BOOKS OF BLOOD
Clive Barker's Horror Stories Reimagined
Hulu has teamed up with horror writer Clive Barker and director Brannon Braga in what is sure to be the platform’s scariest hit of the season. From the mind that gave us Hellraiser and Candyman comes the three-part film series Books of Blood. If you are looking for something that will truly shake you, mark your calendar for the October 7th premiere.
The genesis of the series draws from Barker’s original novel anthology, Books of Blood. While the first of the three seems to come directly from the original collection, the other two do not. On this, Barker remarked, “The world has changed. The world has become a darker, scarier place since then, unbelievably. Still, it’s true, what I’m trying to do is, at very least match, and in some cases surpass, the intensity of the original Books of Blood.” He also said that his mind has been adding a cast of terrifying characters to his notes over the last thirty years. It adds up to be about “thirty narratives which [he has] developed which you could call ‘Books of Blood stories’.”
Barker said that he and Braga started off each day in production with the same question. “When were you first afraid?” His reasoning behind that: “I think, if you have any hope of scaring people, you’ve got to first scare yourself.” If the trailer is any indicator, they hit the mark. The official trailer — watch it above — is filled with jump scares, blood carvings, bugs, and ultimately a needle forced into a young woman’s eye. So if you’re squeamish, we don’t recommend watching it with the lights out.
The first story in the series centers on Mary, a psychologist, and Simon, a self-professed medium, played by Anna Friel and Rafi Gavron. Simon’s body becomes a canvas for blood drawn messages from beyond the grave. Another story depicts a supernatural encounter had by hitman Bennett, played by Yul Vazquez. Are you wondering about the girl with the needle in her eye? That’s Jenna, played by Britt Robinson. She is a disturbed young woman lured into the house where “all stories end.”
Britt’s character is enormously complicated. She suffers from anxiety, misophonia, and other mental health issues. In an interview with ComicBook.com, Britt talked about playing the role of Jenna. “I think the idea was having a lot of different reasons for why it may appear to be that Jenna’s losing her mind… Ultimately, I would often try to bring this idea that the thing that she was really trying to escape was her own mind and she was just trying to escape herself.” Robertson, who does not shy away from scary movies, said just being on set was too frightening. She said, “the special-effects makeups were really terrifying…even just as an actor playing the role and just being there every day, the realness of all of those things helped me lean into the scariness of it all.”
These three stories will be bone-chilling, but there one dangling question remains. Cult fans and newcomers alike are wondering if the three stories are intertwined. The answer is a bit complicated. Braga said it this way, “We kind of call it the Pulp Fiction of horror… the three stories are kind of independent, but they cross pollinate each other.” PROVOKR guesses we will all have to wait to see what brings these three nightmares together.
