TheWorkingDead
Posts 237
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12/1/2007 8:05 PM
posted awhile ago
Top Five... Clive Barker
Lists. Everybody loves lists! So welcome to a new regular feature here in the Film Library, the Top Five. This can be a simple top five list, like the top five Hitchcock films based on novels(you'd have plenty to choose from), or a bit more complex like Top Five Movies Based On Victorian-Era Science Fiction. I'm going to be posting a new list at least once a month, but by all means, if you have a list, start your own discussion thread and we can all make our opinions heard. I'm going to start with an easy one today, Top Five Films Based On The Works Of Clive Barker. I chose Clive Barker because there are too many discussions about Stephen King movies going on around this site as it is, I didn't think I had anything new to add by this point. 1. Nightbreed This a very important film in my life; it's the film that turned me into a horror fan. Before this movie I couldn't stomache even fairly innocuous horror films, but after seeing this movie while in Jr. High, I started devouring as many horror films and books as I could get my hands on. Nightbreed made me look at the world of ghosts and monsters not only as a place for fear and terror, but a place full of it's own beauty and overflowing with mystery. Adapting the film from his own novella, Cabal, Barker's second film as a director may seem a bit choppy, but that's only because the studio forced 45 minutes of edits. I actually wrote Mr. Barker once, inquiring as to the existence of a Director's Cut of this film, since it seemed jumpy. He assured me that 45 minutes were cut, and a special edition DVD would be out by that holiday season. That was in 1998. Don't hold your breath. 2. Hellraiser The best movies based on Clive Barker's books tend to have his direct involvement, and the very best usually have him directing. Parts of Hellraiser certainly have not aged well, particularly some of the acting and often unnatural dialogue, but those are minor quibbles. Lot's of horror directors and goth bands try to pull off the whole 'beautiful yet horrifying' trick, but no one has succeeded as well as Clive Barker. From the sexualized, S&M Cenobites to Frank's haunting and disgusting(and, yes, beautiful) ressurection scene to Kirsty's dreams, the movie has grace amidst all those flesh hooks. 3. Candyman Not directed by Clive Barker, but the best attempt by anyone trying to adapt Barker's work. Slowmoving and graceful, yet full of all the grotesque imagery you'd want from a Clive Barker movie(and more hooks!). Tony Todd will forever be Candyman to me, that tortured soul who, in the end, only wants to be with his own love. The setting of this film(and story) were unique at the time, and to a great extent still are. Black villains and Housing Projects are usually relegated to Direct to Video "urban" films that replace the letter S with a Z in their title. It's an aspect of life that is woefully unexplored by mainstream hollywood, particularly in regards to genre output. 4. Lord of Illusions This one almost made number three, but I had to admit that the flaws in this film may be greater than any in Candyman. My appreciation of this film seems to vary with each watching; sometimes I love it, sometimes I'm not into it. More often than not I love it, but then, Candyman is a movie I've always enjoyed. So for sheer consistency, this one drops down a peg. Clive Barker plays with our expectations in this one a bit, largely by moving the film almost immediately from rain-soaked New York to bright and sunny California. A hard-boiled noir-horror film should feel dark and opressive, not sunny and open. And yet It works for me, largely due to a great performance from lead Scott Bakula(who really deserves more work) and the always stunning Famke Jannsen. Not helping the movie is Kevin J. O'Conner, who I normally find entertaining, but who can't seem to inhabit the exposition he's given here. Daniel von Bargen makes a slobbish cult leader, who seems an odd vessel for so much power but pulls it off by being charismatic AND quite disturbing. 5. Midnight Meat Train It's a bit of a cheat, putting in a movie that hasn't come out yet. I'm sorry, but when the remaining contestants are Underworld(AKA Transmutations), some crappy sequel to Hellraiser of Candyman, or Rawhead Rex(I can't believe I so disliked a movie where the monster baptises a catholic priest in his urine), I'll go with the promising-sounding upcoming project. Although I'm disappointed Clive Barker won't be directing any films in the future, Ryuhei Kitamura was an interesting and hopefully entertaining choice to film the adapted version of this short story. Kitamura's films have so far been hyperkinetic action films, which seems like an odd fit for Clive Barker's world, but it makes some sort of sense. Kitamura's films have all been preoccupied with the supernatural, with gods and demons fighting it out with a varied selection of swords guns and whatever else they can get their hands on. Being no stranger to the world of the supernatural, what with the zombies in Versus, the god of war in Aragami, or the ghosts in Sky High, hopefully this new film will deserve my premature placing on this list.
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TheWorkingDead
Posts 237
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12/1/2007 10:58 PM
posted awhile ago
Re:Re:Top Five... Clive Barker
Again, don't hold your breath. Back when Clive Barker's website had a 'news' section, he announced that Disney had bought the rights for the theme park ride and movie before the first book had even come out. He seemed excited about the movie, but a quick search shows nothing about it on IMDB or Wikipedia, and the official Abarat site claims that it's supposed to come out in 2005. Clive Barker is so frustrating, because he always mentions these really cool projects and they never end up happening. I'm still waiting for the Third Book of the Art, the "sequel" to Lord of Illusions that delves more into the D'Amour character, and I really don't think the Thief of Always will ever happen. IMDB says it's supposed to come out this year, but with only 30 days left, I doubt it. Plus I've been hearing about it since the late nineties, even saw some preliminary sketches in this documentary Clive Barker was part of. But still no movie.
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