For many, Clive Barker left the genre sometime back in 1995, after having become a powerhouse horror institution. What they dont know is that he never really left. This year, Barker prepares to bring the Books of Blood to celluloid on the 20th anniversary of those infamous works, and thats just the beginning....
You know his name, you know his movies, and you damn well better know his books. Twenty years ago today, Clive Barker redefined horror literature with his infamous Books of Blood; a genre-shattering, breakthrough collection of abbreviated nightmares in print. His fantastic tales were a masterful blend of extreme horror and poetry of the perverse, comparable to the best of Poe and de Sade.
His six controversial anthologies, of course, were a huge success and lead Barker to a rightful seizure of horrors cinematic throne just three years later with Hellraiser the highly influential, flesh-wrecking slice of sadistic cinema and unholy nativity of Pinhead, one of the genres most intriguing and enduring icons.
Nevertheless, over the last decade, Barker has been criticized by genre fans for abandoning horror in both literature and cinema, his last directorial effort having been 1995s Lord of Illusions. But a closer look at his body of work reveals that, despite varying subject matter, hes never really left us at all. Now armed with a bloody bible of new material and grand designs, Clive Barker is poised to reinvigorate the genre in the way only he can.
Like the great William Blake, Barker is an artistic polymorph; whether it be painting, poetry, erotica or horror, his monolithic imagination has always addressed the strange, dark and unusual right on through to Abarat, his new series of childrens fiction. Whatever artistic discipline he expresses himself through, Barker always dives deep into the dark waters of his soul for inspiration, fearlessly exploring its boundless depths.
This year, Barker comes full circle with his new film label Midnight Picture Show, a collaboration with Anthony DiBlasi and Joe Daley, the creative team behind Barkers Seraphim Films (Saint Sinner, Lord of Illusions). The new genre-specific, hard horror label plans to produce two films per year taken from the Books of Blood anthologies, with the purpose of creating and entire library of movies aptly-titled the Films of Blood.
Beginning this fall with Midnight Meat Train the cannibalistic tale of subway train terror from the very first volume MPS plans to follow up with a delicious assortment of Blood stories including Pig Blood Blues, Age Of Desire, In The Flesh, The Madonna, The Life Of Death, Jacqueline Ess and Twilight At The Towers.
In addition to producing the Films of Blood, Barker also plans to return to the directors chair next year with Tortured Souls, a new movie based on his McFarlane line of toys (RM#40). And if youve been turned off by the fantasy literature that the author has been pumping out over the last ten years, a new anthology of collected shorts and poetry which includes a story that will spell the death of Pinhead is the violent Viagra pill youve been waiting for.
Rue Morgue recently communed with Barker in a frank and intimate talk on everything from his struggle to get the Books of Blood published to his fear of dying. Sit down, eavesdrop, and get reacquainted with the modern renaissance man who continues to redefine the boundaries of horror, opening our minds to new possibilities within the genre and its limitless potential.
JovankaVuckovic: Good evening Clive. First of all, on behalf of the horror genre, welcome back. We missed you.
CliveBarker: Thank you so much, Im really excited to be back.
JV: Throughout your literary metaphysical fantasy years and beyond, youve been criticized by horror fans for abandoning the genre, but now youre poised for an aggressive return to full-on horror. Whats lured you back to the dark side?
CB: Its both a negative and a positive impulse that got me here. Firstly, Ive seen movies that I like that inspire me that make me want to go back and look at the genre afresh. 28 Days Later, Ringu, things like that. Theyll be movies that you and your readers are familiar with, but very often theyre not movies that are bang in the mainstream of Hollywood. Most of the horror movies, or any movies for that matter, that Ive liked over the last few years have been things which have had their origins to the left or the right of the mainstream, like [Ktia Lund and Fernando Meirelles] City of God for example. Have you seen it?
JV: Oh yes. Its a truly brilliant and harrowing film.
CB: I absolutely agree, its a truly amazing and unsettling picture, and films like that have reinvigorated my interest in film. So thats the positive impulse; seeing movies and being excited about them all over again. The negative impulse is that I have felt that criticism you mentioned and have taken very deeply that I have sort of abandoned the genre. I take that to heart. I dont know whether thats positive or negative but I listen to people and I know that Hellraiser, for instance, had some kind of effect upon the genre and some place in its progression and Im very proud of that fact and Id like to do it again. So it really comes out of a sense then, that though the dark stuff is still very present in the stuff Ive been doing on the page, in the paintings and in the words for Abarat and in the novels too, those books tend to be not enjoyed by hard horror fans. I think the real hardcore Hellraiser fans, for instance, probably wouldnt have a go at Abarat. You think thats true, right?
JV: Yes, you are probably right but its a shame, because theres some really disturbed material in there Clive! But it wasnt lost on all of us, your material has always been a broad spectrum of fantastic, youve really pushed the envelope within the genre over the years and opened peoples minds about what horror is, and can be.
CB: Thank you. You know, in fact, I would like to feel that one of the things Id be doing in making another movie in the genre is even further broadening my own understanding of what the genre can do. Hopefully at the same time as I talk about not only Tortured Souls, but all of my work bringing more readers, picture viewers and movie viewers to what I do. What I do has always been a complicated thing Jen, as you know. Even way back in the Books of Blood days, there was a huge controversy between me and my agent and me and my editor at what was then Sphere Books who were the first people to publish the Books of Blood over the publication of a story called In the Hills, the Cities. Both my agent and my editor strongly argued for its removal from the series.
JV: Because of the homosexuality?
CB: Yeah, absolutely.
JV: But thats one of the reasons I was particularly drawn to your work, because it had massive balls.
CB: In more ways than one! [laughing].
JV: Touche! But really, you were destroying the boundaries of sexuality, horror, magic and all manner of taboo with a poetry the genre hadnt seen since perhaps Poe. It wouldnt be right to censor you. What did you do?
CB: Well, they were terrified of all those things, particularly in that story so I said: if you remove the story, I wont publish these books with you, which was a fairly ballsy thing to say because at that point I hadnt had anything published. So it was really a bit of a bluff, you know? But they seemed to understand that I wasnt scared of what the consequences were. The consequences were that a lot of people will say this guys gay, and the answer from me would have been, and was, yeah whats the big deal? At that time I think its probably true to say that there werent any out horror writers at the time in 1984. There had certainly been horror writers who had been outed after their death. Horror fans either dont ask the questions or dont care to ask the questions. What Ive discovered since I wrote the Books of Blood, and since Ive been on panels at conventions, and conversed with my readership through letters is exactly what you said; that people were waiting for somebody to push the limits of sexuality and the boundaries of the physical in horror fiction, short or long. And I had the very good fortune of coming along at the right time but there was a lot of fighting, especially with that editor who was gay believe it or not to get that vision on to the page and keep it there and that [story] was the strongest piece of fighting that I had to do. My own agent, who was also gay, said You mustnt do this, it will destroy your career before its begun. But I did it anyway.
JV: While were on the topic, the really hard horror fanboys tend to be very masculine and kind of macho if you know what I mean. Ive always been curious, from your perspective, what their reaction was toward you once you officially came out?
CB: Theres two reactions; a public reaction and a private reaction. Theres what they feel they have to say and what they really think. I will occasionally get on a website or Amazon.com, where people will be invited to review books a Books of Blood fan will come on an complain about
JV: Sacrament or Galilee, right?
CB: You got it. They complain about it being a faggot novel or whatever. You can go to those pages and read that unpleasantness for yourself if you want.
JV: I think Ill pass on the homophonic literary reviews, thanks.
CB: [laughs] Yeah, theyre not very enlightening anyway. Its a kind of knee-jerk response, a tired response some people had to finding out this person they read, who writes such horrific stuff was gay.
JV: But I think that, for the most part, the genres reaction was Yeah, we already knew that.
CB: Yeah, thats right! Its not like I didnt put signals in the books from word one. And from word one, those signals were the things that came under fire from my editor, they were the things she wanted taken out. Much later on, when they were doing a special edition of the Books of Blood, they wanted me to do a special introduction and we had recently had the Halloween parade here in West Hollywood. My other half had gone as a demon, as a very well-hung demon.
JV: Fantastic!
CB: [laughing] Yeah, hes a black man but he depicted himself many shades blacker, hed hung a thirteen-inch dildo from his groin, he had a horses tail, horns, the whole bit. So I was writing about this in the introduction to the book, thinking, with all the years that have passed, that there would be no problem with me mentioning that my husband was here dressed with an enormous penis and these huge, low-hanging balls and such. Well man, here we are and 16 years have passed and the same woman, the same gay editor had exactly the same problem. She said, We cant publish this. You need to remove all references to testicles and penis. I mean, its so monumentally stupid and narrow-minded that its almost funny.
JV: I wonder what she is afraid of? By now, people have come to expect that from you.
CB: Youre absolutely right Jen, but you know, we still live in a country where and youll have to tell me what the reaction was like in Canada where the public reaction to seeing Janet Jacksons breast was outrage.
JV: It wasnt a big deal here, we forgot about it the next day. Canadians, in general, are very progressive and open-minded, which brings me to my next question. Americans sort of invented genre in a sense; the concept of exploring a set of elements, concentrating them together and giving them back to the people. It seems to me that Americans have an uneasy relationship with you because you walk in and out of the genre and bend the fuck out of it.
CB: First off, you are absolutely correct, America did invent genre. Im not a big fan of the idea of genre. The idea of genre seems to me primarily a marketing tool. Its a way by which publishers market their books and book sellers package their books so that you can go into Barnes and Noble and find all the books which they have called horror in one place. The problem with that is, what do you do when a book isnt one thing or another. I have found Imagica, Sacrament and Thief of Always which I dont think are horror novels all crowded in with the Books of Blood and Damnation Game because there is a need to put people in a pigeon hole.
JV: Is there a difference in the way people from other countries, say Latin America or Europe, perceive your work?
CB: Its funny you ask that because I just came back from Holland and I enjoyed some of the most engaging interviews because there was no real sense that anybody was coming at me with a narrow mind. I mean, whats interesting about this interview, to interrupt myself for a moment, here are you with a magazine called Rue Morgue and obviously a readership that likes horror, and I am one of those people. But nevertheless, weve talked, you and I, many times about painting, music, literature, philosophy and childrens fiction and we are as passionate and enthusiastic about other areas of genre as we are about horror.
JV: We immerse ourselves in as many creative disciplines as we can, much like you.
CB: Thats it. What it comes down to is two words: creation and imagination. The thing that all the genres which I like to work in what well loosely call fantasy, what well loosely call horror, what well loosely call childrens fiction have in common is a sense of rules of reality, as they were written down by some wise old farts, are regularly violated in my fiction. I like fiction that violates the rules of reality, that says look, anything can happen in the world Im about to describe. Doors can open which can lead you to the Sea of Quiddity or Hell, or you can be confronted with two cities built of human beings or whatever. Any number of fantasies are plausible and they will be treated by this author, not with a tongue in my cheek, as is so often the case these days. Weve come to this ironic place in our fiction where it seems to be cool to be ironic and I cant think of anything less interesting than irony. Its such a dull position to take, to say Im not going to take any of this seriously, Im way too cool to take anything seriously and I want my horror serious, I want my fantasy serious. I want my writers, painters and filmmakers to treat my imaginations something sacred and to take me to these incredibly important, strange places with real passion and real commitment to the idea of dreaming with our eyes open which is what theyre doing. It irritates me when I find that a lot of North American horror fiction has become this kind of ironic, tongue-in-cheek stuff. It kills the viability of the material.
JV: The deep mythological concepts in your work lead me to wonder what your thoughts are on the metaphysical. Do you believe in god or the devil or heaven and hell?
CB: I believe in these things but by believing in these things I dont mean to specify god, the devil and the afterlife. It means I believe in the possibility that the mortal fan that is on average 70 years is a bite that we are presently living, but there is a huge pizza to either side of that bite, which we live before we were born and we will live after we die. I think that living is a kind of test, and I suppose I would be there with Hindus and to some extent Buddhists, believing that this journey that were taking is not a test of moral goodness in the way a Christian would say because at the end of it you and me are both going to hell for sure! [laughs] I think thats too simplistic, I think that most lives are lived in a very grey moral area, in which its very hard to differentiate good deeds from bad deeds. Most of us live the best lives we possibly can, we try to be good and try to be honest, and of course we fail, of course were flawed but I dont think were going to be damned to an eternity in Hell for that. Fire and damnation do not move me at all.
JV: Theres a substantial amount of Catholic imagery in your conception of horror. Is that coming from your upbringing or artistic interest?
CB: Thats right, its a very useful area to play in. I think if you can hook people, excuse the phrase, with the use of those images and draw them into something that ends up being rather more complex than it first appears. Hellraiser would be a perfect example. A number of things started that imagery off, one was punk obviously and piercing which was just beginning to be around in England when I wrote the story. One was definitely Catholic imagery, yes, profound and intense Catholicism.
JV: But youre not Catholic yourself, right?
CB: No, everybody is welcome in my church. It would be hard for me as a gay man to subscribe to Catholicism, but its good theatre. Church was by no means forced up on us growing up and Im grateful to my parents for that because it meant that when I found [William] Blake, and Blake once said: Both read the bible day and night but thou readst black
JV: where I read white. From the Everlasting Gospel.
CB: Yes! I love that because basically he is saying that you must go to the bible and make it your own. Its your story and thats what irritates me massively about the kind of fundamentalist positions people take as having the only true interpretation of the holy book. Any kind of fundamentalism is abhorrent to me because it tends to be a simplification. I think these kinds of readings of holy books are covers for cowardly men to conceal or partially conceal some sickness motivated by some childhood trauma perhaps, hatred for the humanity women, for the humanity of gay men and women, for the dignity of animals. Dont get me started because then Ill get really pissed, its the only thing that really pisses me off.
JV: Clive, are you afraid of dying?
CB: Yes, of course. I think it would be a liar who said he was totally indifferent to the prospect of saying goodbye to the world that Im looking at through my window without the full and certain knowledge that there is some new world or some new vision of this world waiting on the other side. On the other hand, there are days when that fear disappears completely, often because Ive found some place of contentment with myself and Im at rest with myself. One of the reasons why death scares me is because I still feel I have a lot to do. Im a very restless kind of guy so its important to me that all the stories or as many of the stories that Ive got in my head, or as many of the images Ive got in my head can be on paper or on canvas, or on film before I shuffle off this mortal coil. Im here at 51, dont think Im even halfway through the stuff thats in my head, theres so much stuff. I made two paintings yesterday and it was great because I was able to sit back at twelve oclock at night and go, cool, there are two pictures that did not exist this morning. Thats the major reason why Im scared of death, I dont want to be taken away from the work which Ive got to do until its done. I hope when it is done, Ill be a lot more comfortable and Ill say, yay, okay let me go sit down with the ghosts of my dogs and birds and the ghosts of the loved ones that went before and rest a while.
JV: I admire you for all of the creative disciplines you express yourself through. Would you say that some of them are more given to horror than others? Do you think its easier to frighten or communicate horror through plays or art or literature?
CB: Yeah I do. This is a huge conversation. I think the simplest thing to say is that each of the mediums allows you to do something different in the way of scaring people. I have been most profoundly scared in the theatre, not in the cinema, but in the theatre where actions were going on in front of me. Theatre can very much do that, I think movies are good at boo! Movies are good at the shock, the big fat, horrible close-up of the wormy head coming out of the boat in Jaws or Reagan spewing chunks of green puke at the priest in The Exorcist, movies are very good at that kind of stuff. What theyre less good at is what the word does, which is to make you profoundly uneasy because you are taken into a consciousness and this is the kind of thing that Ramsey Campbell does with genius of a man or woman who is... crazy and I think Poe used to do this brilliantly well. Of course he was always talking about himself which is fine. Books have this marvellous way of making you a co-conspirator in their creation and whether its horror or fantasy, Im sure this is true of romances and its certainly true of erotica, which I love to read, I much prefer to read a book of erotica than look at pictures because then I become a co-conspirator, then I can summon up whatever images I want, suggested by these words. I always say this about the fantasy work that Ive written Weaveworld, Imagica everybody whos read Imagica has their own Imagica as far as Im concerned, they have their own five dominions, their own special version of that which is unique to them.
JV: So you would say that literature is the venue by which to express horror?
CB: Finally, if I had my choice, yes. Certainly Ive never been significantly scared by a painting.
JV: Ive been significantly moved and disturbed by paintings, particularly Goya.
CB: Oh absolutely! Sir Kenneth Clark [Director of the National Gallery, London] said that there were pictures by Goya that he could not bear to look at. I hope this interview gets some of our readers to go out and look at few Goyas to see if they are as equally as troubled by them as yourself and Sir Kenneth Clark, that would be quite a cool thing. Oh, and music can scare me: Diamanda Galas playing in a certain time of night, Coil can do it, Wagner can do it, god bless his empty soul. It chills me.
JV: Are you interested in the value of horror academically, such as art criticism of the genre in general?
CB: I recently went to a lecture by the author of Monsters In the Closet [Harry M. Benshof], which is about homosexuality and the horror film, a superb book and his lecture was really interesting because he had an academic take on the subject. Im not terribly interested as an artist of reading anything thats academic thats written about my own material, I think it would make me self conscious but I absolutely do believe that its not only of value but its absolutely necessary. One of the things we have to do is fight to get on to the reading lists of universities and colleges so that were not left out in the rain as we have been Im talking about writers of horror and fantasy now for so long. A lot of that kind of condemnation originates at an academic level. I was told in university over and over again that reading fantasy, Tolkien or C.S. Lewis or indeed horror, was completely valueless.
JV: To whom? Society or students?
CB: It was valueless to me as a student. I was told I couldnt do anything with that information, that there was nothing valuable about an author who attempts to scare you. We had a double lecture one semester on Whitman and Poe and the professor managed to get through both parts of this lecture without ever mentioning that Poe wrote fiction that was intended to send a chill down peoples spines, nor ever mentioned that Whitman was a cocksucker. That said a lot about where the universitys priorities were.
JV: So then, in your opinion, what is the value of horror to society?
CB: I dont think we can even begin a conversation like this in the space that we have. I think you can go back to Greek tragedy and you can see in that the roots of horror. You want horror? Check out the plays of Euripides, I mean this is really dark, dark stuff the killing of families by their own mothers, the blindings and so on its relentless, and these terrible judgements that come down from the gods. Its very powerful stuff. I think the hasnt been a period that I know of in the history of literature which has not had room for which we would characterize as horrific.
JV: The last time we spoke you were criticizing modern horror films for being frightening enough. Do you still feel that way?
CB: Yes, but there are honourable exceptions. You know, six months ago, and this is how fast it all changes, I would have been saying were being out performed by Asian movies. But since then, even that source has started to seem a little repetitive. Have you noticed that?
JV: Of course, its dying a derivative death actually.
CB: Yeah, its already dying of its own echoes. I recently saw an amazing film from Germany called Tattoo [by Robert Schwentke] . Its not a perfect movie but I liked it, and youll see some echoes of the Books of Blood in there. But its a very powerful picture and beautifully performed. Its very interesting to me to see how quickly movies consume their own children. We watched the CGI revolution, reach fruition and explode on itself, or rather, implode on itself. I would say the implosion happened about fourteen minutes into Van Helsing [laughs]. I mean, not that we couldnt see it coming but it was a profoundly disappointing picture. I am bored with those sorts of effects, if we end up making Tortured Souls, which I hope we do, and I get to helm it, then Ill do whatever I can to limit the CGI to a handful of shots, scenes that we simply couldnt achieve any other way.
JV: What is the current state of the Tortured Souls script?
CB: I write by hand, you know that, Im sitting longhand right now in front of page 299 of my handwritten draft of that script which equals about three to one, so were coming towards the last twenty pages of it and then I will hand it in to Universal in about two weeks time. Then theyll tell me whether well make the movie or not.
JV: Your new hard horror label Midnight Picture Show has recently green lit one of the Books of Blood stories. Tell us more about that.
CB: The prospect was this: I have held off making movies based on the Books of Blood for many years now. I mean, there have been a few. Obviously there was Candyman [see sidebar] and Lord of Illusions but way before that, there was Rawhead Rex.
JV: Which was the first feature based on one of the Books of Blood stories.
CB: Yes, god help us, but there hasnt been a lot. There are six books of fiction there and Ive kept them from being used up partially because Ive always dreamed that at some point I would have a chance to make a library of movies based upon this material so that I would have the cinematic equivalent of the Books of Blood called the Films of Blood and thats what I think we have here. We have investors who are excited by the prospect of letting us make two movies a year, which we will have creative control over, which will be very strong, hardcore horror movies, and even stronger and more hardcore when we get to the DVD versions which I want to make as complete an experience as possible so that in a few years time well be able to go to our DVD locker and take out fifteen Films of Blood. So thats our dream and its shared by our investors. Youve met Joe [Daley] and Anthony [DiBlasi] and you know what cool guys they are, theyre really passionate about this, as am I.
JV: Will you be directing any of them?
CB: Thats not impossible at all. It depends on scheduling, my life, as you know, because youve been to my home has to be calculated and calibrated within an inch because Im doing so many things. Im having this conversation with you, Im sitting in front of this text, I have to write four more pages before I leave this desk, Ill have something to eat, take a couple of meetings and go next door and paint. Every day, I have to work it all out, its like a jigsaw puzzle because I need to paint another sixty paintings for Abarat 3, a cold chill runs down my back when I think about that. But in terms of Midnight Picture Show, were going to start off with Midnight Meat Train which should hopefully reach audiences by next summer.
JV: Awesome, thats a grisly, stand-out story in the first volume. So youre looking at slightly smaller than Hollywood-size budgets on these films, correct?
CB: I kind of actively want to make them modestly budgeted so that we can have the freedom to make them want to so that we are not tempted into doing some silly piece of CGI nonsense and so that we keep ourselves honest. Its so easy to be pulled off course and weve been planning this for such a long time that I think we know what kind of movies we want. Our hope is that we will have the same special effects team that will work with us on all the movies. The model really is the Hammer movies who made several movies a year with the same team over and over again. Its a family, a repertory company and Im hugely excited by the prospect. One of the things you miss as a painter and a writer is the collaboration of minds. Ive had many years of pretty much solitary creation now and I miss comeraderie, and to have that wonderful spark when a bunch of people are all pulling in the same direction to make something thats really good without having a lot of money to do it with.
JV: It seems that its a good time to do it, the horror film has recently infiltrated the mainstream again. Why do you think that is?
CB: One of the things Ive always argued is that we go to horror movies not because we are revolted by the thing we see but because privately well, you and I not so privately are elated and intrigued by the monstrous, and the monstrous draws us to the forbidden. You agree with that?
JV: Absolutely. For both of us it seems more like a life-long love affair with the forbidden than an passing interest or moment of elation.
CB: Youve got that right. You know, even the title of your magazine forgetting the fact that its a reference to Edgar Allen Poe, which a lot of people wouldnt know having the word Morgue in the title, for a certain kind of straight person and I dont mean that sexually straight would be a total turn off. Why would I buy a magazine with the word Morgue on it? But to you and I the word Morgue is like a little beeper going DING! DING! DING! Buy me! Buy me! And thats because a morgue is a forbidden place, a morgue is place that weve been into but most people dont want to...
JV: Experience unless theyre dead and not able to experience it at all?
CB: Indeed. But whats interesting these days is there are TV shows now, very popular TV shows Jordans Crossing and Six Feet Under, which deal with the business of death if you will, theyve found their way into the mainstream marketplace. This is where the fun is, where we can play with peoples levels. People look away and say this is too much but out of the corner of their eye theyre fascinated by the stuff.
JV: Which could explain why the Dawn of the Dead remake did so well and pushed The Passion of the Christ out of the box office. Zombies beat Jesus in a popularity contest. What does that say?
CB: Well you know, they both got up from the dead! [laughs]
JV: Thanks Clive, were glad youre back.
CB:
Full interview reprinted with permission from Rue Morgue Magazine #41
Cover Art by Clive Barker
J Vuckovic
Managing Editor
Rue Morgue Magazine
www.rue-morgue.com
SG Member: ZOMBIEQUEEN
You know his name, you know his movies, and you damn well better know his books. Twenty years ago today, Clive Barker redefined horror literature with his infamous Books of Blood; a genre-shattering, breakthrough collection of abbreviated nightmares in print. His fantastic tales were a masterful blend of extreme horror and poetry of the perverse, comparable to the best of Poe and de Sade.
His six controversial anthologies, of course, were a huge success and lead Barker to a rightful seizure of horrors cinematic throne just three years later with Hellraiser the highly influential, flesh-wrecking slice of sadistic cinema and unholy nativity of Pinhead, one of the genres most intriguing and enduring icons.
Nevertheless, over the last decade, Barker has been criticized by genre fans for abandoning horror in both literature and cinema, his last directorial effort having been 1995s Lord of Illusions. But a closer look at his body of work reveals that, despite varying subject matter, hes never really left us at all. Now armed with a bloody bible of new material and grand designs, Clive Barker is poised to reinvigorate the genre in the way only he can.
Like the great William Blake, Barker is an artistic polymorph; whether it be painting, poetry, erotica or horror, his monolithic imagination has always addressed the strange, dark and unusual right on through to Abarat, his new series of childrens fiction. Whatever artistic discipline he expresses himself through, Barker always dives deep into the dark waters of his soul for inspiration, fearlessly exploring its boundless depths.
This year, Barker comes full circle with his new film label Midnight Picture Show, a collaboration with Anthony DiBlasi and Joe Daley, the creative team behind Barkers Seraphim Films (Saint Sinner, Lord of Illusions). The new genre-specific, hard horror label plans to produce two films per year taken from the Books of Blood anthologies, with the purpose of creating and entire library of movies aptly-titled the Films of Blood.
Beginning this fall with Midnight Meat Train the cannibalistic tale of subway train terror from the very first volume MPS plans to follow up with a delicious assortment of Blood stories including Pig Blood Blues, Age Of Desire, In The Flesh, The Madonna, The Life Of Death, Jacqueline Ess and Twilight At The Towers.
In addition to producing the Films of Blood, Barker also plans to return to the directors chair next year with Tortured Souls, a new movie based on his McFarlane line of toys (RM#40). And if youve been turned off by the fantasy literature that the author has been pumping out over the last ten years, a new anthology of collected shorts and poetry which includes a story that will spell the death of Pinhead is the violent Viagra pill youve been waiting for.
Rue Morgue recently communed with Barker in a frank and intimate talk on everything from his struggle to get the Books of Blood published to his fear of dying. Sit down, eavesdrop, and get reacquainted with the modern renaissance man who continues to redefine the boundaries of horror, opening our minds to new possibilities within the genre and its limitless potential.
JovankaVuckovic: Good evening Clive. First of all, on behalf of the horror genre, welcome back. We missed you.
CliveBarker: Thank you so much, Im really excited to be back.
JV: Throughout your literary metaphysical fantasy years and beyond, youve been criticized by horror fans for abandoning the genre, but now youre poised for an aggressive return to full-on horror. Whats lured you back to the dark side?
CB: Its both a negative and a positive impulse that got me here. Firstly, Ive seen movies that I like that inspire me that make me want to go back and look at the genre afresh. 28 Days Later, Ringu, things like that. Theyll be movies that you and your readers are familiar with, but very often theyre not movies that are bang in the mainstream of Hollywood. Most of the horror movies, or any movies for that matter, that Ive liked over the last few years have been things which have had their origins to the left or the right of the mainstream, like [Ktia Lund and Fernando Meirelles] City of God for example. Have you seen it?
JV: Oh yes. Its a truly brilliant and harrowing film.
CB: I absolutely agree, its a truly amazing and unsettling picture, and films like that have reinvigorated my interest in film. So thats the positive impulse; seeing movies and being excited about them all over again. The negative impulse is that I have felt that criticism you mentioned and have taken very deeply that I have sort of abandoned the genre. I take that to heart. I dont know whether thats positive or negative but I listen to people and I know that Hellraiser, for instance, had some kind of effect upon the genre and some place in its progression and Im very proud of that fact and Id like to do it again. So it really comes out of a sense then, that though the dark stuff is still very present in the stuff Ive been doing on the page, in the paintings and in the words for Abarat and in the novels too, those books tend to be not enjoyed by hard horror fans. I think the real hardcore Hellraiser fans, for instance, probably wouldnt have a go at Abarat. You think thats true, right?
JV: Yes, you are probably right but its a shame, because theres some really disturbed material in there Clive! But it wasnt lost on all of us, your material has always been a broad spectrum of fantastic, youve really pushed the envelope within the genre over the years and opened peoples minds about what horror is, and can be.
CB: Thank you. You know, in fact, I would like to feel that one of the things Id be doing in making another movie in the genre is even further broadening my own understanding of what the genre can do. Hopefully at the same time as I talk about not only Tortured Souls, but all of my work bringing more readers, picture viewers and movie viewers to what I do. What I do has always been a complicated thing Jen, as you know. Even way back in the Books of Blood days, there was a huge controversy between me and my agent and me and my editor at what was then Sphere Books who were the first people to publish the Books of Blood over the publication of a story called In the Hills, the Cities. Both my agent and my editor strongly argued for its removal from the series.
JV: Because of the homosexuality?
CB: Yeah, absolutely.
JV: But thats one of the reasons I was particularly drawn to your work, because it had massive balls.
CB: In more ways than one! [laughing].
JV: Touche! But really, you were destroying the boundaries of sexuality, horror, magic and all manner of taboo with a poetry the genre hadnt seen since perhaps Poe. It wouldnt be right to censor you. What did you do?
CB: Well, they were terrified of all those things, particularly in that story so I said: if you remove the story, I wont publish these books with you, which was a fairly ballsy thing to say because at that point I hadnt had anything published. So it was really a bit of a bluff, you know? But they seemed to understand that I wasnt scared of what the consequences were. The consequences were that a lot of people will say this guys gay, and the answer from me would have been, and was, yeah whats the big deal? At that time I think its probably true to say that there werent any out horror writers at the time in 1984. There had certainly been horror writers who had been outed after their death. Horror fans either dont ask the questions or dont care to ask the questions. What Ive discovered since I wrote the Books of Blood, and since Ive been on panels at conventions, and conversed with my readership through letters is exactly what you said; that people were waiting for somebody to push the limits of sexuality and the boundaries of the physical in horror fiction, short or long. And I had the very good fortune of coming along at the right time but there was a lot of fighting, especially with that editor who was gay believe it or not to get that vision on to the page and keep it there and that [story] was the strongest piece of fighting that I had to do. My own agent, who was also gay, said You mustnt do this, it will destroy your career before its begun. But I did it anyway.
JV: While were on the topic, the really hard horror fanboys tend to be very masculine and kind of macho if you know what I mean. Ive always been curious, from your perspective, what their reaction was toward you once you officially came out?
CB: Theres two reactions; a public reaction and a private reaction. Theres what they feel they have to say and what they really think. I will occasionally get on a website or Amazon.com, where people will be invited to review books a Books of Blood fan will come on an complain about
JV: Sacrament or Galilee, right?
CB: You got it. They complain about it being a faggot novel or whatever. You can go to those pages and read that unpleasantness for yourself if you want.
JV: I think Ill pass on the homophonic literary reviews, thanks.
CB: [laughs] Yeah, theyre not very enlightening anyway. Its a kind of knee-jerk response, a tired response some people had to finding out this person they read, who writes such horrific stuff was gay.
JV: But I think that, for the most part, the genres reaction was Yeah, we already knew that.
CB: Yeah, thats right! Its not like I didnt put signals in the books from word one. And from word one, those signals were the things that came under fire from my editor, they were the things she wanted taken out. Much later on, when they were doing a special edition of the Books of Blood, they wanted me to do a special introduction and we had recently had the Halloween parade here in West Hollywood. My other half had gone as a demon, as a very well-hung demon.
JV: Fantastic!
CB: [laughing] Yeah, hes a black man but he depicted himself many shades blacker, hed hung a thirteen-inch dildo from his groin, he had a horses tail, horns, the whole bit. So I was writing about this in the introduction to the book, thinking, with all the years that have passed, that there would be no problem with me mentioning that my husband was here dressed with an enormous penis and these huge, low-hanging balls and such. Well man, here we are and 16 years have passed and the same woman, the same gay editor had exactly the same problem. She said, We cant publish this. You need to remove all references to testicles and penis. I mean, its so monumentally stupid and narrow-minded that its almost funny.
JV: I wonder what she is afraid of? By now, people have come to expect that from you.
CB: Youre absolutely right Jen, but you know, we still live in a country where and youll have to tell me what the reaction was like in Canada where the public reaction to seeing Janet Jacksons breast was outrage.
JV: It wasnt a big deal here, we forgot about it the next day. Canadians, in general, are very progressive and open-minded, which brings me to my next question. Americans sort of invented genre in a sense; the concept of exploring a set of elements, concentrating them together and giving them back to the people. It seems to me that Americans have an uneasy relationship with you because you walk in and out of the genre and bend the fuck out of it.
CB: First off, you are absolutely correct, America did invent genre. Im not a big fan of the idea of genre. The idea of genre seems to me primarily a marketing tool. Its a way by which publishers market their books and book sellers package their books so that you can go into Barnes and Noble and find all the books which they have called horror in one place. The problem with that is, what do you do when a book isnt one thing or another. I have found Imagica, Sacrament and Thief of Always which I dont think are horror novels all crowded in with the Books of Blood and Damnation Game because there is a need to put people in a pigeon hole.
JV: Is there a difference in the way people from other countries, say Latin America or Europe, perceive your work?
CB: Its funny you ask that because I just came back from Holland and I enjoyed some of the most engaging interviews because there was no real sense that anybody was coming at me with a narrow mind. I mean, whats interesting about this interview, to interrupt myself for a moment, here are you with a magazine called Rue Morgue and obviously a readership that likes horror, and I am one of those people. But nevertheless, weve talked, you and I, many times about painting, music, literature, philosophy and childrens fiction and we are as passionate and enthusiastic about other areas of genre as we are about horror.
JV: We immerse ourselves in as many creative disciplines as we can, much like you.
CB: Thats it. What it comes down to is two words: creation and imagination. The thing that all the genres which I like to work in what well loosely call fantasy, what well loosely call horror, what well loosely call childrens fiction have in common is a sense of rules of reality, as they were written down by some wise old farts, are regularly violated in my fiction. I like fiction that violates the rules of reality, that says look, anything can happen in the world Im about to describe. Doors can open which can lead you to the Sea of Quiddity or Hell, or you can be confronted with two cities built of human beings or whatever. Any number of fantasies are plausible and they will be treated by this author, not with a tongue in my cheek, as is so often the case these days. Weve come to this ironic place in our fiction where it seems to be cool to be ironic and I cant think of anything less interesting than irony. Its such a dull position to take, to say Im not going to take any of this seriously, Im way too cool to take anything seriously and I want my horror serious, I want my fantasy serious. I want my writers, painters and filmmakers to treat my imaginations something sacred and to take me to these incredibly important, strange places with real passion and real commitment to the idea of dreaming with our eyes open which is what theyre doing. It irritates me when I find that a lot of North American horror fiction has become this kind of ironic, tongue-in-cheek stuff. It kills the viability of the material.
JV: The deep mythological concepts in your work lead me to wonder what your thoughts are on the metaphysical. Do you believe in god or the devil or heaven and hell?
CB: I believe in these things but by believing in these things I dont mean to specify god, the devil and the afterlife. It means I believe in the possibility that the mortal fan that is on average 70 years is a bite that we are presently living, but there is a huge pizza to either side of that bite, which we live before we were born and we will live after we die. I think that living is a kind of test, and I suppose I would be there with Hindus and to some extent Buddhists, believing that this journey that were taking is not a test of moral goodness in the way a Christian would say because at the end of it you and me are both going to hell for sure! [laughs] I think thats too simplistic, I think that most lives are lived in a very grey moral area, in which its very hard to differentiate good deeds from bad deeds. Most of us live the best lives we possibly can, we try to be good and try to be honest, and of course we fail, of course were flawed but I dont think were going to be damned to an eternity in Hell for that. Fire and damnation do not move me at all.
JV: Theres a substantial amount of Catholic imagery in your conception of horror. Is that coming from your upbringing or artistic interest?
CB: Thats right, its a very useful area to play in. I think if you can hook people, excuse the phrase, with the use of those images and draw them into something that ends up being rather more complex than it first appears. Hellraiser would be a perfect example. A number of things started that imagery off, one was punk obviously and piercing which was just beginning to be around in England when I wrote the story. One was definitely Catholic imagery, yes, profound and intense Catholicism.
JV: But youre not Catholic yourself, right?
CB: No, everybody is welcome in my church. It would be hard for me as a gay man to subscribe to Catholicism, but its good theatre. Church was by no means forced up on us growing up and Im grateful to my parents for that because it meant that when I found [William] Blake, and Blake once said: Both read the bible day and night but thou readst black
JV: where I read white. From the Everlasting Gospel.
CB: Yes! I love that because basically he is saying that you must go to the bible and make it your own. Its your story and thats what irritates me massively about the kind of fundamentalist positions people take as having the only true interpretation of the holy book. Any kind of fundamentalism is abhorrent to me because it tends to be a simplification. I think these kinds of readings of holy books are covers for cowardly men to conceal or partially conceal some sickness motivated by some childhood trauma perhaps, hatred for the humanity women, for the humanity of gay men and women, for the dignity of animals. Dont get me started because then Ill get really pissed, its the only thing that really pisses me off.
JV: Clive, are you afraid of dying?
CB: Yes, of course. I think it would be a liar who said he was totally indifferent to the prospect of saying goodbye to the world that Im looking at through my window without the full and certain knowledge that there is some new world or some new vision of this world waiting on the other side. On the other hand, there are days when that fear disappears completely, often because Ive found some place of contentment with myself and Im at rest with myself. One of the reasons why death scares me is because I still feel I have a lot to do. Im a very restless kind of guy so its important to me that all the stories or as many of the stories that Ive got in my head, or as many of the images Ive got in my head can be on paper or on canvas, or on film before I shuffle off this mortal coil. Im here at 51, dont think Im even halfway through the stuff thats in my head, theres so much stuff. I made two paintings yesterday and it was great because I was able to sit back at twelve oclock at night and go, cool, there are two pictures that did not exist this morning. Thats the major reason why Im scared of death, I dont want to be taken away from the work which Ive got to do until its done. I hope when it is done, Ill be a lot more comfortable and Ill say, yay, okay let me go sit down with the ghosts of my dogs and birds and the ghosts of the loved ones that went before and rest a while.
JV: I admire you for all of the creative disciplines you express yourself through. Would you say that some of them are more given to horror than others? Do you think its easier to frighten or communicate horror through plays or art or literature?
CB: Yeah I do. This is a huge conversation. I think the simplest thing to say is that each of the mediums allows you to do something different in the way of scaring people. I have been most profoundly scared in the theatre, not in the cinema, but in the theatre where actions were going on in front of me. Theatre can very much do that, I think movies are good at boo! Movies are good at the shock, the big fat, horrible close-up of the wormy head coming out of the boat in Jaws or Reagan spewing chunks of green puke at the priest in The Exorcist, movies are very good at that kind of stuff. What theyre less good at is what the word does, which is to make you profoundly uneasy because you are taken into a consciousness and this is the kind of thing that Ramsey Campbell does with genius of a man or woman who is... crazy and I think Poe used to do this brilliantly well. Of course he was always talking about himself which is fine. Books have this marvellous way of making you a co-conspirator in their creation and whether its horror or fantasy, Im sure this is true of romances and its certainly true of erotica, which I love to read, I much prefer to read a book of erotica than look at pictures because then I become a co-conspirator, then I can summon up whatever images I want, suggested by these words. I always say this about the fantasy work that Ive written Weaveworld, Imagica everybody whos read Imagica has their own Imagica as far as Im concerned, they have their own five dominions, their own special version of that which is unique to them.
JV: So you would say that literature is the venue by which to express horror?
CB: Finally, if I had my choice, yes. Certainly Ive never been significantly scared by a painting.
JV: Ive been significantly moved and disturbed by paintings, particularly Goya.
CB: Oh absolutely! Sir Kenneth Clark [Director of the National Gallery, London] said that there were pictures by Goya that he could not bear to look at. I hope this interview gets some of our readers to go out and look at few Goyas to see if they are as equally as troubled by them as yourself and Sir Kenneth Clark, that would be quite a cool thing. Oh, and music can scare me: Diamanda Galas playing in a certain time of night, Coil can do it, Wagner can do it, god bless his empty soul. It chills me.
JV: Are you interested in the value of horror academically, such as art criticism of the genre in general?
CB: I recently went to a lecture by the author of Monsters In the Closet [Harry M. Benshof], which is about homosexuality and the horror film, a superb book and his lecture was really interesting because he had an academic take on the subject. Im not terribly interested as an artist of reading anything thats academic thats written about my own material, I think it would make me self conscious but I absolutely do believe that its not only of value but its absolutely necessary. One of the things we have to do is fight to get on to the reading lists of universities and colleges so that were not left out in the rain as we have been Im talking about writers of horror and fantasy now for so long. A lot of that kind of condemnation originates at an academic level. I was told in university over and over again that reading fantasy, Tolkien or C.S. Lewis or indeed horror, was completely valueless.
JV: To whom? Society or students?
CB: It was valueless to me as a student. I was told I couldnt do anything with that information, that there was nothing valuable about an author who attempts to scare you. We had a double lecture one semester on Whitman and Poe and the professor managed to get through both parts of this lecture without ever mentioning that Poe wrote fiction that was intended to send a chill down peoples spines, nor ever mentioned that Whitman was a cocksucker. That said a lot about where the universitys priorities were.
JV: So then, in your opinion, what is the value of horror to society?
CB: I dont think we can even begin a conversation like this in the space that we have. I think you can go back to Greek tragedy and you can see in that the roots of horror. You want horror? Check out the plays of Euripides, I mean this is really dark, dark stuff the killing of families by their own mothers, the blindings and so on its relentless, and these terrible judgements that come down from the gods. Its very powerful stuff. I think the hasnt been a period that I know of in the history of literature which has not had room for which we would characterize as horrific.
JV: The last time we spoke you were criticizing modern horror films for being frightening enough. Do you still feel that way?
CB: Yes, but there are honourable exceptions. You know, six months ago, and this is how fast it all changes, I would have been saying were being out performed by Asian movies. But since then, even that source has started to seem a little repetitive. Have you noticed that?
JV: Of course, its dying a derivative death actually.
CB: Yeah, its already dying of its own echoes. I recently saw an amazing film from Germany called Tattoo [by Robert Schwentke] . Its not a perfect movie but I liked it, and youll see some echoes of the Books of Blood in there. But its a very powerful picture and beautifully performed. Its very interesting to me to see how quickly movies consume their own children. We watched the CGI revolution, reach fruition and explode on itself, or rather, implode on itself. I would say the implosion happened about fourteen minutes into Van Helsing [laughs]. I mean, not that we couldnt see it coming but it was a profoundly disappointing picture. I am bored with those sorts of effects, if we end up making Tortured Souls, which I hope we do, and I get to helm it, then Ill do whatever I can to limit the CGI to a handful of shots, scenes that we simply couldnt achieve any other way.
JV: What is the current state of the Tortured Souls script?
CB: I write by hand, you know that, Im sitting longhand right now in front of page 299 of my handwritten draft of that script which equals about three to one, so were coming towards the last twenty pages of it and then I will hand it in to Universal in about two weeks time. Then theyll tell me whether well make the movie or not.
JV: Your new hard horror label Midnight Picture Show has recently green lit one of the Books of Blood stories. Tell us more about that.
CB: The prospect was this: I have held off making movies based on the Books of Blood for many years now. I mean, there have been a few. Obviously there was Candyman [see sidebar] and Lord of Illusions but way before that, there was Rawhead Rex.
JV: Which was the first feature based on one of the Books of Blood stories.
CB: Yes, god help us, but there hasnt been a lot. There are six books of fiction there and Ive kept them from being used up partially because Ive always dreamed that at some point I would have a chance to make a library of movies based upon this material so that I would have the cinematic equivalent of the Books of Blood called the Films of Blood and thats what I think we have here. We have investors who are excited by the prospect of letting us make two movies a year, which we will have creative control over, which will be very strong, hardcore horror movies, and even stronger and more hardcore when we get to the DVD versions which I want to make as complete an experience as possible so that in a few years time well be able to go to our DVD locker and take out fifteen Films of Blood. So thats our dream and its shared by our investors. Youve met Joe [Daley] and Anthony [DiBlasi] and you know what cool guys they are, theyre really passionate about this, as am I.
JV: Will you be directing any of them?
CB: Thats not impossible at all. It depends on scheduling, my life, as you know, because youve been to my home has to be calculated and calibrated within an inch because Im doing so many things. Im having this conversation with you, Im sitting in front of this text, I have to write four more pages before I leave this desk, Ill have something to eat, take a couple of meetings and go next door and paint. Every day, I have to work it all out, its like a jigsaw puzzle because I need to paint another sixty paintings for Abarat 3, a cold chill runs down my back when I think about that. But in terms of Midnight Picture Show, were going to start off with Midnight Meat Train which should hopefully reach audiences by next summer.
JV: Awesome, thats a grisly, stand-out story in the first volume. So youre looking at slightly smaller than Hollywood-size budgets on these films, correct?
CB: I kind of actively want to make them modestly budgeted so that we can have the freedom to make them want to so that we are not tempted into doing some silly piece of CGI nonsense and so that we keep ourselves honest. Its so easy to be pulled off course and weve been planning this for such a long time that I think we know what kind of movies we want. Our hope is that we will have the same special effects team that will work with us on all the movies. The model really is the Hammer movies who made several movies a year with the same team over and over again. Its a family, a repertory company and Im hugely excited by the prospect. One of the things you miss as a painter and a writer is the collaboration of minds. Ive had many years of pretty much solitary creation now and I miss comeraderie, and to have that wonderful spark when a bunch of people are all pulling in the same direction to make something thats really good without having a lot of money to do it with.
JV: It seems that its a good time to do it, the horror film has recently infiltrated the mainstream again. Why do you think that is?
CB: One of the things Ive always argued is that we go to horror movies not because we are revolted by the thing we see but because privately well, you and I not so privately are elated and intrigued by the monstrous, and the monstrous draws us to the forbidden. You agree with that?
JV: Absolutely. For both of us it seems more like a life-long love affair with the forbidden than an passing interest or moment of elation.
CB: Youve got that right. You know, even the title of your magazine forgetting the fact that its a reference to Edgar Allen Poe, which a lot of people wouldnt know having the word Morgue in the title, for a certain kind of straight person and I dont mean that sexually straight would be a total turn off. Why would I buy a magazine with the word Morgue on it? But to you and I the word Morgue is like a little beeper going DING! DING! DING! Buy me! Buy me! And thats because a morgue is a forbidden place, a morgue is place that weve been into but most people dont want to...
JV: Experience unless theyre dead and not able to experience it at all?
CB: Indeed. But whats interesting these days is there are TV shows now, very popular TV shows Jordans Crossing and Six Feet Under, which deal with the business of death if you will, theyve found their way into the mainstream marketplace. This is where the fun is, where we can play with peoples levels. People look away and say this is too much but out of the corner of their eye theyre fascinated by the stuff.
JV: Which could explain why the Dawn of the Dead remake did so well and pushed The Passion of the Christ out of the box office. Zombies beat Jesus in a popularity contest. What does that say?
CB: Well you know, they both got up from the dead! [laughs]
JV: Thanks Clive, were glad youre back.
CB:
Full interview reprinted with permission from Rue Morgue Magazine #41
Cover Art by Clive Barker
J Vuckovic
Managing Editor
Rue Morgue Magazine
www.rue-morgue.com
SG Member: ZOMBIEQUEEN
VIEW 20 of 20 COMMENTS
lihab said:
this article is over 2 years old...
Is that bad?