Reviews
Book of Blood
Reviewed by: Jeff Allard
Rating: 7 out of 10
Movie Details: View here
Cast:
Jonas Armstrong as Simon McNeal
Sophie Ward as Mary Florescu
Clive Russell as Wyburd
Paul Blair as Reg Fuller
Review:
While Clive Barker's short story collections, "Books of Blood" Volumes 1-6, set both the horror and literary communities on fire in the mid '80s with the ferocious arrival of an author that Stephen King famously declared to be "the future of horror," the most recent adaptations of stories from those groundbreaking volumes have unfortunately not met with much acclaim. Of course, it hasn't helped that aside from the uneven quality of the work itself, director Ryűhei Kitamura's Midnight Meat Train (2008) was one of the most criminally mishandled films of recent years (a long, sad story that won't be recounted here) and director John Harrison's Book of Blood (also 2008) had to settle for making its debut in edited form on the SyFy Channel. It's likely that neither film would've set the box office on fire even if given wide releases but surely both deserved a more respectful treatment than they received from distributor Lionsgate – especially when even a half-ass Saw wanna-be like The Collector was screened in over a 1,000 theaters this past summer.
In the case of Book of Blood, Harrison's adaptation is far from perfect but yet there's enough obvious care in how the material is handled that it makes its flaws easier to take in stride. In combining two "Books of Blood" tales, "Book of Blood" (from Vol. 1) and "On Jerusalem Street: A Postscript," (from the UK edition of Vol. 6) director and writer John Harrision – best known to genre fans as the composer to the George Romero classics Creepshow (1982) and Day of the Dead (1985) as well as being the director of Tales from the Darkside: The Movie (1990) – along with his co-writer Darin Silverman have crafted a film that Barker's fans will find to be honorable to its source.
Book of Blood is built around the framing device of a young man, Simon McNeal (Jonas Armstrong), who has something that an unknown collector covets – his skin, which is graphically etched with writing. He is the titular Book of Blood and someone wants to own the words inscribed on him. Unfortunately for Simon, if this collector is successful, he will not survive the ordeal. As his fate hangs in the balance, he relates to the mercenary hired to skin him (Clive Russell), the uncanny tale of how he came to be marked by the stories of the dead.
Simon's story concerns his involvement with paranormal researcher and college professor Mary Florescu (Sophie Ward). Mary is out to investigate the possible supernatural origins behind a death of a young girl and she believes that Simon has psychic abilities that will help draw out whatever forces are at work. Aside from her professional goals, it's also clear she also harbors an attraction to her new student. When she and Simon, along with Mary’s technical assistant Reg Fuller (Paul Blair), move into the abandoned home where the girl's death took place, it isn't long before the other side begins to show their presence.
Tales of paranormal researchers have been a favorite of horror authors and filmmakers for years and while Book of Blood may not nearly be the cinematic achievement that either The Haunting (1963) or The Legend of Hell House (1973) are, for the most part it's a solidly told story. It's essentially a three-character play with Armstrong, Ward, and Blair spending most of the film's screen time together in the single location of the allegedly haunted house. All three deliver strong performances with Armstrong and Ward pursuing their mutual attraction amid the ghost hunting and Blair injecting an element of jealously and skepticism. Ward and Blair bring the kind of middle-aged gravitas that is all-too rare in modern horror while Armstrong is appropriately mysterious.
Harrison stages some effective shocks and eerie imagery along the way but yet the film is more meditative in tone rather than scary. To be fair, this isn't meant to be a relentless terror tale; instead it's more of a character piece. However, some of the actions the characters take later in the film are difficult to accept as believable, and this blunts the film's impact. Mary, in particular, suffers in this regard. At one point she becomes angry after discovering that there is apparently some deception going on with the phenomena they've experienced and yet she forgets the legitimately supernatural episode (the film's creepiest scene, involving children dancing around a fountain of blood) that she just personally endured. And in the final sequences, her demeanor is so changed from the character that we came to know that it's hard to understand her transformation into someone so callous.
If there's another way in which Book of Blood comes up short, it's in a way that illustrates the separate challenges of telling a story in print and telling it in film. In the hands of Barker's prose, the idea that the dead can write their stories on the flesh of the living creates a vivid, captivating image. In the film however, this becomes something much more difficult to depict in the, well, flesh. It's more of a poetic idea rather than a literal one. While the Book of Blood make-up team does an admirable job of turning Armstrong into a literal book of blood, it still can't help but looks as though he's simply been sliced and diced. Similarly, what should be a grand manifestation of the spirit world at the climax looks like a gamely attempted but budget-addled vision instead.
In Barker's words, quoted several times throughout Book of Blood, the dead do have highways, but ultimately this well-meaning adaptation suffers from being too middle of the road.
Extras are skimpy on this Blu-Ray presentation with a 19-minute behind-the-scenes featurette (aside from interviews with Harrison and Silverman and Book of Blood's other key participants of cast and crew, Barker himself is interviewed while surrounded by many of his paintings) and trailer selection of other Lionsgate releases (Midnight Meat Train, A Haunting in Connecticut and Saw V) representing the lone bonuses.
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