Clive Barker - Tumblr Posts
If I had a coin for each time I watched a movie based on a story by Clive Barker where the main heroine strikes a deal with a sexy demon who uses hooks for killing in order to screw up her cheating husband named Trevor, I'd have two coins. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice.
Scarlet Gospels sucks
Spoilers for literally the entire book if you even want to read that pile of hot garbage.
Scarlet Gospels is a novel written by Clive Barker in 2015 as a conclusion of Hellraiser saga AND IT'S PURE GARBAGE. I will try my absolute best to explain why it sucks, starting with...
The summary (in 5 sentences)
Hell Priest (that's Pinhead for the uncultured) enters a din of magicians and turns all except one into minced meat and also makes one female magician give birth to some abomination that eats their remains; the remaining magician Felixson is taken to Hell. Harry D'Amour (a detective for the occult) is sad because a demon jerked off to his friend getting burned alive, so he goes to visit Norma (blind woman who sees ghosts) and is sent on a mission to investigate a house of a recently deceased ghost who needed to hide some incriminating evidence. Harry finds Lament Configuration there and opens it, Hell Priest appears with cenobite Felixson and they try to kill Harry, but he escapes and is saved by a group of weird people where a trans woman drugs him to make him have nightmares so that he can wake up faster. Meanwhile Hell Priest kills all Cenobites with origami and opens a portal to Earth from Hell, goes to Earth with Felixson, lamely fights using blood magic and kidnaps Norma. Harry then goes to Hell with a few people, a bunch of random shit happens and it all ends with Hell Priest and Lucifer having an anime battle in which Lucifer wins and Hell Priest is pissed so he blinds Harry and kills Norma and then Lucifer destroys Hell, but Harry and the others escape and now Harry sees ghosts.
Now it's time for the reasons why it sucks:
Impostor Pinhead
First and foremost, what the FUCK happened to Pinhead's character?! I've read old Hellraiser comics from 80s and 90s and there you can meet the Cenobites in their full glory and understand them as characters. In those comics Pinhead is chaotic neutral and he's extremely likeable, just like in the movies. But in Scarlet Gospels he's a total dick from first to the last page. Even the dumbass Boom! comics kept Pinhead as mostly in character until the fiasco with Elliott Spencer's reincarnation happened. I would like to personally ask mr Barker why the FUCK is Pinhead suddenly a power hungry jerk with no morals who rapes people. Why does he kill all of the Cenobites for exactly NO REASON?! In old comics, Pinhead is basically a father figure to all the Cenobites and he clearly cares about them. He teaches them, keeps them in order, gives motivational speeches and punishes them if they deserve it, but he would never kill any of them. NEVER.
Then there's the glaring issue of him having no motives for his actions. Basically in this dumbass book, he wants to take control of Hell and become supreme being which is literally the polar opposite of his character in both the movies and the comics. He isn't power hungry, he's a very devoted, dignified person who dedicated his life to serving Leviathan. But Leviathan doesn't even appear in this book, so WTF!? More on that later, power is usually a motive for a villain, heck, that's the motive of my own villains as well. But we need a reason for character to crave power. The villain who wants all power just because is cartoony and childish and that's exactly what Pinhead is in this entire book. Also, for whatever reason, he wanted Harry to document his rise to power and write his gospel which is just beyond dumb. Why does he want this documented? No clue. Why does he want power? Don't ask me, mate. And on top of that, killing all of the Cenobites didn't aid him in achieving power at all, so he also killed them all just because.
And on top of that, he's a completely different person. He's not elegant and restrained; he cusses, he uses his fists to beat the shit out of Norma, he's scummy, hypocritical and overall a pure asshole. Even Unbound Pinhead from Hellraiser 3 kept his dignity and personality, but this impostor doesn't! He's so obsessed over getting to rule Hell that he kills innocent people and cuts off parts of his own body to be able to wear Lucifer's clothes. And there's no explanation for that obsession!!!! WHY!? Why is he so out of character!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!
Harry D'Amour is a sentient bag of potatoes
And so are all of his friends. Literally, if you cut out Harry's entire arc out of this book, absolutely no part of the main plot would change. Harry plays no part in Pinhead's rise to power, he's just there to document it, as a witness. So he's literally just dragged around Hell.
Harry's personal life and everything else depicts him as the most generic, edgy hero and he has a personality of a wax crayon. I don't know if he's a better character in other books about him, but in Scarlet Gospels he's just an observer whose only agency is to save Norma. And in the end he gets blinded by Pinhead because he sucked as a witness as well lmao. He also didn't even save Norma, she got killed. He was literally there just to brood, say a few cringey one-liners and be useless. AMAZING MAIN HERO AMIRITE!?
And his friends are even worse. All of them were so bland and boring. Although two of them had cute gay romance which was fun, but it's mentioned just in passing and it ends with them talking about the size of their genitals which is... unnecessary to say the least!
Christianity has no place in Hellraiser!
Yes, it's called Hellraiser and, yes, there are mentions of angels and demons and Hell in the movies, but Hellraiser IS NOT Christian. Hell in this universe IS NOT Christian Hell, it's a lovecraftian alternative dimension and that's what makes it fun. Christian Hell and stories about it have been done so many times and Scarlet Gospels is just one of many mediocre Christian horror books. In the comics, Cenobites do mess with religion, Pinhead hates Christianity and all that is fine. We DID NOT need to turn the beautiful Labyrinth from Hellbound and the comics into dumb, unimaginative Christian Hell. Fuck that. Lucifer was a fun character to read about, but where is Leviathan!? Leviathan is literally the most recognizable part of Hellraiser Hell and it doesn't even get mentioned. WHAT THE FUCK?!
Transphobia (tw)
There is one character who is a trans woman and she is treated like walking genitalia. All of the characters, including Harry, constantly comment about how she's manly and how she has wide wrists and how she's too blocky and how she had bottom surgery and I'm like what the actual fuck. I am a cis woman and people have been telling me my entire life that my wrists are too broad and that I have manly hands. It triggers me to no end and I cannot even begin to fathom just how triggering that would be to a trans woman. Not to mention that her character has no personality besides trying to act womanly and she's the only one in Harry's group who is evil. And she's evil for no reason. And on top of that, she's murdered off screen and Barker uses that scene to once again describe her "mutilated genitals". WHAT THE FUCK!!! This part made me so irrationally angry and I can't believe that it was even included in the book.
Trying too hard to be edgy
This entire novel has a feeling of a 16 year old little emo trying to be edgy. There are so many idiotic descriptions, cringey scenes where demons jerk off, extremely gross stuff that has no purpose for the story, scenes that exist just for shock value, the list goes on and on. Now, don't get me wrong, I've expected a lot of graphic descriptions, it's Hellraiser after all. But there's a clear difference between graphic, but having artistic merit and edgy and most of the stuff in here are more on the edgy side. Just lame.
Also, Norma holds two pages long conversation with Harry before dying which is the cliche that I hate the most in fiction. Like she's mortally wounded, but has enough energy and clearness of mind to crack jokes for 20 minutes? I thought Barker was above such beginner author pitfalls.
Stuff I actually liked
Depressed Lucifer is hilarious. The entire anime battle between Lucifer and Pinhead was so cringey and funny that I laughed out loud. Definitely belongs on "so bad it's good" lists.
Quo'otho is an eldritch very hungry caterpillar and he's my favorite character in the novel. Too bad he got killed as well. Poor baby was just hungry and doing his job. He deserves head pats.
Pinhead once uses a spell to bring a whole bunch of origami cranes to life. That was so cute. He used those cranes to kill the Cenobites which was dumb as fuck, but the sheer image of him doing origami and bringing it to life made me smile like a dumbass fangirl that I am. That was one of the very few moments in the story where he was in character. If anyone writes a fanfic in which he uses those origami cranes to send secret love letters to Kirsty I will sell my soul to them.
The Hell Priest uniform has pockets and they are deep enough to hold several Lament Configurations and a sword. This is extremely important information.
Overall, Scarlet Gospels gets a 3/10 from me. It was really cringey and bad, but had some fun and interesting ideas and concepts. It completely assassinated my (and many other people's) most beloved character in Hellraiser franchise, has a passive, cardboard cutout hero, many ideas that go nowhere, it's very transphobic and has endless amount of stuff that happens for no reason. I like Barker's writing style, but this novel fucking sucks.
I'll take a break from Tumblr for now, as I'm working on the new chapter of my comic. I don't know if I'm going to post more Hellraiser stuff, maybe, maybe not, idk. Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this dumb review. See you in a while, if I survive the finals!
Hellraiser (1987) Dir: Clive Barker
Explorers, In The Further Regions Of Experience. Demons To Some, Angels To Others.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093177/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
http://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk/review/hellraiser-1987-film-review-by-jennie-kermode
http://www.screamhorrormag.com/classic-horror-month-hellraiser-1987/
http://reflectionsonfilmandtelevision.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/cult-movie-review-hellraiser-1987.html
http://classic-horror.com/reviews/hellraiser_1987
https://moviesfilmsandflix.com/2015/07/23/johns-horror-corner-hellraiser-1987-clive-barker-introduces-us-to-pinhead-in-this-ultra-creepy-practical-effect-gorefest-with-a-solid-story/
Fave parallels “Have you ever killed something good for you just to be certain that you’re the reason you can no longer have it?” - Larissa Pham ( From ’Abject Permanence’ published in Unruly Bodies) “You cut up a thing that’s alive and beautiful to find out how it’s alive and why it’s beautiful, and before you know it, it’s neither of those things, and you’re standing there with blood on your face and tears in your sight and only the terrible ache of guilt to show for it.” -Clive Barker (from ‘The Damnation Game’)
🥀A melancholic Female Cenobite 🥀
Hellbound Hearts
Here we are just you and me. It feels like tonight is the right time. Take my hand then follow me. I'm going to take you on a ride of a lifetime
My little sin (Love, Ecstasy and Terror)
My wife is in my arms
“Be my victim,” he said.
“No…” she murmured.
“I won’t force it upon you,” he replied, the perfect gentleman. “I won’t oblige you to die. But think; think. If I kill you here – if I unhook you…” he traced the path of the promised wound with his hook. It ran from groin to neck. “Think how they would mark this place with their talk… point it out as they passed by and say: ‘She died there; the woman with the green eyes.’ Your death would be a parable to frighten children with. Lovers would use it as an excuse to cling closer together…”
She had been right: this was a seduction.
— Clive Barker, “The Forbidden” Books of Blood
This was Baphomet. This diced and divided thing. Seeing its face, she screamed. No story or movie screen, no desolation, no bliss had prepared her for the maker of Midian. Sacred it must be, as anything so extreme must be sacred. A thing beyond things. Beyond love or hatred, or their sum; beyond the beautiful or the monstrous, or their sum. Beyond, finally, her mind’s power to comprehend or catalogue. In the instant she looked away from it she had already blanked every fraction of the sight from conscious memory and locked it where no torment or entreaty would ever make her look again.
Clive Barker, Cabal
Even the wound, throbbing beneath his hand, had its life, and was celebrating it. The pain had gone, replaced not by numbness but by a sensitivity that was almost erotic, tempting Boone to reach into his chest and stroke his heart.
Clive Barker, Cabal
Stunning!!
Not usually what I post but I finished this drawing of @mothercain (Ethel Cain) as Pinhead a while ago and just thought I’d share as I’m still super proud of it!
Baphomet, Peloquin, Shuna Sassi, Vasty Moses, Kinski, Frick, Mexico, The Berserker, Kushnir Day, Leroy Gomm, Scorch, and Lude from the Nightbreed (1990)
“You cut up a thing that’s alive and beautiful to find out how it’s alive and why it’s beautiful, and before you know it, it’s neither of those things, and you’re standing there with blood on your face and tears in your eyes”
— Clive Barker (via princess-mary)
WIP of Quasoir from Imajica. Y’all I am obsessed with this book why aren’t more people talking about it??
