Books of Blood (2020)

Director: Brannon Braga

Writers: Brannon Braga, Adam Simon, Clive Barker

Cast: Britt Robertson, Freda Foh Shen, Nicholas Campbell, Anna Friel, Rafi Gavron, Yul Vazquez, Andy McQueen

I’ve mentioned many times over that I admire the horror genre for its bravery when it comes to taking us to the darkest places it can find. It is unapologetic and that’s what makes it beautiful, but at the same time, that’s what makes it tough to write. Every way to scare people has been done but one iconic person found a way decades ago to push out the walls of our comfort zones and shove us into a place so dark it would be understandable to admit embarrassment for enjoying it. That person is Clive Barker. When the world was introduced to Books of Blood (the actual books) then the 1987 film adaptation of The Hellbound Heart, which we all know as Hellraiser, horror was never the same. In a pervasive display of sadomasochism and gore, Clive Barker showed us that there is much more to what goes bump in the night than your run-of-the-mill monster in the attic. Hulu’s film adaptation of Books of Blood is an extension of Barker’s fantastical horror for which he is so well known.

Books of Blood is a unique anthology that tells three stories, each revolving around a character but intertwined with each other: Jenna (Britt Robertson) is a girl with an intense case of misophonia who battles the condition while trying to find a place to go after running away from home and meets a hospitable couple who takes her in but is hiding a disturbing secret. Miles tells the story of Mary (Anna Friel), who’s grieving the death of her young son and finds a means to communicate with him through a medium, Simon (Rafi Gavron), with some unexpected complications. The third story, which bookends the film is about Bennett (Yul Vazquez), a criminal in search of the Book of Blood with the intention of making a fortune from it.

This movie has its fair share of ups and downs. From the cold open onward, there’s a very “made-for-TV” feel about it that can be pretty annoying at times and there’s way too much spoon-fed exposition during Jenna through deadpan, forced dialogue that is in no way natural-sounding in its written cadence or delivery. It makes the characters a bit tough to accept when they all speak like they’re reciting the parts of the script that were meant to be left unspoken. It makes for an odd first story that loses you before it gets good, but if you choose to stick around through the painful recitals, the horror kicks in and things do indeed get quite decent. We finally get the kind of disturbing scares we were waiting for and we’re given that Barker theme of people being just as, if not more, frightening than anything supernatural. The slippery slope takes us into Miles, my favorite of the three tales.

In Miles we see Anna Friel give the most compelling performance of the entire film. She shows a clear and complex arc, starting from a grieving mother and growing into the keeper of the Book of Blood through a series of events that push her to taking up the job. Friel really gave depth to the character of Mary and made an easily relatable figure that set and dominated the entire tone of the movie. Every time she wasn’t onscreen, I found myself wondering when I’ll get to see her again. She was absolutely haunting and definitely puts herself up on an equal plane as Hellraiser’s Julia as the commanding human monster that connects us with the world beyond ours. Even though the other characters involved in the story were strong on their own, Miles wouldn’t have been half as fun to watch if Mary was played by anyone else. Acting aside, this is the best of the stories, as it covers how the Book of Blood finds its way to our realm. It’s a chilling and dark tale, which I would have loved to have seen more of.

All stories come together during Bennett, a story that follows two criminals in their search for the cryptic Book of Blood. It’s a fairly short story and clearly presented as a means of tying up all loose ends from the previous two, which it does quite well. We did get a ton more content from Jenna, which included the finale of that story and wouldn’t have been as annoying as it was if not for how flat the story began at the beginning of the film. However, it did finish strong with a darkly poignant conclusion, and I won’t ignore that. Thankfully, the film closes with Mary and the Book of Blood in a dark summary of the Book’s purpose. It’s satisfying to see it end with its strongest elements, showing just how self-aware, if not simply logical, it is.

Clive Barker’s stories have a way of taking the essence of common fears, such as monsters in the attic or under the bed and thrusting them into a blacker darkness with us tethered to them. Despite some of its flaws etched onto the surface like the text of the Book on its fleshy cover, Books of Blood maintains that essence for an experience just outside of our comfort zone yet enjoyable just the same.

Books of Blood is available to stream on Hulu.