This Day in Horror History: Happy Birthday CLIVE BARKER!
Mike Sprague
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On this day in horror history, Clive Barker was born in Liverpool, England in 1952. An English playwright, novelist, film director, and visual artist, Barker came to prominence with his short stories, the Books of Blood. Since then he has written novels and other works adapted to the big screen like Hellraiser and Candyman.
Stephen King says: “I have seen the future of horror and his name is Clive Barker.”
Barker wrote the screenplays for Underworld and Rawhead Rex, both directed by George Pavlou. Displeased by how his words were handled, he directed Hellraiser himself based on The Hellbound Heart. Then Nightbreed and Lord of Illusions.
Other films based on the work of Clive Barker include Ryuhei Kitamura’s The Midnight Meat Train with Bradley Cooper, Leslie Bibb, and Vinnie Jones, Anthony DiBlasi’s Dread with Jackson Rathbone and Shaun Evans, and John Harrison’s Book of Blood with Jonas Armstrong, Sophie Ward, and Doug Bradley.
Barker’s stories have also been adapted into kick-ass comics such as Hellraiser, Nightbreed, Pinhead, The Harrowers, Book of the Damned, and Jihad. Eclipse Books’ series and graphic novels Tapping The Vein, Dread, Son of Celluloid, Revelations The Life of Death, Rawhead Rex and The Yattering and Jack.
As for the future of Barker’s work on the screen, HBO is developing a Hellraiser series with Mark Verheiden and Michael Dougherty writing the series and David Gordon Green directing several episodes. And Hulu has a Books of Blood anthology horror film directed by Brannon Braga and co-written by Adam Simon starring Britt Robertson and Anna Friel headed our way on October 7th.
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