My wife and I finally got around to renting this flick over the weekend. I still have yet to know wether or not I liked it.
the film starts off with a cult out in the middle of the California desert, practicing real magic. Their leader, Nix, is attacked by a group of his former students and is bound in metal (and quite painful) restraints and buried in the desert.
Flash forward 13 years to Harry D'Amour (Scott Bakula!), a private eye who is constantly caught up in the occult. He's sent out to California to track a guy who is believed to be commiting insurance fraud. He then follows the guy to a palm reader, who he finds murdered. The palm reader was one of the people in the group to take out Nix and some of his followers are trying to bring him back.
The film wasn't actually all that bad, but the end left me a little cold. It was fairly anti-climatic. Bakula does well with what he is given, which isn't much, but the story drags quite a bit.
It's certainly not as good as Hellraiser nor Candyman (which Barker wrote) yet it's worth a rental just for some of the special effects. Quite gory, convoluted at some points and all around strange.
6.5/10
I saw this in the theaters and then again last year on one of the channels on the Dish. I remember that I liked it when it first came out but now I was kind of annoyed by it. I was easier on movies years ago...give me action and I was happy. I need a little more these days and this movie, on its second viewing, didn't do it for me.
....I did just realize it could also qualify for inclusion in that "Conspiracy" thread someone started elsewhere on the board.
I love this movie, but I'd never defend it as being a good film.
I found it quite a disappointment. Clive Barker is known for his inventive, well-built and transgresive horror stories. This film was based on one of my personal favourites, and it had everything to be good. But Barker's job behind the camera is cold, detached, uninventive and uninvolving. And the fact that this is probably the most conventional and un-transgresive thing he's ever involved with is the final nail in its coffin.
I'd say it is a complete trainwreck of a movie, but I agree that Bakula does what he cans, and I'll be the first to admit that the sceneswhere we see Philip Swann on stage is genuinely chilling. For once the coldness of Barker's camerawork is given some good use.
Like I said, I didn't hate the film in anyway. I just was a bit disappointed by the flick. I guess I expected more greatness but was left with a mediocre flick.
Here's a question for fans of his writing and movies.
I read a couple times that some people think Clive Barker was a lot darker when he kept his private preferences in the closet. Does this seem to be true? He himself admits he'd rather write fantasy than hard horror. A lot of that body mod horror could have been him struggling with his public identity. Haven't read a lot of his writing.
I think it was just a natural progression for him. I'd imagine after years of writing horror he'd want to cover some new ground besides just the dark and evil. From what I've read of his fantasy novels the extreme body mod stuff didnt really stop when he started writing fantasy. It was just presented in a different way. That could be read as him becoming more comfortable with his homosexuality, but only Clive Barker could say for sure of course. : )
My favorite part of this movie is when Michael Flately does that dance where he clicks his heels on the floor really fast . . . oh, wait . . . that's LORD OF THE DANCE . . . never mind . . .
He's still one seriously far out guy for sure. There are certain people I wonder about what they're like. I'm not so sure I want to know about him. I was told that he has a full size pinhead mannequin in his entryway.
He's probably not much different than Lovecraft. Just an affable guy with a wild imagination. I remember A&E did a biography about him years ago. It was pretty insightfull.
I'd say he's matured and probably wants to try new things. Slowly, he seems to be moving from straight horror (assuming you can call his earlier work that) to fantasy. I certainly don't mind, this change doesn't seem to involve a loss of quality nor production, and horror, although in smaller doses, is still present. Take "Abarat", for instance, on of his last works. It is a fantasy novel, with a story (earth girl missing in an alterante fantasy world) that seems borrowed from Michael Ende or Lewis Carrol, but his personality is still there. And there's a really scary villain as well, not too different from Sauron.
Which story was it that had Lixx in it? Those snakes made out of poop. That made my skin crawl and it wasnt even a horror story.
What was the story about a woman who lived under a stage and ate people? Am I remembering wrong?
The lixx were from "The Great and Secret Show." I remember that one well. Think that I read it at Camp Lejeune, because I identify my barracks room there (with the wooden secretary) with this book. It and "Boy's Life."
I'm not sure if I read it in Highschool or right after. Either time period would account for my hazy memory. I'll have to give Great and Secret Show another read one of these days.
The Great and Secret show is one of the handful of books that I could never get through for some reason. It's not that I didn't like it though. It was a while back. The only detail I really remember was the drunk with all the cockroaches climbing on him.
If Stephen King's best books are The Stand and the earlier stuff, what are a few of the best Barker books to start with? I only own the "In the Flesh" collection which I haven't started yet.
Andrew,
You were at Camp Lejune!? I never knew that. That's only a few minutes away from me.