Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
Cast: Britt Robertson, Anna Friel, Rafi Gavron, Yul Vazquez, Freda Foh Shen, Nicholas Campbell, Andy McQueen, Kenji Fitzgerald, Paige Turco, Saad Siddiqui, Glenn Lefchak, Brett Rickaby, Matt Bois, Etienne Kellici, Cory Lee.
Clive Barker is one of those rare horror writers to whom any adaption of his work seems to transfer to the medium of cinema with consummate ease, unlike many of his peers and associated writers, he has found the transfer one of unregulated temptation, of knowing that the thrill is in the blood and one that the readers of his books take with them to their heart when they immerse themselves in the big screen view.
Whether the critics applaud or deny such sublime writing, of understanding why the gore perhaps is required to be pushed further, is frankly neither here nor there, but it is to the fan, the cinema goer that has the final say; and as Books Of Blood is viewed, it is without a pause of the heart that a truth of horror once more asserts itself, that it must come from a pace of sincerity, even if embellished, that it must have at its heart a sense of pure narration if it is to capture the imagination of the viewer.
Directed by Brannon Braga, and co-written by Adam Simon and Brannon Braga, this particular adaption takes in two short stories in a connected three-part film, and by using The Book Of Blood and On Jerusalem Street (both taken from Volume VI of the writer’s vast catalogue of shorter works), the resulting film is one of the most human of films to capture the senses.
The trilogy of loosely connected tales, Jenna, Miles, and Bennett, doesn’t rely on a creature to sell the fear, neither does it shy away from the horror and evil inside a person’s soul, and indeed Jenna’s tale, whilst asking the watcher to feel sympathy for her plight, soon reveals in the final moments, her own true evil in a reflection of some cases that have appeared in the press since the advent of social media and mobile phones used by the young, the bitter, and those with malevolent intent.
With fantastic performances by Britt Robinson as Jenna Branson, the ever-impeccable Anna Friel as Mary Floresky, and Yul Vazquez as Bennett, Books Of Blood chills the blood and opens the mind to the dangers that lurk in the souls of those we might meet, those whose own self-interests sully the brightness we cling to.
A terrifyingly terrific film which utilises one of the greats of modern horror, one to keep an eye on at all times.
Ian D. Hall