Book of Blood Review

Book of BloodThis is a spooky tale about a paranormal investigator, a psychic student and a very creepy house. It is based on a couple of short stories by master of horror Clive Barker. It is fairly well made for a low budget film and has a few thrills, scares and a bit of gore. The cast and direction are good and this is an enjoyable film for horror fans.

The film focuses on an old Georgian house in Edinburgh with a murky past. After a couple of mysterious deaths in the attic room a paranormal investigator and lecturer called Mary decides to rent the house. She needs a topic for her new book and the tales of séances and ghostly attacks are just what she is looking for. Her friend Reg comes along and sets up recording equipment so they can document the creepy events. The final piece of the puzzle comes in the shape of one of her students. A young guy called Simon who seems to have psychic powers.

The trio set up in the house and things start to happen immediately. Mary is convinced about the presence of ghosts but Reg suspects Simon has a hand in the events. This main story is framed by another which features a hunter who has tracked down an obviously ruined Simon. The two tie together neatly in the end and they are the two short stories that Barker used to frame his Book of Blood collection. They work better on the page than the screen but this faithful adaptation is still fairly entertaining stuff.

The cast are good with Jonas Armstrong playing Simon, Sophie Ward as Mary and Paul Blair as Reg. They are all competent with their roles but none of the characters are very likeable. Doug Bradley (Pinhead) has a very small cameo as the first owner of the house who was killed during a séance and Clive Russell turns in a great performance as the hunter Wyburd.

John Harrison adapted the Barker short stories On Jerusalem Street and The Book of Blood for the screen and he directs as well. His screenplay is faithful to the source material and his direction is quite good. It is a fairly predictable style and indeed the film struggles to make much out of the twists in the plot. It trundles along at a decent pace but the final revelation is a bit of a let down. The special effects were extremely good considering it was shot on a limited budget.

A lot of Clive Barker’s work is being adapted for film now and since Hellraiser none of it has really hit the mark. His rich and dark imagination tends to favour unsympathetic characters and so his films often leave you with no-one to root for which may in part account for his lack of movie success. His brand of horror definitely works better on the page.

Book of Blood is still a decent effort and horror fans looking for something with a bit of gore and an interesting plot will likely enjoy this.