was away.

These three things, for me represent REAL fears, not monsters or blood, not violence or gore but real fears that stop you from sleeping. The fear that something from out there is going to come in here and make bad things happen. You take a look at some of the biggest movies and stories that children watch and enjoy and they all have an element of horror. “Harry Potter”, “Goosebumps”, “The Demon Headmaster” and “Lord of the Rings”, blockbusters from my day such as “Indiana Jones”,

“The Goonies” and “Star Wars” all had monstrous villains and frightening scenes that allowed us to forget about those genuine fears that keep us awake at night, a safe outlet to channel our anxieties and worries.



As adults we try hard to protect youngsters from horrific images, but read scare stories to send them to sleep, the same stories packaged in a different way. Hannibal Lector and The Big Bad Wolf both eat people but one’s for adults and one’s for kids. Children know there’s no such thing as The Big Bad Wolf, but as I found out as a child watching the news, Hannibal Lector does. These stories help prepare the next generation for the horrors of the real world and prove that kids know the difference between what’s real and what’s fantasy. There’s a certain irony that a paper like The Daily Mail can lambaste horror movies for corrupting kids on one page and show gruesome images of war and graphic photos of murder victims on the other, something truly horrific and very real. Until they realise that people kill people and not horror movies, these films will always be looked at with contempt…but then everyone loves a villain!


“Beware the moon and stay on the path…”

# posted by The Horror Video @ 8:50 PM 0 comments