Rami Ungar The Writer

I’ll admit it: I haven’t read any of Clive Barker’s books yet. I’ve seen some of the film adaptations, especially Hellraiser, but not his books. I know, shame on me. What kind of horror fan am I? Well, I’ve downloaded the first volume of Books of Blood on audio book.

But before that, I watched a new adaptation of his famous collections of short stories, Books of Blood on Hulu, which tells three interconnected tales involving the titular book.

Now, I’m not usually one for anthology movies. Or maybe I just haven’t shown enough of an interest. But this one was really good. The first two stories are very well-written, particularly the first one, “Jenna.”* The settings look great, and the acting never feels hammy or terrible. What special effects there are, they’re done so nothing looks silly or fake.

And of course, there’s blood. Lots and lots of blood. Enough to not make a liar out of the title.

That being said, there are a couple of negatives to the film. While there’s plenty of scary imagery and tense moments, there wasn’t any point until near the very end where I felt frightened. And while the stories were well-written, you could see the twists for most of them coming and the last one, “Bennett,” had no surprises at all.

And while the stories were interconnected, I wasn’t really satisfied with how a couple of them were connected. I would have liked more emphasis on the connections and how each story could play into and influence each other.

But on the whole, Books of Blood is a decent enough adaptation of the source material. On a scale of 1 to 5, I’ll give it a 4. If you like horror anthology movies, this might be something to put onto your watchlist.

Just be careful not to watch it while drinking red wine, tea made for you by someone else, or stay at a bed and breakfast while watching it.

*Not sure if any of the stories in the film are based on stories in the books, but I think I’ll find that out if I enjoy Volume One and decide to continue with the series.