Praise for Twisted Tales Events

'In the past few years Twisted Tales has become a major force in the promotion and appreciation of horror fiction. As well as putting on author readings and signings at bookshops it has expanded into organising larger events, bringing authors and critics together for discussions of the field. I've been involved in quite a few of both and have found them hugely enjoyable and stimulating - I believe the audiences did as well. May Twisted Tales continue to grow and prosper! If you love the field, support them! I do.' - Ramsey Campbell

‘Twisted Tales consistently produce well-organised events for writers and readers of horror. What really distinguishes Twisted Tales for me is the intelligent themes and investigations they pursue, and the high quality of the discussions they always stimulate. As an author I've been invited to three of their events and have been pleasantly startled, to near shocked, by the attendance levels - two out of three were even sold out. I salute anyone who contributes so much to the literary and cultural life of horror fiction.’- Adam Nevill

'Twisted Tales events are wonderful... a great way of promoting 21st century horror fiction. Supported by Waterstone's Liverpool One and really well organised, Twisted Tales brings together established names in the genre as well as new voices and of course readers. Looking forward to much more to come...' - Alison J. Littlewood

Wednesday 27 July 2011

‘The Hellbound Heart: Death of Ego, Birth of the Shadow’ by Suzanne J. Barbieri

 In this special article, Suzanne J. Barbieri analyses some of the themes and central myths of Clive Barker's The Hellbound Heart.

The novella that spawned the film Hellraiser marries the themes of Pandora’s Box and Doctor Faustus. Frank Cotton is the ultimate egoist; a waster with an unquenchable hunger for sensation, he sees everything in terms of his own gratification. Frank is the Faustian central character who will go to any lengths for experience. Frank purchases Lemarchand’s configuration, a puzzlebox promised to conceal wonders; but a box represents a coffin, and therefore death, and Frank cannot be transformed without first experiencing the death of his old self.

Frank works at the box for hours. There seems to be no way into it, no hint on its smooth sides of a solution to the riddle. It is quite by accident that his fingers find the pressure points that disengage one section of the box from another and lead him into a world of sights, sensations and exquisite agony, presided over by the Cenobites. 

But every dream has its nightmare, and no one has a ruder awakening to this than Frank. When he summons the Cenobites with offerings of petals and doves’ heads, he is expecting them to come bearing gifts of perfumed women, hungry for him. Instead all he gets are the Cenobites themselves; corpse-cold, scarred and flagellant:
“A fitful phosphorescence came with them, like the glow of deep-sea fishes: blue, cold; charmless... he saw nothing of joy, or even humanity, in their maimed faces.”
And the pleasures they offer are of a wholly different kind to what Frank has been expecting.

Frank’s senses are heightened to such a degree that the slightest odour is sickening, every sight and sound a devastating revelation, and the reel of memories that unspool inside his head more than enough to render him helpless. And just as he thinks it is all over, the trip begins in earnest with the unveiling of the fourth Cenobite, a Kali-esque figure who:
“... sat on a pile of rotting human heads...their tongues – twenty or more – laid out in ranks on her oiled thighs... She stood up. The tongues fell to the floor, like a rain of slugs.
‘“Now we can begin,’ she said.”
Frank’s physical body is destroyed, but his spirit remains in the room until, awakened by the blood of his brother Rory, his Shadow (the dark, uncivilised side of a person) emerges, twisted and skinless. Frank has shed his skin, and with it his façade of humanity. He is now a dark primeval creature whose primary motivation is his own survival, and for this he must have blood. The sustenance he requires is brought to him by his brother’s wife, Julia. Driven by her obsessive desire for Frank, she lures men back to the house and murders them so that he may use their blood to grow himself a new skin.

Frank thinks he has outwitted the Cenobites, but he sold his soul in return for experience, and must keep his side of the bargain. Like Doctor Faustus, Frank has entered a Hell of his own making, and the Cenobites, once freed, can never be truly banished. The puzzlebox is only a rudimentary jail whose locks can be easily picked. The experiences offered by the puzzlebox Hell are of the Unconscious and Frank’s mistake is in trying to allow his Shadow self to exist in the physical world. He has been transformed so that he may experience the dark dream world, and there is no turning back. Finally when he is tricked, like Rumpelstiltskin, into saying his own name, the Cenobites home in on him and return to take him back to where he now belongs.

The Hellbound Heart represents the first stage of the individuation process. The old self dies, the outmoded ideals are shed, and the Shadow is dragged raw and kicking into the world of inner experience. That Frank’s Shadow is skinless illustrates the vulnerability of the untutored primal soul, and emphasises that the journey to completeness will be far from painless. Experience is the best teacher, and the first lesson is that there is no gain without sacrifice.

-

Copyright © Suzanne J. Barbieri - First published in Clive Barker, Mythmaker for the Millennium

Monday 25 July 2011

Clive Barker interviewed by Paul Kane

Clive Barker's fiction came to international attention with the publication of his Books of Blood in the mid 1980s. His status was considerably enhanced when he adapted his novella The Hellbound Heart into the film Hellraiser, which conquered the world in 1987 and went on to spawn many sequels, as well as a series of comics that explored its mythology. Clive also directed cult film classics Nightbreed (1990) and Lord of Illusions (1995). He designed the creatures and wrote the stories for two successful computer games: Undying (2001) and Jericho (2007) and is the author of many novels, including Weaveworld (1987) and Imajica (1991). Clive is currently working on his popular Abarat series, a new comic book series within the Hellraiser universe and has several other major projects underway. For more information, please visit http://www.clivebarker.info.


PK: As a creative person did you set out consciously to explore every kind of medium or was that something that just happened along the way?
CB: No, I think you certainly look at things and say, well, could I have a crack at that? And you ask yourself, could I be an ice dancer? No. Could I have written Phantom of the Opera? Thank God, no. But there are things along the way... I’ve obviously looked at illustrated stories a lot, whether they come in the form of Blake’s mythical writings which are so gloriously combined with pictures – I don’t think illustrated is the right term because he produced such beautiful pictures, the images and the words have equal value, which I hope is true of the Abarat books as well. Which is obviously the fruit of that kind of study. So I look at something along the way. I’ve looked at some poetry once in a while, thought I’d have a crack at writing some of that. I’ve done that a little bit, and will hopefully write some more. I’d certainly like to write a play or two more before I shuffle off this mortal coil. And I’d like to write another movie or two, it’s just a question of finding time. 

PK: I once saw something where you said that the creative marks you make on the page help when you write?
CB: I do little doodles sometimes in the margins, how a creature might look or how a street might be arranged or how a world might be arranged, which I need to go back to and reference later on. Or I’ll play through particularly inventive variations of invented names. I really try and do that. I do like the fact that on this page that I’ve almost finished there are one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve…thirteen smaller scribblings and one entire line scribbled out. And the nicest thing about that is I can still see what’s beneath it, which is useful because when I come to do the final polish it will have been typed out, and I’ll have this by my side – I’ll tend to go back to the handwritten draft and peer through the scribbling. And sometimes I’ll find that the first decision, the first choice I made was the better of the two.

PK: How do you keep track of everything, all the different names and the places?
CB: I tend to be very good with that. The only part of my mind that’s organised is the part related to the fiction. Everything else is fucking chaos. But I know where the book is. At any given time I know where a book is. I know what problems there are, where I’ve got to go next and how I’ve got to get there. And if I don’t know how I’m going to get there I know that my problem between now and tomorrow morning when I put the book down, which will be perhaps six o’clock at night to go painting, and by 8:39 the following morning when I pick it up again I need to have solved a problem related to geography, or a problem related to motivation before I pick up the pen again. You can’t dither, you can’t be insecure. You just have to trust in your own madness…I like that phrase actually. I’ve never thought of that before, you’ve dragged that out of me (laughs)

PK: It’s quotable (both laugh).
CB: It is, it’s quite quotable. Barker trusts in his own madness. It’s so horribly true, that’s the thing (both laugh). It’s all true…

PK: You’ve called it – the creative process – dreaming with your eyes open, but have you ever included anything from an actual dream you’ve had?
CB: Oh God yes. Lots.

Pinhead
PK: Any examples?
CB: Pinhead.

PK: He came from a dream?
CB: Yeah, yeah.

PK: Speaking of which, what do you attribute the success and the popularity and the staying power of Hellraiser to?
CB: I think a look… I think a lot of things, but a look, it caught a moment. Fetishism, in film form. We came along with a movie when the whole body modification thing was really starting to rock. And that was powerful, it spoke to that appetite that people have, the fascination, obsession. Back then one of the first interviews I did during the course of the publicity was for Skin 2, it was a really very stylish S&M magazine. And I did an interview for them, and it was sort of breaking new ground really for a director, going to a sexual area which addressed tastes of his own sexual fascination and say, hey, yes, I am very interested, y’know? This is part of my life. And I think that more than anything…I mean, I wasn’t doing it consciously; I was just saying what was going on in my life, in my imagination. It’s always been my style, well, you know this too, to say what’s on my mind. And I respect people who don’t bugger around, who don’t think about the how and the why, but actually get on and say well, yeah, actually, I love tying my girlfriend up, I love tying my boyfriend up. Yeah, yeah, I do whip him, really hard. And I think the fact is that we all really came out of the dark, if you will, and it was all part of the debate – and it just happened to be luck that I was making a movie that was part of the debate.

PK: How does it feel to have created so many mythologies which are going to live on for years to come?
CB: Well, I think it’s a lovely thing when something you make moves people enough that they want to do something with it for themselves. And I’ve never understood people bitching about, “Oh you must be pissed off about what he did with this, or what she did with that.” No. I mean to me, once you put the thing out there, it becomes part of the texture. There was a wonderful piece of academic writing done a few years ago about the influence of the Candyman mythos on the people of Cabrini-Green in Chicago, except that the academic in this case did not know that the story had been entirely invented. And she wrote the whole thing as though there really was an original myth. And I though that was perfect; that was the whole thing coming full circle. That was the myth becoming reality for a bunch of people. And when Tony Todd goes... and I actually witnessed this, it doesn’t need to be in Cabrini Green; I’ve seen it in Toronto, with a bunch of black kids going, “Candyman, Candyman!” They do it. Tony just gives them a dark look, you know. It’s great. What I like about it is I used to have a dentist’s assistant and she was this wonderful woman, she had lots of kids. And she said, “You know how I get them to go to sleep at night?” I said, “No.” She said, “I go to the mirror and say, ‘Candyman, Candyman…’ And by number three they’ve all gone!” (both laugh)

PK: There’s no greater legacy than that.
CB: Oh no - that’s tip top, isn’t it?

PK: It is. Just one final question, which gives you the most pleasure: writing or painting?
CB: When I’m painting, it’s writing… (both laugh). You can finish that yourself.


With thanks to Clive Barker (parts of this interview first appeared in the FantasyCon Souvenir Booklet).

Monday 18 July 2011

‘Demons to Some’ (from Chapter 3 of The Hellraiser Films and Their Legacy) by Paul Kane

There can be no denying the Cenobites’ contribution to making Hellraiser a milestone of the genre. Their total screen time is approximately seven minutes, but their impact is out of all proportion to this. Yet their introduction - or lack thereof - may certainly have something to do with the phenomenon. At the start of the film we are only granted extremely quick flashes of them: the Female Cenobite in close up, Pinhead’s hands as he picks up pieces of Frank’s face, a shot of him standing up with the nails in his head visible. Then they are gone. After this sudden sensory overload, we are deprived: all is quiet, and the camera is free to pull back and away from the room where we just encountered them. Just as the box does with Frank and Kirsty, this piques the audience’s curiosity and forces them to ask questions about exactly who these strange beings are. How can it not? We know they must be integral to the story, but why? 

When we do finally see the Cenobites properly, it is the look of them that captivates. At the time audiences had never seen characters like these. They were totally original, a tricky thing to accomplish in a cliché-driven genre like horror. The closest precursors are actually from a different, though obviously related, genre: science fiction. They are the members of the Spice Guild in David Lynch’s adaptation of Frank Herbert’s sprawling epic Dune (1984). The entourage who bring on the monstrously mutated Guild Navigator at the very beginning of the film for a meeting with The Emperor are dressed in long leather or PVC robes and have pus-ridden sores. The look of the bald Bene Gesserit witches also resembles that of the Female Cenobite, and Baron Harkonnen’s playthings have open bloodstained wounds. Whether or not this influenced former Dog Company costume designer Jane Wildgoose is open to speculation, but there were other very real and traceable lines of origin. 

When he first came down to London, Barker found himself illustrating a couple of centerfolds for some S&M magazines, which later were investigated by Scotland Yard for their content. The magazines were burnt, which Barker found to be ‘the ultimate compliment’ (1). His interest in the taboos of society has always been great, and when researching the Cenobites he definitely returned to this hunting ground. One magazine in particular proved invaluable: Piercing Fans International Quarterly, which showed people with hooks inserted in their flesh, bodies dangling from chains - itself following the heritage of men like Fakir Musafar, the human pincushion who warranted a feature in Ripley’s Believe It Or Not. There are also people in the Philippines who regularly practice piercing themselves or hanging from hooks embedded in their skin as a kind of spiritual experience, while Native Americans practiced a similar ritual for their Sun Dances. Going back even further in history the most prominent examples would have to be the Spanish Inquisition and their various pieces of equipment for deriving pain from their victims, as well as the writings of the Marquis de Sade (2)

The look of the Cenobites was to be a kind of modern primitive, but perversely stylish, with clothes that intermingled with the wounds they had inflicted on themselves. Barker also had the initial sketches he’d come up with to help everyone visualize what he wanted, plus of course descriptions in The Hellbound Heart like this one:

‘Why then was he so distressed to set eyes upon them? Was it the scars that covered every inch of their bodies; the flesh cosmetically punctured and sliced and infibulated, then dusted down with ash? Was it the smell of vanilla they brought with them, the sweetness of which did little to disguise the stench beneath? or was it that as the light grew, and he scanned them more closely, he saw nothing of joy, or even humanity, in their maimed faces: only desperation, and an appetite that made his bowels ache to be voided.’ (3)

So his message to the costume designers was quite specific when it came to the Cenobites. Says Jane Wildgoose of a meeting she had with him:

He gave me some very clear indications of what he’d like and then I did my research… My notes say that he wanted: 1) Areas of revealed flesh where some kind of torture has or is occurring; 2) Something associated with butchery involved. And here we have a very Clive turn of phrase. I’ve written down ‘repulsive glamour’. And other notes I’ve made about what he wanted is that they should be “magnificent superbutchers”. (4)

The ‘repulsive glamour’ comment is imperative as it’s something Barker has referred to a lot. The beauty of horrific images and even the attraction we have to them as observers. To quote him: ‘I certainly get a lot of letters from people who think that Pinhead in Hellraiser, for all his strange disfigurements, is sexy, endearing. There are more things going on in other words in these kinds of strange disfigurements than simply saying this is disgusting, this is repulsive’ (5). Pinhead is very much the embodiment of this mode of thinking, which is one of the reasons why his character has endured and reached the heights of horror movie icon. But what are the others? 

The horror genre is one that lends itself exceptionally well to iconography. The vampire with fangs and cloak, the hairy werewolf and shambling zombie with tattered clothes. Every so often a film comes along that delivers a momentous villain; and usually the actor playing the role will be forever linked with it. From the Universal stable, Bela Lugosi as Dracula, who became so interlinked with his character he was buried in the cape, and Boris Karloff as Frankenstein with his flat head and stitches. Later, there was Christopher Lee playing the famous Count in Hammer productions, who must surely be a forerunner to Pinhead in every way. He is dignified but capable of unspeakable acts, tall and elegant but with an underlying barbaric quality. Bradley himself has commented, ‘That was very much an important element to me, that he had this love affair with the English language. Which as a demon from hell, committed to the sado-masochistic disposal of people, struck me as very exciting. When he spoke it was like an echo of Oscar Wilde or Noel Coward’ (6).

In the 70’s and 80’s, slasher killers like Robert Englund’s Freddy Krueger fulfilled the role of iconic horror monster in a very different way: with visual or verbal one-liners complimenting their distinctive masks or ensemble. Then came Anthony Hopkins’ portrayal of Hannibal Lector to take us into the 1990s, which again has something in common with the Cenobite mentality. Fans of horror have always coveted their anti-heroes and famous examples become such a part of popular culture they are recognized by all. This isn’t something a director can plan in advance - many have tried and failed. It is simply that certain characters immediately resonate with audiences. 

Doug Bradley’s Pinhead is just such a character. To quote Barker again, ‘I think people came out of Hellraiser that first time they saw it, they probably said, “Hey, check out the guy with the pins in his head.”… I would love to say that, oh yeah, God, it was all planned. It wasn’t’ (7)

This popularity trend is due chiefly to three factors. First, the performance Bradley gives is exceptional. He pitches the character exactly right, understated when necessary, authoritative when required: quite simply a powerful and terrifying screen presence. In this respect he was following advice from Barker to ‘Do less. Do less’, ensuring even the slightest expression in make-up had a dramatic impact. What then comes across is a figure very much in control of the situation, and very confident in his own abilities. Pinhead is not a person to be crossed. The fact that Bradley takes the role seriously makes us as a viewer take him seriously. When questioned about the popularity of Pinhead Bob Keen, who came up with the make-up, had this to say in two different interviews: ‘It’s the combination of several elements. Perhaps the most important is that Doug gives an absolutely straight performance, and it was Clive Barker’s genius in Hellraiser to present a character who was significantly different, strange and aloof from his surroundings, for the audience to be drawn to him’ (8). ‘Ninety-five per cent of what Pinhead is, is what Doug Bradley brings to the role…And Doug’s voice was just fantastic. You hear him and he has these wonderful lines and the whole thing just grew and grew. So I think the look’s important, but I think that if the wrong actor had been wearing this, Pinhead would never be the success that he is’ (9).

It is a testament to Bradley, and more proof of his iconic status, that his lines in the film are the most quoted. Some were even used as taglines for the movie (‘Angels to some, demons to others’ and ‘We’ll tear your soul apart’). His choice for the voicing of Pinhead should also rate a mention here. Obviously he couldn’t have pitched it like the asexual character from The Hellbound Heart. ‘The voice I gave to Pinhead is anything but “light and breathy”, and certainly sounded like no “excited girl” it’s ever been my pleasure to know… For the voice I simply went with how I was hearing the lines in my head, which was low, slow menace’ (10). And the audio was enhanced even more in post production. 

Secondly, as already suggested, the mystery surrounding the Cenobites at the start of the movie is vital. Who are they? Where did they originally come from? Why do they do the things they do? These questions are only vaguely answered in Hellraiser, and no background information is given at all. This mystique is part of what makes the Cenobites, and Pinhead especially, tantalizing. In conversations with Barker, Bradley was told that the character had once been human, but gave him no indication as to when this had been. Consequently there is also a melancholy behind the performance, a remembrance of something Pinhead had once been but can’t go back to; a longing for his humanity. In successive films this was expounded upon and he was given a back history: a British Army Captain who sought the box after enduring the horrors of World War I. The other Cenobites, too, were depicted as once being human before their transformation in the labyrinths of Hell. It could be argued that the characters lost something that contributed to their success in the original film. Granted it gave the Cenobites much more emotional depth - allowing us to relate to them. But the unknown is often more frightening than the familiar. In Hellraiser for the time being that enigma, the puzzle of the Cenobites themselves, remains a secret. 

We must also mention briefly the Cenobites as metaphors for our deepest, instinctive fears - and we are always attracted to what we fear the most. Chatterer, with those wires pulling back his lips, revealing gums and teeth, crystallizes a very real anxiety about being eaten, possibly alive. On a more modern level, he brings with him connotations of dental work too, the anxiety we all feel about this particular profession. Butterball represents fear about gluttony, of having overeaten until fit to burst - as he literally has. The stitches used on his flesh could be seen again as phobia about the medical profession and operations; which combines nicely with the terror of going blind when you realize his eyes are stitched shut under those sunglasses. The Female Cenobite’s vaginal gash in her throat is clearly a representation of man’s fear of female sexuality. The very fact that it is on display, not hidden, gives it the power to shock (and led to a raft of nicknames amongst the crew to diffuse the alarm – such as ‘Deep Throat’ and ‘Cunt-throat’). As for Pinhead himself, he represents the greatest fear for both men and women: that of being penetrated against our will. He has been violated by the nails, not once, but dozens of times. And they remain there as a constant reminder of his defilement. 

The third reason for the iconic status of Pinhead is that he was used to promote the film through posters and cinema trailers. His became the official face of Hellraiser. The marketing people at New World quickly recognized this potential, bringing Bradley back in for a photo shoot after filming had finished. When it came time to put the black contact lenses in, they discovered that one had melted, so the actual poster images show Pinhead with Doug’s blue eyes…But it makes very little difference to the overall image, which was exploited in the first instance to draw audiences – up on billboard posters in the U.S., Australia, Japan. Then was used to make money through merchandise. 

Directors like George Lucas and Steven Spielberg had shown that films could be veritable goldmines when it came to spin-off merchandising, with Star Wars (1977) and E.T. (1982) both earning more from this than actual box office returns. With slasher anti-heroes doing the same for the horror genre, it was perhaps no surprise that soon after Hellraiser’s release cups, T-shirts and jackets adorned with Pinhead appeared, backed up by promotional campaigns. Today, Pinhead models, toys, badges and just about anything else are available: further enforcing this icon’s standing in popular culture. Can it be a coincidence that the video and DVD of the film has remained a constant seller, when it has Pinhead on the cover? As intelligent and as interesting as the film is, there should be no refuting the Cenobites’ hand in its cult status.


Notes:
1) Clive Barker Speaking at UCLA, Feb 25, 1987.   2) The Marquis de Sade (Donatien Alphonse François de Sade 1740-1814) was possibly the most infamous writer in French history. His published work gave rise to the term ‘sadism’ – the enjoyment of cruelty, often with a sexual bent. Arrested after many scandals and condemned to twenty-seven years in various prisons, he wrote sexually explicit material including Les Journées de Sodome (The 120 Days of Sodom 1782-85), Justine (1791), and a ten-volume novel Les Crimes de L'Amour (Crimes of Passion 1800).   3) Night Visions edited by George R.R. Martin (Arrow, 1987) p. 205.   4) The documentary featurette Hellraiser: Resurrection U.S. DVD.   5) Fear in the Dark TV Documentary (1991)   6) ‘Doug Bradley: Pinned Down’ in Hellbreed # 2 (June 1995) p. 21.  7) The documentary featurette Hellraiser: Resurrection U.S. DVD.   8) The Hellraiser Chronicles p. 80.   9) The documentary featurette Hellraiser: Resurrection U.S. DVD.   10) Behind the Mask of the Horror Actor p. 211.

From The Hellraiser Films and Their Legacy © 2006 Paul Kane by permission of McFarland & Company, Inc., Box 611, Jefferson NC 28640. www.mcfarlandpub.com

Monday 11 July 2011

Paul Kane interviewed by David McWilliam

Paul Kane is an award-winning writer and editor based in Derbyshire, UK. His short story collections are Alone (In the Dark), Touching the Flame, FunnyBones, Peripheral Visions, Shadow Writer and The Adventures of Dalton Quayle, with his latest due out from the award-winning PS Publishing: The Butterfly Man and Other Stories. His novellas include Signs of Life, The Lazarus Condition and RED. He is the author of the novels Of Darkness and Light, The Gemini Factor and the bestselling Arrowhead trilogy (Arrowhead, Broken Arrow and Arrowland), a post-apocalyptic reworking of the Robin Hood myth. He is co-editor of the anthology Hellbound Hearts – stories based around the Clive Barker mythology that spawned Hellraiser – and his non-fiction books are The Hellraiser Films and Their Legacy and Voices in the Dark. His work has been optioned for film and television, and his zombie story ‘Dead Time’ was turned into an episode of the Lionsgate/NBC TV series Fear Itself, adapted by Steve Niles (30 Days of Night) and directed by Darren Lynn Bousman (Saw II-IV). He also scripted The Opportunity, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, and The Weeping Woman – filmed by award-winning director Mark Steensland and starring Tony-nominated actor Stephen Geoffreys (Fright Night). You can find out more at his website which has featured Guest Writers such as Stephen King, James Herbert and Neil Gaiman.

DM: What were your formative influences as a horror reader?
PK: The first horror book I read, and I suspect this is the case with a lot of people my age, was James Herbert’s The Rats. Similarly, the first fantasy book was The Hobbit – another popular choice – so I’m really looking forward to the movie when it comes out. The first science fiction book was Dune, which I thought was phenomenal. But these sparked off a craving to read everything and anything published in the imaginative genres really. I used to take books to school and read whenever I got the chance, at break times, and later in free periods. At home I always had my head in a book, so it’s little wonder that I ended up being a writer. In fact, I still have some of the first attempts at fiction I did in my teens, which were heavily inspired by the kind of fiction I used to read; I often dig them out and have a look if I want a chuckle. I also have to thank my English teachers at Netherthorpe School, especially Mr Townsend – who later on taught my daughter as well. He introduced us to a book called Brother in the Land by Robert Swindells, which was about survival after a nuclear war, so Messrs Townsend and Swindells are both probably responsible for my leanings towards post-apocalyptic fiction in some of my novels.

DM: What was your first introduction to Clive's work? How did it affect you and how did it alter your perceptions of what horror is and can be?
PK: It was during this feverish reading frenzy that I came across Clive’s Books of Blood and the stories inside stopped me dead in my tracks. It was just... if you’ll pardon the expression... a revelation. Each story was so different: one might be visceral horror, the next dark comedy, the next science fiction, and the quality of the writing was simply breath-taking. I knew right there and then if I could ever write a fifth as well as Clive I’d die a happy man. Then, of course, The Hellbound Heart came along – which I read as part of the Night Visions anthology, also featuring Ramsey and Lisa Tuttle (and edited by George R.R. Martin). Bizarrely, it wasn’t until the film was on video that I actually got to see Hellraiser and made the connection between the two... being underage might have had something to do with not watching it at the cinema, but that hadn’t stopped me on a number of other occasions. Anyway, it was at that point I realised Clive was pulling the same kind of masterstrokes on film that he was in literature. I fell in love with the whole mythology of the Cenobites, but perhaps more importantly could relate to the mundane setting of the house – this was cosmic horror, but happening right on your doorstep; or more accurately, up in your loft! So, to answer the question about perception, Books of Blood introduced me to the wide range of horror, something that’s definitely informed my work as a writer – I hate to be pinned down or just do the same stuff over and over – and The Hellbound Heart/Hellraiser showed me that you could set a story with a massive fantastical scope in the reality of this world. That’s also influenced me greatly, especially in my own Controllers stories or in novels like Of Darkness and Light and The Gemini Factor.

DM: In what ways do you consider yourself to be influenced by Clive's work as a writer of horror fiction?
PK: There are just so many. A lot of authors I read in my formative years and afterwards (and still today – I’m discovering new writers all the time) have had an enormous impact on me. It would take up this entire interview to list them all. But without Clive I definitely wouldn’t have written the kind of fiction I have done, or the kind of fiction I continue to write. You can usually find something in any writing I’ve done that chimes with Clive’s output. And, of course, I also have Clive to thank personally for a lot of my career – for the support he’s given, for the kind words about my work, and for a million other things.

DM: Indeed, your collection Peripheral Visions feels like it is a response to The Books of Blood, dealing with themes such as gateways into other worlds, the torment of demons and the infinite possibilities of the human body, covering an equally wide range of styles. Was this something you were consciously aiming for, or is it simply the product of the extent to which Clive’s work fires your imagination?
PK: I’m not sure I was consciously aiming for that with a collection, as the stories were written over quite a period of time and most had been published in other anthologies and magazines – but there’ll always be an influence from Clive’s work, as I say, in whatever I do. Maybe that’s why that collection seems very Books of Blood-like, when you put them all together? I certainly think Peripheral Visions was the collection where I really found my voice – or even grew up – as a writer and began testing the waters to see how far I could stretch things. The book is dedicated to Clive, though, to acknowledge his influence on me and those stories, so I suppose the answer to your question is a mixture of both.

DM: What do you think of the numerous adaptations of Clive's works in various different media?
PK: Some are better than others – I’m thinking the early adaptations like Rawhead Rex or Yattering and Jack for TV’s Tales from the Darkside – but I even have a soft spot for the bad ones. Obviously I absolutely love Hellraiser, that’s a given. I wouldn’t have written the books, articles, and essays or conducted the interviews I have if I didn’t. I won’t go into the highs and lows of the sequels, because it’s all in my book The Hellraiser Films and Their Legacy, [And also in reduced form here on our website - Glyn] but suffice to say, all these years later, I’m far from bored with it yet. I think Nightbreed suffers from studio interference – I’d love to see a director’s cut at some point, if the missing footage can ever be found – but the story, performances, direction and effects still hold up. Candyman is just a superb film that gets everything right, even the transplanting of the original story ‘The Forbidden’ from Liverpool to the US. And Tony Todd is Candyman, no two ways about it. I do like Lord of Illusions, but wish there had been more Harry D’Amour on film and/or TV because he’s a much more complex character than even that movie suggests. As for the later adaptations, in my opinion they’re some of the best there’s ever been. Having seen what’s gone into them from the other side, visiting sets and chatting to people involved, I know the love with which they’ve been put together. I was extremely impressed with both Book of Blood and Dread, and I think Vinnie Jones was perfect in Midnight Meat Train. If you’re looking for disturbing, shocking and thought-provoking horror, then you can’t really go far wrong with those three.

DM: As an author and editor, how did you come to write the non-fiction book, The Hellraiser Films and Their Legacy? From surveying the available literature, yours seems to be the definitive work on the franchise. Given its international success and impact on the genre, are you surprised that there aren’t more books about the Hellraiser movies?
PK: That stemmed from my start in the business as a journalist and non-fiction writer – not to mention my BA in History of Art, Design and Film, and MA in Film Studies – and was probably in the planning stages before I even got any fiction accepted anywhere. It began as an attempt to write a small BFI-style book on the first movie, but that didn’t get anywhere. Another publisher accepted it on that basis, but then they went bust, so I was left with twenty thousands words on Hellraiser and not sure what to do with it. I approached a few more places who liked the writing but they all said it was too short. McFarland said the same thing, but also asked me if I’d like to expand the book to cover all the movies, plus the comics as well. I knew it would be a lot of work, in fact it was a hundred thousand words more, but I said yes and worked on the book in my spare time (this was when I was working part-time as a lecturer for Chesterfield College, before going full-time as a writer). I just wanted to write a book that a Hellraiser, Barker or horror fan would want on their shelves, and I would definitely have bought it if I hadn’t written it. That made it a bit of a labour of love for me. Doing the research, it was interesting to see how much had been written about the first couple of movies – and even then from lots of different, varied sources – but how little about the rest, or the mythology as whole. That did surprise me, but also spurred me on because it felt like I was breaking new ground with what I was doing. If my book’s the definitive look at the series (or as Total Film put it in their review ‘Kane absolutely nails it’) then I’m very proud of that. It feels like I’ve accomplished what I set out to do.

DM: How did the idea for Hellbound Hearts come about? To what extent did you aim to remain true to the mythology of the Cenobites and Lemarchand's Configuration?
PK: I had the idea, after re-reading the 90s Hellraiser comics, to write about them for Legacy, and it occurred to me that nobody had done anything similar with the franchise in book form. So, I mentioned this to Clive on the phone, who loved the idea and said he’d help in any way he could (he did the foreword for us, and even painted a brand new Cenobite for the cover: Vestimenti). Marie then came on board as co-editor, because she’s a big fan of the mythology as well, and we started to figure out who we could approach for stories. Luckily, we managed to put together an excellent line-up (Neil Gaiman & Dave McKean, Kelley Armstrong, Christopher Golden & Mike Mignola, Peter Atkins, Conrad Williams, Sarah Pinborough, Mick Garris, Tim Lebbon, Richard Christian Matheson, Nancy Holder, Simon Clark, Steve Niles, Sarah Langan, Nicholas Vince, Yvonne Navarro, Mark Morris, Barbie Wilde, Jeffrey J. Mariotte, Nancy Kilpatrick, Gary A. Braunbeck & Lucy A. Snyder and Chaz Brenchley, plus an introduction by Stephen Jones, and afterword by Doug ‘Pinhead’ Bradley) which then helped us get a publisher – although it did get turned down by a couple of places before Pocket... anthologies are just such a hard sell. Hopefully we’ve remained faithful to the original novella, which was encouraged in the guidelines we sent to authors, but we also didn’t restrict them in any way. Because we were dealing with brand new Cenobites and other characters – not to mention puzzles – there was a certain amount of freedom involved, and I think that led to some pretty amazing stories, all in all. Reviewers seem to agree with that as well, as they’ve been mostly very positive so far.

DM: Indeed, I was impressed when I reviewed the collection for Strange Horizons. One of the key associations with Clive’s work is his popularization of body horror. What attracts you to this aspect of his writing and how do you use it in your fiction?
PK: I think my grounding in horror from the 70s and 80s, reading the pulp novels that were around at the time, and also – though I was really way too young to be seeing them – getting hold of and watching Video Nasties. But it was always the stories that said something about us as people, about our existence, but combined it with the body horror which fascinated me, and probably inspired me. Clive’s work was a massive part of that, and there are definitely nods to stories like ‘The Body Politic’ in my own ‘Speaking in Tongues’, or The Hellbound Heart in ‘Rag and Bone’ (both in the forthcoming PS collection, The Butterfly Man and Other Stories), whilst at the same time trying to create my own little mythologies. I’ve always taken that lead, to use the horror of something happening to the body, but combining it with an emotional impact on the character, or the reactions of friends, families, lovers... It’s there in the Arrowhead books as well, though technically they’re classed as science fiction.

DM: Of course, though Clive is one of its greatest exponents, the tradition of body horror began much earlier. I believe that you are editing an anthology, The Mammoth Book of Body Horror, with Marie? Despite this being a vital subgenre of horror, I am not aware of any anthology that focuses purely on body horror that is currently on the market (though perhaps a more narrowly defined collection could be found as part of the splatterpunk movement of the 1980s). Could you tell us a little about the scope of this anthology and what you hope it will add to the field?
PK: We are, yes. In fact we’ve been looking at cover roughs for this only recently. The book’s done and is just about to be turned in – it was commissioned last year and is due out in 2012. It’s probably because there’s been nothing like it, that we decided to do it – but again, it just seemed like such an obvious thing. I remember studying body horror in films and literature at university, but there were no fiction books in the library to reference for essays or presentations, so I think this one fills a gap in the market there. At the same time, we’ve got some huge, huge names in the line-up – I’m not allowed to talk about these just yet – so it should appeal to your average horror fan. But also, as you say, the body horror traditionally goes back quite a long way, so we’ve also tried our best to give an overview of the subgenre, going right back to some of its first exponents, right up to the present day with new stories. We’re hoping to begin promotional work on this soon, including at World Fantasy in San Diego to get the word out, so watch this space for more announcements, basically.

DM: Finally, what are your plans for writing and editing in the near future?
PK: I don’t think I’ve ever been as busy as this in my whole career, to be honest. As well as Body Horror, I’ve been working on a new novel which is nearly finished – again I can’t really say much about that – plus I have another lined up and commissioned for after that (there’s already been film interest in that mythology, to the point of it being optioned with a screenwriter attached and script in development). I’ve been producing more short stories and novelettes for future collections, plus I have a couple of novella commissions to do towards the end of the year. I’m also working on adapting a couple of bestselling authors’ novels into full length scripts, which is an interesting process. That came off the back of short films like The Opportunity and The Weeping Woman which I scripted from my own short stories. In terms of what’s out there or forthcoming to buy, in addition to the limited edition Shadow Writer book from Mansion House which is a gorgeous tenth anniversary hardback reprinting of my first two collections Alone (In the Dark) and Touching the Flame, complete with brand new material and extras, and also the PS collection due out very soon, I’ve just had a collection of my Dalton Quayle stories published by Mundania – The Adventures of Dalton Quayle – and have just signed with Books of the Dead to bring out a collection of my novellas, including the brand new one ‘Pain Cages’. All of this and I’m co-chairing FantasyCon this year with Marie down in Brighton with Guests including World Fantasy Award-winner Gwyneth Jones, Let the Right One In author John Ajvide Lindqvist, Hellraiser scripter Peter Atkins, bestselling Fantasy writer Joe Abercrombie, plus SF legend and OBE Brian Aldiss; A Matter of Blood author and British Fantasy Award-winner Sarah Pinborough is also our MC. Then Marie and I are guests ourselves at Thought Bubble in November, straight after WFC. Looking further ahead to next year, there are plans for more non-fiction work, some TV work, another novel, and perhaps an anthology or two as well... Like I say, I’ve never been busier and I’m very grateful for that fact. 

Monday 4 July 2011

"Nightbreed" by Clive Barker

Movies change; and change; and change. The images that first play on the screen in the inside of your skull as you set pen to paper are subject to constant reconfiguration. First you cast the faces to go with the characters, and costume them, and make them up; then the actors have their own embellishments to the dialogue, and the lighting cameraman has his contribution, and the set dresser his, and so on and so forth. But that’s only the beginning. The image, though fixed on celluloid, is still malleable in countless ways. The editor, placing one action beside another, can change the significance of each; can re-order dialogue, making new sense of old ideas. The optical effects men may create paintings that will put cities where there were none before, and just as magically remove them. The labs can make noon into twilight, or vice versa. Then, sound: another world of significance, transforming the way we perceive the picture on the screen; and music, to signal our responses.

What at first may seem the most immutable of media is in fact a world of possibilities, capable of being transformed at dozens of stages on its way from screenplay to screen. 

As both a writer and a director I am involved in the full spectrum of these processes. Inevitably, during the long, long trail from word to premiere, spirits soar and dive, ideas one day seeming God-given and the next rejected as hellish; decisions becoming badges of honour or yokes.

Somewhere half-way through this journey I’m setting these words on paper. Maybe the profoundest doubts about this project are past, and I’m finally on safe ground, believing we’ve made a good movie: but I’m laying no bets. We’ve still got another two weeks of shooting to do, much of it special effects related; that material has then to be cut into the picture. Mattes have yet to be painted, cells animated, titles created, music composed...

So much still to do. So many decisions still to make, and every one with its consequence. Still it’s time – publishing schedules being what they are – for me to pen the introduction to the book of the film.

What I will try to offer is a glimpse of the story behind the story. To try and describe how this first chapter of the Breed’s epic came into my head, and what narrative trails spread from it.

For me, one of the great attractions of the interlocked and interdependent collection of genres that constitute the fantastique – horror fiction, speculative or science fiction, sword or sorcery fiction – is the clarity with which they run from their present manifestations back to mythological and folkloric roots. The ghost story, the prophetic vision, the chronicle of imagined travels, imagined worlds, imagined condi-tions – all of these are as vital today, and as popular, as they ever were. Their tradition is honourable, and scattered everywhere with master¬pieces. Their current interpreters – in prose and celluloid – are, at their best, producing works that dive head first into the dream pool we all swim around in during our sleeping lives. Twenty-five years of our projected seventy-five will be spent in that pool. It’s important that we learn the strokes.

Perhaps the story-form that fascinates me most is that of the lost or wandering tribe. I treated it first in Weaveworld, a book about the Seerkind, who still possessed a holy magic in a secular and rationalist world. Now, in Nightbreed, I’m creating another tribe, but a very different one. The Kind was an essentially benign species. The Breed are not. They’re the monstrous flip side of the coin; a collection of transformers, cannibals and freaks. Their story, as set down in Cabal, and now re-envisioned in Nightbreed, is in a long tradition of night-quests; a visit by members of our species into the haunted underground to confront buried mysteries. Those mysteries bite. Several of the Breed have an appetite for human meat. Some are more bestial than human; others have a touch of the Devil in them, and are proud of the fact. To set foot in their domain is to risk death at their hands. But it is also a chance to see the lives of Naturals like ourselves from another perspective. The workings of the world seem a little more preposterous through the eyes of monsters. The Breed have been persecuted in the name of loving God; nearly exterminated by people who have envy in their hearts as much as hatred. As Rachel, one of the characters in the film, tells Lori:

“To be able to fly? To be smoke, or a wolf; to know the night, and live in it forever? That’s not so bad. You call us monsters. But when you dream it’s of flying, and changing, and living with¬out death.”

That’s one of the perspectives that makes the story of the Breed so intriguing to me. The adventure of Nightbreed is as much psychic as physical; or rather the two in one. A descent into a darkness that may illuminate.

Another is less conceptual. It’s to do with the challenge of making the insolid solid, and here the business of cinema and the business of fantasy offer interesting parallels.

I use the word business advisedly, because however much I may like to pretend otherwise (and I do) the making of motion pictures is as much commerce as art. That may not be true of more modestly scaled pictures, but a fantasy movie like Nightbreed, with countless action sequences, elaborate special effects, and a sizeable cast, costs too much of somebody else’s money for me lo be left to run creatively riot. Producers watch, accountants account; questions are asked hourly: “How many more shots to finish this sequence?”; “Do you really need three stuntmen?”; “Can’t we do without the tame pig?” Compromises are beaten out and agreed upon. Small furies come and go.

So the problem is: how do I make the dream real? How do I juggle the possibilities, knowing that visions cost hard cash and I can’t have all of dreamland? Clawing something valid from the maelstrom has repeatedly come close to defeating me, but working with the fantastique toughens the grip. It is perhaps the very nature of both genre and medium that it try and slip away, and it’s certainly my nature to attempt to pin it down for a little time, and keep its company.

One of the great pleasures of working in the area of dream-film (if that isn’t tautological) is the certainty that its true significance lies as much inside the head of the audience after it’s seen the picture as with what I actually put on screen. Much has been written about the way the rise and rise of the craft of special effects has changed the dynamic of such films. The creatures that in earlier years might have been kept discreetly in shadow, allowed only the briefest screen-time, are now often centre stage. In Nightbreed I’ve taken full advantage of this facil¬ity, seeking to put on screen more than a few tantalizing glimpses of the creatures. We’ve created a city for them, a religion, a whole way of life. They are as real, as rounded, as the human characters; in some cases perhaps more so. It’s my hope that audiences will take these creations to heart as they did (much against my expectations) with the Cenobites in Hellraiser, demanding to know more about their origins and powers, happy to embrace them despite (or perhaps because) they are on the side of darkness.

A movie is a two hour experience, but if an image or a character touches some nerve in the audience its effect may last a good deal longer. Some sixty years after they were made King Kong and Bride of Frankenstein – two of my favourite dark fantasy films, both focussed as much on their fantastical stars as on the human – exercise considerable fascination for audiences. Karloff and Kong are recognizable images the world over, despite the fact that the films in which they appeared are technically far inferior to those of today. It would be overweening of me to claim (or even hope) that our Breed will join that elevated league of icons, but I’d like to think we’re producing images that will at least remain in the audience’s head longer than a few hours.

Sooner or later the mask maker, much preoccupied with the art of haunting his audience, becomes haunted himself. How could he not, surrounded day in day out by the faces of his creations? I am, I confess, now so possessed by the Breed that they seem as real to me as the people walking up and down the street outside. I’ve lived with them like soul-mates, and their story has become a chapter in my own life. If the film communicates even a taste of that reality I’ll be well satisfied.

In both the film and the book the head honcho of Midian, Lylesburg, is much preoccupied with the fact that the Breed must remain hidden. What’s below remains below, he keeps insisting. But fantasy is a kind of archaeology; the digging up of buried images from the psyche; the bringing to light of hidden wonders. The movement of this story is indeed into the underground, but then – inevitably – we rise again, with new companions by our side. I hope they haunt you a little.

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First published in Clive Barker’s Nightbreed: The Making of the Film - 
© Clive Barker. Reprinted with permission of the author.

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(For this post, thanks to Clive Barker, Robb Humphreys, Marie O’Regan and Paul Kane)

Remember, you can attend an evening of horror devoted to the influence of Clive Barker's work at our Hellbound Hearts event.