moonmonday I honestly don't know why Clive Barker didn't sue to get his name removed from this terrible disaster of a film, since by all reports it's nothing like his book. It's not because of bad acting; the actors are all at least decent in their parts. It's just that they have absolutely nothing to work with.The premise of the film is stated and restated, over and over again, as if it's a particularly difficult concept to grasp. What really is intolerable is the fact that it's repeated no less than three times within the last five minutes of the film. I'm fairly sure if we've lasted that long, it can either be assumed that we get it more than adequately, or it's far too late to try and drive it home.The story is so incoherent and ridiculous that things seem to just happen for the sake of having something to jazz up a few minutes, but they're so random and pointless that they utterly fail. Even nudity doesn't manage to spice this up. The multiple sex scenes -- which add absolutely nothing whatsoever -- are quite a chore and quite a yawn. It's been quite some time that I've seen a film nudity couldn't help, but this one manages ably.Nothing about the story really makes sense. The characters are poorly-defined and unsympathetic, and things spring up randomly to try and backbuild what should have been established long before it's touched upon. The whole thing reads like a peek into a situation that is neither interesting nor compelling, and it ends up a massive waste of time. The framing story is tied in and becomes even more bizarre and less suited to the rest of the film, but by the time this is made clear, it's too late. You've already watched the rest of this inane slog, you might as well see it through. Unfortunately, it's nothing new or interesting, and it's devoid of any of the (strangely) erotic elements that Barker typically tries to work into his writing. Instead, it's all dull as a beige room.The music is forgettable most of the time. Otherwise it ends up sounding out of place and distracting, which is easy to do since the scene you're watching won't be interesting enough to keep your attention. Unfortunately, whoever did the sound production made it another one of those films where you struggle to listen to the dialogue, but the effects and screams are ridiculously loud.The cinematography can be summed up in one word: grey. Everything is grey. Everyone is grey. Every event is grey, every effect is grey. It doesn't help to make an already incredibly boring affair any more interesting.Poor pacing, incoherent and dull script, and bad sound can't be helped by good actors, especially when they're limited by what they have to work with in the script. Don't waste your time on this one. It has some interesting concepts, which I can assume are the only things that were really taken from the source material, but it does nothing interesting with them. This might have worked decently as a short film, but it has no business pushing two hours of length with its story that nobody was waiting to hear.

pruepp As the gentlemen towards the end of the movie says "You tell a good story, friend. But sad to say, I'm not moved. I don't feel anything." This movie does not do justice to Barker's writing in any way.The downsides:The acting is wooden - Facial expressions are practically non-existent, especially the leading lady appears to be in a constant daze. Body language does not match the action or the words. The main character overcompensates by acting as if he were part of an amateur ensemble told to really get into it. His pecker totally steals the scene.The script-writing makes me cringe - Exchanges between the characters mostly consist of lined up one-liners with no natural flow or credibility. Saying things like "I don't want to lose you" and the excessive grieving after the break-up of a relationship that was not really one to start with is just not believable. And why does the lady suddenly go blonde at the end of the movie?The pace is slow - I'm fine with slow movies, if the pace is required to establish relationships, motives and characters, but the acting and script allow for none of these to develop, so the results is..... BORING!Special effects - The dragonflies scream CGI. Loudly.Redeeming qualities:Special effects - The writing on the young man's skin looks really nice when it first appears.The pecker shot - Not really my thing, but it firmly establishes that this is not a Hollywood movie.The sex scenes - Well..... they're good. They're the only time the actors actually show some emotion, albeit of the physical kind.Conclusion: The sex scenes were the best thing about this movie - How bad must a horror flick be to elicit such a statement?

Vomitron_G This film pleasantly surprised me. Recent Clive Barker adaptations haven't really been masterpieces (though thankfully there always has been enough talent involved to make them interesting, at least). "The Plague" (2006) just wasn't much to write home about. "The Midnight Meat Train" (2008) was better, but it basically just tried to blow your socks off with extreme violence & bloodshed. And now, "Book of Blood" might just be the finest recent adaptation so far. It relies more on mood & atmosphere and all this is handled well. A duo of paranormal investigators - Mary Florescu (Sophie Ward), the professor & Reg Fuller (Paul Blair), the technician - moves into a reputed haunted house. Mary invites student Simon McNeal (Jonas Armstrong) to come along, for she believes him to have psychic abilities that might tap into the house's paranormal activities. But distrust soon rises between the threesome as they try to determine what's real and what's not in this house of hauntings.Granted, the story remains pretty thin throughout the film, but director John Harrison takes this as an opportunity to not only create an eerie mood and build tension, but also to work on the main characters. There's a disturbing sexual tension growing between mentor Mary & student Simon which escalates in some keen exposure of betrayal. Actress Sophie Ward is an awesome woman and left a great impression on me with her toned-down performance. Both the pro- & epilogue make the movie a bit oddly structured, but it helped to flesh out the story a bit (pardon the pun). The film oozes with that sort of old school British Gothic vibe, but it's much darker portrayed than usual, adding a great deal of atmosphere to the picture. It's a rather little film, don't expect to be blown away, but it's a well-made effort and a clean adaptation carrying on the spirit of Clive Barker's work splendidly. I have yet to see his other recent outing, "Dread" (2009), but I've heard decent things about it already.

pseawrig I am a huge Clive Barker fan, but this is a weak adaptation. It is hard to stretch a very short story into a full-length film. Still, this script could have maintained the intelligence of the story better and the direction could have communicated Barker's distressing world view better. I have three main gripes. First, the story's focus: the film turns the original story's dysfunctional mentor relationship between the older female researcher and the younger male medium into a full blown, treacly love story. Ugh! Second, the tone: many scenes feature little more than furtive glances, longing looks, or sudden, eruptive declarations of love/hatred, which makes the movie too often feel more like a telenovela or an episode of Red Shoe Diaries than a horror film.Third, the film's vision of the supernatural: in the short story, the "ghosts" gleefully wreak havoc on the living. In the film, they just want to be heard. As if this diminished characterization of the avenging spirits weren't cloying enough, the film features a very long parade of see-through CGI phantoms, all of whom look like they just marched over from Disney's Haunted Mansion: "Run to the light, Carol Anne. Mommy is in the light!" Despite my complaints, the film has flashes of true Barker-- the young girl being flayed as her parents helplessly watch, the creepy séance scenes (hey- wasn't that Pinhead?), and the film's framing story (where Jonas Armstrong gets the chance to show that he can indeed act). Also, the film makes great use of Edinburgh locations to create an unrelentingly bleak Barkeresque atmosphere. It also makes great use of Jonas Armstrong's sumptuous, lacerated, naked body to generate the kind of exquisitely wrong homoeroticism that is pure Barker.