Try as I might, I can’t remember the first time that I heard the name “Clive Barker”. If I had to guess it was probably through Hellraiser but I can’t say this with any certainty. Nonetheless, his works have been truly spectacular and Clive Barker deserves to be more well-known as a horror legend. Therefore, I thought it might be interesting, as a horror fan, to take a look at the man himself, the media that he’s worked on and why I admire him so much.
Born in Liverpool in 1952, he notably witnessed the death of Léo Valentin, a famous Frenchman who died in 1956 in Liverpool after a skydiving stunt went wrong. As he grew up, he became involved in the theatre at Quarry Bank High School and, after studying English and Philosophy at the University of Liverpool, he co-founded a theatrical group called “The Dog Company” which would go on to produce several plays as well as bring in future collaborators such as Doug Bradley and Peter Atkins.
Around the 1980s, Clive Barker began shifting from working in theatre to writing books with his first being short story collections called the Books of Blood. At the same time, he began his work in the film industry by writing the screenplay to the 1985 film “Underworld”. In 1986, a story from the Books of Blood called Rawhead Rex was adapted into a film with Clive Barker writing the script. However, Clive Barker was dissatisfied with Rawhead Rex as a film and decided to do an adaptation of his novella, The Hellbound Heart, himself. This resulted him in directing and writing the 1987 horror classic “Hellraiser”. Since then, Clive Barker has directed two other films, Nightbreed and Lord of Illusions, continued to write numerous horror books and short stories, continues to write prose while also working on comic books, video games, paintings etc.
With regards to my experience with his works, I’ll confess that I’ve not experienced as much as I would like to. Starting off, I love the first Hellraiser film as well as the second Hellraiser which had Clive Barker write the story as well as executive produce it. I’ve also watched Lord of Illusions and, while I didn’t like it as much as the first two Hellraiser films, I found it to be quite entertaining.
As much as I love Hellraiser 1 and 2 though, it’s his Books of Blood short story collections that truly showed me how much of a genius he is. While not all of the stories were made equally, I can confidently say that I have never seen so many short stories in a collection that I would give perfect scores to and it’s set a standard to me for horror storytelling that few works can manage to reach. I’ve also read another book of his called “The Great and Secret Show” and, while it did take a bit of time to get going, I ended up being drawn into the lives of the characters in a way that I would consider to be rare. I also have his book “Weaveworld” which, to my shame, I’ve yet to read.
I truly wish more people, including horror fans, knew more about Clive Barker given how much I love his sense of imagination, the subject matter he handles and his writing. Let me know your thoughts on the spectacular horror legend that is Clive Barker, what works of his you’ve experienced, what you think of his style and any additional information you might have on the topic.
Hopefully you have found this article interesting and informative and, if you wish to seek any of the works I mentioned, don’t hesitate to use amazon.co.uk or amazon.com for all of your needs!