Episode: 374 • Duration: 00:55:57
Continuing our foray into tangentially-related Clive Barker films for Halloween, we cover the 2009 movie Book of Blood, which actually just takes the wraparound story from the collection of the same name and turns it into a full-length movie. We talk about how that was probably a misguided concept, the banality of this drab miserable movie, and the frustrations we had with a paranormal film that doesn’t explore its own spooky house.
We’re also drinking Saranac’s Darktoberfest, which is back this year after a long hiatus!
Check back all Halloween season for more Bobbing for Barker!
Hit that play button above to listen in.
Transcript – Bobbing for Barker (4) BOOK OF BLOOD (auto-generated)
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0:00
This September, hear the rattling of chains, see the master of illusions, experience the cabal of monsters, the purveyor of pain comes to Blood and Black Rum podcast this Halloween season with Clive Barker’s filmography in thobbing for Barker.
0:22
Hey guys, welcome back to the Blood and Black Rum podcast.
I’m Ryan from coltsplantation.com and I’m joined with my Co host Martin.
As.
Caller, you didn’t think I was going to do that, did you?
No, I was about to.
I was, you know.
What you’re going to say, you’re going to say, hey, why is he not doing a spooky voice?
0:38
You know, just I was just about to cut and say like we’re at three.
Do that.
You’re not doing the voice.
I did.
I did.
I just did the opposite this time.
Instead I delivered the Martin stuff.
No, yeah.
Well, I’m like, you know, Bob and Barbara on like those, you know, those spooky shows from the 50s, like, you know, on the AM Family and the the Monsters.
1:01
Yeah, yeah, you’re the, you’re the, the, the plain one plain, the plain jade, the the, the normal 1.
Yeah, it’s actually.
Abnormal.
Yeah, I don’t even remember who they were, but I just know like 1, like, you know, just like I like, you know.
Yeah, wasn’t Barbara, that’s for sure.
1:19
Wasn’t one of them like a like blonde lady?
Yeah, like a Marilyn Monroe type sort of thing.
Yeah, we’re back with another episode we’ll have.
To watch rob zombies, you know.
Oh, there you go.
You know, monsters.
Rob Zone, get us into.
1:35
That one.
Yeah.
Did we ever end up doing that one?
No, you refused.
That’s right.
Yeah, Because I had watched it, but I didn’t actually.
You protested us doing that.
Yeah, I, I watched it.
I didn’t actually do it.
Do it.
We didn’t do it for the show.
I I reviewed it at one point.
1:51
I was like, well, it’s kind of a kind of a poop poop tastic movie.
But Nope.
Today we’re back with more bobbing for Barker.
Last time we did a classic Barker movie, one that he wrote and directed.
2:07
And so today we’re going to we’re going to move on to one of the more contemporary films.
Again, most of the contemporary films he had nothing to do with.
He, you know, didn’t maybe would get a producer credit on it or something just to be like, look, we gave him credit, you know, something like that.
2:22
But most of the time they were just basically give him a credit for the writing, like based on a short story by Clive Barker.
And that’s the case with this movie.
This one was released in 2009 and to fairly little fanfare.
2:41
I definitely do remember the poster artwork for it for some reason.
I don’t know if it’s again, it’s just something that was like, hey, this is coming out or if it is even like something like just like some, you know, seeing it the DVD coming out or something.
2:56
But I do remember seeing the the the artwork, but I don’t necessarily know anything more about it than that.
The only thing that I really knew about this movie was that it is one of two movies that are like very, very similarly titled about Clive Barker’s Books of Blood.
3:16
This one is, I want to make note of this.
It’s called Book of Blood or sometimes referred to as Clive Barker’s Book of Blood.
You know, depending on which poster you’re looking at.
I think of the movie they say Clive Barker’s Book of Blood.
Am I in the dude?
They don’t.
They don’t.
No, that’s why I was kind of weirded out because you know, they have it in the posters and stuff, but when it came to the actual title card, it just.
3:38
Said, yeah, the the title card at the beginning does not, but the the ending title card I think does say Clyde Barker’s Book of Blood.
So it’s very, very confusing.
Very.
They did not stick with a consistent, you know, moniker for the movie, but this one is Book of Blood because and that’s that made that becomes important because there is also a more even more contemporary movie, one that just released I think like a couple years ago for Hulu that was titled Books of Blood.
4:08
And the idea behind that is that is actually an anthology movie, whereas Book of Blood, the movie that we’re doing today is not an anthology.
It is quite literally just the short story framing device for the Books of Blood called the Book of Blood.
4:26
It’s very, very difficult to piece together.
You know, it’s, it’s, it’s a lot going on with the with these ideas.
Are you?
Are you keeping it following folks?
It’s like a Japanese video game.
That’s right.
That’s right.
It’s very complicated and there’s lots of things that go into this.
4:43
So so anyways, I wanted to make sure that we were both clear on which one we were doing today, that it was Book of Blood, so that we didn’t have that lupon the third fiasco where I watched the wrong movie and then we had to, you know, redo it or I had to watch again.
So thankfully that did not happen.
5:01
We watched the correct the correct movie together.
So we’re doing 2009’s Book of Blood now Again.
I don’t think I’m going to take a stab.
You’ve never heard of this movie?
You don’t know this movie.
Never.
No ideas.
No, Right.
Yeah, Nope.
5:16
I mean, I’m familiar with Book of Blood now.
Because every like, film we’ve done so far is like, somehow tied to, you know.
Yeah, most.
Most are.
Yeah, because I mean, it is one of his Besides, you know, he’s he’s done a few novels, popular novels too, by the way.
5:32
But the like most of those have not been turned into films, which is just kind of interesting.
Like, you know, it’s his short stories that are really the ones that they have made into movies.
And and most of the the stories from the Books of Blood have been made into movies or TV shows or at some point some form of media.
5:52
Maybe it’s maybe it’s because Book of Blood’s been, you know, raped and pillaged so much.
He’s like, go for I don’t care.
My other stories, leave them alone.
I won’t.
Leave.
Yeah, I’m not.
I’m not optioning those up.
I’m not letting you, you know.
6:08
Yeah, that that may be true.
That may very well be true.
I mean, I think that in this case, though, the Books of Blood, yeah, they’ve been pillaged and there’s there’s not much many more short stories to be done from them that have not been done in some way.
And I’m going to take a guess and I don’t want to spoil things because we are going to do Books of Blood as well later on.
6:29
You know, it’s not going to be like right away, but we are going to do that movie too.
And that one is actually more, like I said, of an anthology where it does take multiple stories, short stories from the Books of Blood and, you know, turns them into a film.
I am curious about that one to see.
Like do they revisit some things that have already been made films?
6:46
Like are they trying to do their own iterations of it?
We’ll, we’ll find out about that one.
But Book of Blood is not an anthology film.
It is a straight up, you know, basically a retelling of the original story.
That is the framing device for the Books of Blood, which is that there’s this guy who you know, basically has spiritual ghostly writing on him on his skin.
7:09
And that’s kind of the framing device and the framing device in the book is actually really, I think pretty interesting in that the, the stories that he has on his skin are the ones you were about to hear or read, right?
Like that, that that is the framing device that that opens the book up.
7:25
Like, look, let look, let me tell you these stories that have been written on me.
And The funny thing about this movie is that like that is not how the film plays out.
And to its detriment, because it tries to basically summarize all of the events of the the the opening short story or framing device in in the the books of blood into one like really mundane supernatural film.
7:53
I think that might be giving too much away as before we get into the review, but I do think it’s important to talk about like this movie sort of misses the point of the the framing device itself is like the framing device is a perfect scenario to be able to tell an anthology story.
8:09
And here they kind of, you know, throw all that away in favour of just telling a straight up one story.
I think it’s a bad decision as we’ll talk about as we we get into the the film itself.
But anything else that you want to add in the introduction here that that we didn’t talk about for Book of Blood?
8:29
Any observations or anything not not tied to a review?
Poster artwork reminds me a lot of like Antichrist.
Yeah, I can see that, you know.
Yeah, like the man’s back.
8:46
Man’s backside.
That could be Willem to fall for all I know you.
Know could be, could be.
Yeah, like I said, you hit the hammer on the nail on this one.
Like I don’t I didn’t have any real expectations going into this on wasn’t aware of it and just thinking about with knowing what, you know, Book of Blood is as a, you know, a series of works.
9:12
I was thinking like I was expecting like an anthology film.
And so again, like, you know, watch trailer, you know, Wikipedia or anything.
So it wasn’t too much my surprise.
And as we’ll talk about when we get more into it, like the detriment of the film.
9:31
But it’s not.
Save that for Yeah, after the beer.
Talk, yeah, we’ll, we’ll do the beer talk 1st and really get into it.
So with that said, got some beer on the show today and it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s a beer that we’ve talked about.
We’ve we’ve especially around this time period, we’ve kind of reminisced about because it’s not been available for for a long time, probably since our college years.
9:57
I want to say, you know, it’s been been quite a few years, a decade at least.
And the brewery.
If you think, hold on.
Hold on if you think it’s only been a decade since we graduate.
Yeah, that’s true.
Yeah.
Yeah, it’s it’s been been 15.
Years, that’s true.
Yeah.
10:12
So maybe 15 years, who knows.
We have talked about this before because it is one of our favorite styles of Oktoberfest that just has not been around very often.
And serendipitously, the brewery has brought it back this year.
10:28
Maybe they’ve been listening to Blood and Black Rhampiticast.
They’ve been hearing us, they’ve been hearing us talk and say, wow, we really want this, this beer back.
They’ve been taking our criticisms and they are trying new things.
I, I, I’m, you know, I think that that might be wishful thinking, but I’ll, I’ll, I’ll take it anyway.
10:46
But they, this is Saranac Brewing, which we’ve had on the show multiple times.
And, you know, it’s a fairly local beer brewery to us.
And they’ve brought back their dark Toberfest beer in their 12 beers of Oktoberfest pack that they’re putting out this year for the fall pack.
11:02
And again, most of the time they only have their 1888 Oktoberfest, the the standard Oktoberfest that they they put out, which is a Mersen style.
Yeah, it’s Mersen.
It, it is.
It’s not a fest beer.
However, tasting it today because we have both on the show.
11:19
Really I’m, I’m, I’m kind of going back and forth right now with the, between the 1888 Oktoberfest and the Darktoberfest.
Tasting it today.
It definitely is on the lighter side of what the malt profile is like, you know, so like the caramel Ness, the the nice like multi notes are not as prominent in Saranac’s Oktoberfest.
11:40
So it it does feel more like a lighter fest beer in style.
And yet it’s still to me is a Merton style at its core, just maybe a little bit lighter and not as toasty and caramel Y as some other Oktoberfest tend to be.
And I don’t know if if you have done the taste test as well.
12:00
Do you have both of them with you?
Oh, I sure do.
Yeah.
So do you find that as well like their, their standard Oktoberfest?
Do you feel like that is a more of a like, oh, on the lighter side of what you consider a merits an Oktoberfest?
Yeah, it’s interesting because again, like we this is a beer we’ve been, you know, championing for like the past 12 years, ever since like we did it on the podcast, They’ve you know, I haven’t put it back out.
12:24
And we’ve been like crying and crying and bitching and moaning and we finally got it back and you know, it’s it’s good to be back.
I’m surprised like, you know, and having we didn’t do it like them back-to-back when we’d had them before.
But yeah, the regular Oktoberfest, the regular married 10 is definitely less caramel and bready then a lot of Oktoberfest that you get from breweries today like a Sam Adams, like a Wolf Hollow.
12:58
The Dark Tober, you know, fits nicely in there with those like types of like, you know, Martians that are very, you know, popular these days because they’re really big bready, somewhat almost like at times like chocolatey.
And yeah, I agree.
13:15
With this one, it’s good.
I like it, but then when I’m having like the regular Oktoberfest, I do like I do appreciate more now like that more mellowed, not as you know, a heavy note.
13:33
You know, I’m just more kind of relaxed.
I haven’t had like because they do have in the pack.
It’s this these two Oktoberfest of Helles Lager, which I’ve had and a fest pills.
I imagine the fest pills is going to be a slightly, you know, crisper fest beer because it’s, you know, pillows version of I imagine of a fest beer.
13:57
But yeah, like I said, it’s great to have it back.
It’s definitely like after like having it now.
It’s like, yeah, that’s more like a tradition, you know, an American Mars and like very, you know, bready and, you know, pumpernickel bread, you know, like, just like kind of whole body.
14:19
But the regular Oktoberfest is also like AI like it because it’s crisp, it’s refreshing.
Yeah, I agree with that.
I, I like, I think there is room for both.
And I actually, I’m really enjoying the fact that Saranac does do both.
Like I think it’s a cool idea.
Is like, what if, you know, other breweries were just like, you know, we, we, we brew a regular meritson style Oktoberfest, but what if we just plumped it up a little bit, you know, and just like went crazy with it.
14:44
Like, listen, you know, just throw in some more malts.
We’re just going to get wild.
You know, I think that would be a, a fun idea for other breweries to do.
And I really appreciate that Sarah and I is doing this and just kind of, you know, bringing this back because I think there’s, like I said, there’s room for both.
14:59
I think sometimes you’re looking for just a nice crisp, very drinkable, very light and refreshing Oktoberfest style, which they have.
And then?
If you’re having like a nice brat.
Sure, yeah.
Like you.
Want to overwhelm the taste buds?
15:15
Yeah, you want like, you know, something nice, crisp and refreshing.
Yeah.
And then on the other hand, sometimes you want something more complex and more, you know, drinkable but also sippable, right?
Like more warming.
And you know, like the way I see it is like especially in New York State right now, the fall days in the daytime are like whoop, the sweltering.
15:36
You know, I got my I got my sweater on.
I got to take it off because I went up the ladder one time and to pick an apple and now I’m sweating my balls off you.
Know so you’re getting that like you’re waking up it’s 45 and within like 2 hours it’s like.
You went a little too overboard with the, you know, the dressing up and yeah.
15:54
And so, so at that point in the day, you’re like, I want a nice little light, sessionable, you know, Oktoberfest style.
And then later on at night, you’re you’re out by the fire and it’s you know, it’s cooling down again and you’re like, wow, I’d really like a nice multi roasty, you know, dark Toberfest.
It’s a perfect tie.
16:10
You can, you can have it both ways.
I like that idea a lot.
I think the dark Toberfest is really good.
Still.
I’m you know, I’m not here to say like, whoa, you know, we’re we are taking a step back from what you know, what we remember it being.
I think it’s still really, really good.
Still got a very, you know, complex roasty notes.
16:26
I think the the brightiness really comes out a lot.
I agree with you there.
There’s like there is it’s very, very slight.
I wouldn’t say it’s like overwhelmingly nutty, but there is sort of like nutty, slightly chocolatey flavour profile to it that it that does come out like again, not overwhelming, but just a nice little texture thing that comes out every now and then and I like that.
16:47
I like that idea a lot.
I think that the dark Tobrafest is a really cool, cool thing that I more places should be doing.
They should be doing like it, you know, or if, if if need be, you know, and they don’t want to call it dark Toberfest and steal Saranacs Thunder here.
They call it like a imperial Oktoberfest or like, you know, a double Oktoberfest, if you will, you know, something stupid like that that will cater to the the dip a crowd.
17:12
You know it’s funny.
Well, it’s funny too, because like, no one appears to like, you know, beers as like, you know, imperial anymore.
We, we were talking about it last year because like, the more way we’ve been getting, excuse me as I have indigestion as we’ve been getting more and more fest beers our way.
17:33
If you’re doing 1, you need to do both.
Do both, yeah.
And also with that too, like, yeah, like, listen, I’ve had your IPA, but you know, with nectarine, and I can’t taste the difference anymore.
Let’s try mixing it up in the fall.
17:51
Sure.
I must say, making an Oktoberfest IPA.
I’m saying take your Oktoberfest and mix them up.
Yeah, give it.
Give it a little a little something.
Yeah, do a little some cute things with that.
Add a little pretzel salt onto it.
Oh yeah, actually, yeah.
18:06
Remember, remember that one that we had that was the Snyder’s pretzel?
That one was quite good, actually.
And you know, I still remember that one quite a bit too.
Yeah, nice.
I can’t even remember who made who made that.
Was that a harpoon or?
No, wasn’t Harpoon.
18:21
I can’t remember who it is now, which is kind of sad because you’re like, oh I loved it and I can’t remember who the fuck made it, but.
It was only out like I think like one year.
Correct.
Yeah, it was.
And then they did like the the tie in Oktoberfest pretzels too, which was, you know, also very good.
18:43
I, I enjoyed those Oktoberfest pretzels quite a bit too.
But yeah, it’s, it’s and now I can’t remember who did it.
I know we, I know we have it on.
Oh, Captain Lawrence did it.
Captain Lawrence.
That’s right.
And that’s one of the reasons probably why we don’t remember it very well, because we don’t really get a lot of Captain Lawrence around here.
19:02
So that’s, that’s probably why it isn’t, you know, you know, we don’t have it too often.
But I actually didn’t realize this too.
But they made a, they made a different Snyder’s beer too, that besides the merits.
And they made a pretzel fruct.
Yeah, yeah.
19:20
A goose, a style.
Interesting.
We did not get that one.
See again, that’s what I’m saying we didn’t get.
We didn’t get that one for.
Brewed with salt, pretzels, passion fruit and guava.
Yeah, it’s pretty interesting.
We didn’t we didn’t get that one, but I wish they would make that that pretzel Oktoberfest 1 again, that was that was really good.
19:36
But.
Neither here nor there one.
It’ll take another decade because we’ll get on.
Get on that.
Is listening and they’ll they’ll they’ll bring it back to you.
But yes, again, Saranac, if you’re listening, thank you for bringing back the dark Toberfest.
Really appreciate it.
19:51
I like this idea of them going back-to-back to basics like even the the labels are like their old style labels and stuff on these bottles.
It’s really cool.
So appreciate that a lot going back to the the stuff that really made them popular around this area at least.
20:06
So very cool.
All right, well.
Bring back the variety pack with six different beers.
There you go.
All right, so let’s let’s talk about Book of Blood, or as it may be called, Clyde Barker’s Book of Blood.
20:22
Which I won’t call.
I can’t.
I won’t.
Yeah.
Whichever 1 you want to call it.
It wasn’t on the title card, so.
So the interesting thing about this movie that I didn’t realize until I was looking stuff up about it is that it’s directed by John Harrison.
John Harrison, not not like a household name, but we have covered one of his other movies before, Tales from the Dark Side.
20:42
We did that for in Halloween, which is, you know, kind of interesting thing.
But but I, what I found interesting was that he, you know, he had worked pretty, pretty extensively.
Well, not not extensively, but he had some, some stuff under his belt back in the 80s and early 90s.
21:00
Like he did a few episodes of From the Crypt as well.
And so it worked in the the horror business for a bit and then kind of took a break from making movies and TV shows for a little bit.
And then in the 2000s, he released a couple of TV movies and then Book of Blood in 2009.
21:19
Dude, he was a executive producer and dire the dead.
Yes, yes, yeah, yeah.
He worked with George A Romero as well for a bit.
So the one thing that I think about, you know, with Book of Blood and some of these things where directors had, you know, pretty, you know, not not super successful, but fairly successful directorial, directorial careers early on with horror movies is then you get to movies like this in the 2000s and you’re like, what happened?
21:45
You know, I guess that kind of gives it away, but you’re like, what happened like.
Real quick, sorry to cut you off before we go on that tangent.
He did the music for Day the Dead.
I don’t.
Know.
This man is awesome.
There you go.
22:01
Yeah.
Day the Dead soundtrack’s amazing.
Like that synth Caribbean.
Like, you know, sound.
Where they were like, hey, just don’t be exactly goblin, right?
Like please please don’t be exactly goblin but like.
No, it’s totally different.
22:17
Yeah, it’s great and I love it Like you know what?
And that took me that one, that movie we got.
Can’t wait for us to like do that movie on the sidetrack in like regular Dawn of the Dead, but that soundtrack and and movie I used to hate, but like on a couple of like, you know, watches like it’s like, oh, that works so fucking good.
22:35
It’s.
You know, it’s great.
Yeah.
I didn’t, Yeah, I didn’t see that.
I didn’t.
I guess I didn’t look too closely at his other work besides the direction stuff, but that’s interesting to know.
George Romero knew what he’s doing.
22:51
All right, continue.
Sorry, yes.
So 2000 tour.
What the fuck are?
We doing?
Yeah, what the fuck are we doing?
Yeah, yeah.
And it’s.
It’s all not same vibe now.
Yeah, exactly.
This is not a, this is not a a jab at John Harrison in particular, but it’s more so just a like what happened at that point because, you know, we have to point fingers at other people too, like John Carper.
23:12
We’ve done a number of John Carper movies that were like, hey, that was kind of shitty in the 2000.
You know, I think it’s crazy.
They even had a couple that later on in his career as well, post to, you know, screams, you know, the the it’s like what what is what was going on at this time?
23:27
I think it’s it’s.
Like like the 80s when it comes to like films, like it’s like a nadir.
It’s like after the 70s, like in 60s and 70s where you had all this like great style and like all tours and you know, people having these great visions to just like no, no, what sells is saw green or blue and sterile environments and everyone is taking everything way too fucking seriously.
23:59
And like this movie, if made in the 90s or the 80s, would have been a lot better because it would have been fun at the very totally like.
And it’s like the same thing with the men.
24:14
We talked about the midnight meat trade like, it’s so just drab, dry and dreary.
And it doesn’t work because the people who are in this film portraying and telling the story are also dry, boring, pedantic, and, you know, just all the things of dreariness.
24:38
And it’s just like, wow, I’m dead.
You you know, when saw at least they had like a Wahlberg and Danny Glover.
You know, they had, you know, they and you know, there was some, you know, kind of character there like, and it’s like this film even more so.
24:57
The midnight meat trade is just a charisma vacuum.
Yeah, I agree.
I mean, I think like you, you really said it in that the film just doesn’t have that much fun in it.
It’s just not that, you know, there’s not that much excitement.
It does it almost.
25:13
It almost just acts as though like it’s just super miserable.
And the, the, the, the color grading on it, the just the, the lighting and the settings and everything is just so boring to look at.
25:28
That does not help the storyline at all.
Like, you know, you could sort of, I think like the storyline is definitely an issue, but you could sort of, I guess excuse it a little bit if at least the cinematography was like somewhat engaging, but it’s really not.
25:44
It’s like, you know, and I think we’re supposed to what is this set in like Ireland or something like I think England.
Is it England because we do see Big Ben, I guess.
So like it’s a, you know, it’s not really exactly said where it is, but it does look like it’s some sort of city and you know, pops probably England.
26:02
Like the idea is like, yes, OK, of course I know it’s very rainy in England, right?
But do we do we really need it to be like quite literally rainy in like every single scene and, you know, just seeing this very dark blue, gloomy atmosphere the entire time?
26:20
You know, if it was set in Scotland, we could have everyone’s favorite band, Scottish band, singing everyone’s song about rain.
That’s right, yeah.
You know what that song is?
Which one?
Why does it always rain on me?
That’s true.
Yeah.
Because I lied when I was 17.
26:37
No, I like, it’s like, it’s funny because it’s like the film has the budget for like, like, like this looks like it’s shot for, again, for, you know, the theatre.
But everything else makes it feel like this should be on BBC Two.
26:54
Yeah.
Like it doesn’t like least with Midnight Knee Train with the I can’t remember the director’s name, but like he had like a vision at least like.
As the stair own purpose and yeah.
And there were interesting cinematography and shots like, you know, to give it life here.
27:09
It feels so much like this belongs like on the Sci-fi Channel.
Yeah, I agree with that.
Like in, in that, that I, I felt the same way, especially towards the end when there’s the parade of ghosts that are coming out with like the, the translucent ghosts that that looks straight out of like the travel channels, like documentary, fake documentaries about like haunted houses where they’d be like, we’re going to do a re enactment now of the, you know, the fucking haunting.
27:36
And it’s just like translucent ghosts everywhere.
That really did remind me a lot of and like you said, though, the whole feel of the movie is very like TV’s not in like a in like a cheap production sort of way or an amateurish sort of way sort of way of like how ATV movie kind of feels.
27:56
And I do think this did get direct to video if I’m not mistaken.
I don’t think it actually got a theatrical release.
But regardless, like the film is just overall very ugly and not in a good way.
Like, yeah, sometimes you want an ugly movie in the sense that like Clyde Barker’s stories are ugly and they’re very, you know, that they’d scrim.
28:15
And there’s the horror aesthetic, the body aesthetic and the BDSM is sort of like this ugliness.
Yes, great.
But the the the cinematography, the look of it doesn’t have to be absolutely atrociously ugly just to look at.
Because I think at the end of the day, when you have a very staid storyline and a very ugly looking movie, they don’t go together and you’re just like sitting there twiddling your thumbs.
28:39
Like, man, I really wish this wasn’t an hour and 40 minutes long, you know?
Like it’s just just interminable.
I had to, I had to have Ryan correct me on my adjectives that I was using to describe it.
You know I that malaise and he was like, don’t you mean ennui?
28:57
Yes, I think that’s what you mean you mean in a sense of ennui and that and that like the is the film like so horrible you’re like wow, I got to turn this off No, but throughout the whole movie you’re like man, this is really boring like jeez, I just you know it’s tough to get I.
Could be doing so many other things.
29:13
Right.
Exactly.
Exactly.
I could be dusting my shelves.
I could be.
It, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s, it may be the, you know, again, like this would be also like, if we’re going with Clive Barker, stuff like this would be a really horrible, like BDSM visit.
29:29
Like if you were going to like a BDSM dungeon and you’re like, man, you know, I really wanted a lot of pain.
But like this is just, you know, barely tolerable.
And that’s kind of how I feel about Book of Blood.
It’s like, it’s just tolerable.
Like it’s, you know?
I asked you to like, you know, pull on my hair and you’re tickling my feet with.
29:47
Right, exactly.
It’s like, yeah, it’s just mildly annoying instead of the the pain and pleasure I was looking for here.
I think like the movie is the one of the biggest issues too with the movie is that the well you like you said, the milquetoast characters are really they have very little personality to them, despite the fact that like we’re forced to constantly be like shown.
30:15
Simon’s a sex.
Girl, right?
Like yes, Mary is fucking hot.
And Mary?
Mary’s, Mary’s the hot MILF.
And it’s like, not new ones anything.
Yeah, they’re all just.
Yeah, In in in the film is so is so gung ho on showing us like Mary, you know, in in all of her skin and just, you know, like constant sex scenes between them.
30:38
And it’s just like, no, this isn’t titillating.
I’m not like I actually find this mildly annoying because it just seems to like be going on endlessly for no reason.
Like I just don’t I don’t even need it in this movie whatsoever.
And and there’s no real reason for them to like I don’t feel like an attraction to the characters where I’m like, yes, I really want Mary to have sex with Simon in this house for some reason that makes no real sense.
31:01
And, and like, I don’t care if they get together or not.
Like it’s, it’s, it’s very like if the, the film spend a little bit more time with the characters maybe, but it just feels very brief.
Even though the film is overly long.
I don’t, I don’t know how to describe that any better.
But like it doesn’t really feel like we get to know the characters yet.
31:19
We’re we’re with them a lot of the time and there’s really not much happening during most of the movie.
It’s it’s a a weird space to to live in, but that’s how it is.
I.
Was going to say like my old trusty comparison here.
It’s like a Tennessee Williams play.
31:34
But it’s not like, you know, like because again, we’re like even now you see like this credits list on the Wikipedia of like 20 people.
Don’t let it fool you.
It’s like a four man show, like, you know, and it feels like very, you know, play like it’s almost Victorian the way like how stoic and wooden everyone is.
32:01
Right And one of the one of the larger problems too is like the idea itself of being set in this haunted house is is you know, well, it’s lived in, right?
It’s not like something that we’ve never seen before of like a paranormal investigator investigating a haunted house, however.
The Amityville, Yeah.
32:17
Like, hey, I was thinking of like, like when we see Mary and Reg, like, you know, showing up and like, I’m like, this is like a really boring version of Amityville or yeah, or whatever.
I’m drawing a blank conjuring.
32:33
Yes, right.
Exactly.
And like the the idea is, is sound enough where it’s just like, yeah, you’re in a haunted house.
However, this movie does not even make use of the house.
It’s almost like they only had like, locations in.
Yeah, like they only had two parts of a house or like the sound stage only had these two rooms built.
32:49
So they just traipse back and forth between the two rooms.
It doesn’t feel like the house is lived in at all.
And we don’t get to explore it.
There’s no.
Reggie’s masturbation control and then the room where all the things happen.
Exactly 1 of the biggest things that you need about when you’re having like a paranormal House movie is you need the director to have a really good sense of movement throughout the house and the vastness of a house that you can’t necessarily just have a sound stage for it, right?
33:21
Like you can’t you, you have to know how to manipulate the audience into thinking like this is a bigger house like that, that it actually feels real and that it actually feels like a, a, a place that you can map out like when you’re, when you’re walking through it, it feels like, you know, the, the blueprint of the house.
33:38
And that’s something that I think just comes with experience and with, you know, what directorial sense.
And this movie does not have it because you.
Literally just got to like, watch it.
Shining.
Yeah, right.
Like, watch out.
Like, why is there like a clip from The Shining?
And like, be like, see how Kubrick’s like making out, how he’s making that this place feel like it’s just never ending.
34:00
Exactly.
And and that’s what you kind of want with a haunted house.
The Shining is a great blueprint for that.
But also like, even if it’s a smaller house, you still want it to feel kind of maze like in the sense that like, yes, I know I’m moving from the living area to, you know, the sitting room to the dining room to the kitchen to the blah, blah, blah, you know.
34:17
It’s it’s what make gives the that feeling of fear.
It’s like you see the exterior and you’re like that house isn’t big, but when you see like all those things put together and being twisted, it’s, you know, supposed to contort your feelings of reality and the character’s feeling of reality into, you know, terror.
34:36
But here, it’s literally like, what was that MTV show Fear?
It’s like, it’s like, like locked in a room, you know, at this old sanatorium and that’s it.
Yeah, there’s there’s no sense of personality of the house either, you know, so that the characters don’t have a personality and the house doesn’t either.
34:55
Feels like 2 rooms and it’s very boring.
And another big issue with the movie is that later on it’s revealed that most of the stuff that we’ve actually seen is a hoax anyway.
So like even more so you feel like nothing’s fucking happened like this.
35:10
Literally nothing happening in this movie.
Like it it feels like they pulled is.
That part of the is that part of the story that you remember or not?
I think part of the story is that yes, he is a fake.
He’s the Simon character is a fake as an investigator.
However, what I will say is in the framing story of the Books of Blood, it has one thing going for it, brevity.
35:32
A framing story is like what, like 15 pages, right?
Like you want it to be really quick lead into the anthologies.
What is it?
How is it, you know, getting you into them?
And then you kind of in as the short story does in the Books of Blood, you have it as an ending and the ending kind of closes the book on the anthology.
35:50
And like this movie doesn’t have that of brevity, right?
It’s a fucking whole movie, you know you.
Know I was going to say so like you’ve heard how like for writing a script, it’s supposed to be a page a minute, right?
Yeah, so Bill Shakesman’s brevity, soul, wit was not the point of this song.
36:10
No, it’s.
Like, yeah, like because it like it would like if the fact that like you’re not engaged enough to begin with, like with like what’s going on.
And then like for that, like to be about the turnabout fair play, like at an hour and 30 minutes in with 10 minutes left, like exactly like this is like this whole thing is stupid.
36:33
Yeah, yeah, waste a lot of time on the part relationship and to to be fair, I think that there are some things that the film does OK.
Like I think that it, you know, it has some good effects to it.
It obviously recognizes the fact that that one effect where the the IT peels like the girl’s face off there at the beginning of the movie is is pretty good because it comes back to it literally shows it again.
37:00
It’s like, you know what, we spent the money on it.
We got to get that in again, you know, make sure that poor.
Poor girl Jamie fucking.
Yeah, getting her, getting her buttocks ripped off or something, say.
Peak 2000 attire with that like top and hair and the hot pants underwear like I felt.
37:19
So yeah, the underwear like the satiny underwear with like the like low, really, really low riding.
Yeah, that’s that’s peak 2000.
The girl who was like at the diner or whatever in the opening I felt so bad for like she’s wearing like that typical like mid 2000s like undercut top and like you know, you know the haircut too.
37:40
It’s like Jesus, like I was.
Yeah, it’s very true.
Just.
Thinking, thinking about 10 years ago we were doing this with SAW and it just felt like, yeah, we’re cut.
You know, this is coming now.
It’s been 20 years, like oh God.
Yeah, you.
Yeah, you’re kind of like over, you’re over that kind of.
37:58
Yeah, I think like, yeah, my, my biggest problem here is, though, is that it’s just like the film, for the most part feels like a waste of time.
It did.
The hauntings are not are not really that engaging.
One of the the things about the hauntings is that like we talked about how the house doesn’t really have this sense of foreboding and neither do any of the haunting sequences.
38:18
It’s quite literally like, hey, there’s going to be like loud whispering happening.
We’re going to follow a person as they walk like really mundanely through the house until they get to the same room that we’ve seen mean three times and the same structure is going to happen.
38:34
We’re going to we’re going to do a quick zoom in and then there’s going to be a loud noise like a door shutting And then like, are you scared yet?
Like who is does that terrifying to you?
It’s like, no, first of all, you’ve done that like you’ve literally that’s the that’s the the extent of your scares for the the whole first half of the movie.
38:51
And secondly, like it’s not scary at all.
Doesn’t really, it doesn’t conjure any dread.
It’s just like a very madcap like scenario that occurs where they just do a loud noise.
It it’s like a fundamental misunderstanding of of what would make a paranormal or ghost story scary.
39:10
Like, no, I don’t need a zoom in again.
I think that’s, you know, a really big issue in that like even the scares in the movie are just not not really interesting.
And you you start to get desensitized to them too because like I said, they they use the same exact setup for all of them and it’s just not it doesn’t lead to anything interesting.
39:35
You brought up a great point.
Why are there dragonflies in this film?
What are they for?
Like I said, like is it like I don’t like know if that’s in the action?
Yeah, I can’t.
I can’t say that for sure.
I don’t know if dragonflies.
But even still, OK, fine.
39:50
Why are they CGI?
Yeah.
You don’t need to CGI in a fucking dragonfly.
It just.
A fleet flock of dragonflies.
Why is a dragonfly the one when they’re like, you’re the one, Neo?
Like when like it’s Simon that’s doing it’s you, Mary, you’re the special one like I don’t understand like.
40:11
No it.
What’s the symbol?
What’s the point like?
Yeah, I don’t get it either.
It seems very random.
It’s like dragonflies, you know, like.
And usually when it comes to stuff like that, when you’re watching like a horror film was like, bugs and spiders and scorpions and things that are creepy crawly that make you feel, you know, mice and rats, pestilence.
40:32
But like, just fucking directly, yeah.
You know what you think of and you’re like, what are spooky like beautiful dragonflies like?
Maybe, maybe over in England, that’s what’s considered, you know, spooky because like, Oh no, it reminds me of the Boggs in Scotland.
Like, like and I’m quite quite understand.
40:51
That’s right.
You know, Yeah, I, I don’t, I don’t get it either.
But yeah, it’s just another like confounding decision, I guess.
I don’t, I don’t know.
I don’t know, I think that like the Clive Barker short story, like we said it, the the brevity of it is one thing, right, But also the idea is just so the the the shortness of the idea is really the point.
41:14
It’s supposed to be this really quick, like, oh, that’s creepy.
Like the ghosts are writing on him and it doesn’t really go into more detail than that because it doesn’t need it.
But here in a film full length version, the film has to like almost beat to death this idea of like the ghosts write on him because they want to get their stories out and like.
41:35
But it’s stupid because, again, it’s like, what does it do to at the end of the film to find out, like, one of the writers is a Holocaust victim?
Yeah, one of one of them is a, you know, a soldier from World War, the Great War.
41:51
And it’s like, what difference by that point?
But yeah, by that point, the film burned so much goodwill.
It’s like, it doesn’t matter.
Like again, like if this was an anthology of India, it’s being set up as like, oh, I mean, you know, paranormal person, ha ha, ha.
42:12
And then like, you know, he gets rat fucked by something and then he gets corrupted.
And like you’re, you know, going to have like these stories of these ghosts, you know, written on you and your stories to be told and then see what these stories are.
That’s a great premise, a great setup.
42:29
And like, again, this just should have been a fucking anthology.
This, like, dithering about in making, you know, Doctor Who but for spooky things is just beyond the pale and just really dull and boring and such a like, just a missed opportunity because again, like, they spend an hour and a half, they spend 90 minutes building this up, and then you finally get to, like, the actual what’s happening.
43:03
And by that point, you’re already checked out.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I mean, I think also you kind of know where it’s going.
Like you need.
There’s not really that much mystery about it.
You’re just like, OK, the end of the movie, I guess it does really make you question like, why would why would people care about these stories of supposed actual ghosts from Mary writing them?
43:27
Like it doesn’t really resonate.
It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.
Well, she turned into JK Rowling at the end, like, you know.
Yeah, I think the the better idea from from Clyde Barker’s story is to remain very ambiguous of just like, yeah, the ghost that, you know, they’re using his skin to communicate and that’s kind of the extent of the book of blood.
43:49
And it’s just very ambiguous.
And it doesn’t have to go into all this unnecessary detail that this film has to draw out for an hour and 40 minutes.
It’s just very elongated for really no reason to just to tell the story.
And that’s why I said at the beginning of the film, it is very odd to pick a framing story as you’re like full length movie.
44:08
It just doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense to me as to why you would want to do that.
It just seems like a waste of time.
It’s like it’s like saying like you wanted to make a full length version of the trick or treat, you know, framing story in the in trick or treat, right Where where like you see Sam traipsing around the town looking at people, right?
44:30
Like that would be the extent of the stories.
Sam goes around and just looks at people and the whole, you know, as your framing device.
It just is weird.
It’s a weird concept to me.
Have you?
Ever imagined Halloween but Michael Myers?
Yeah, just driving around, it was like this, the whole.
Movie just looking.
44:46
The dread, yeah.
Yeah, the dread of seeing him stare at people and decide, you know what?
That one looks too hard.
Next house.
You know what?
I was going to kill her, but she’s giving out Mr. Good Far.
Yeah.
And Michael likes Mr. Goodbye.
45:02
Yeah, I think the whole concept of Book of Blood is just really mundane and it doesn’t, it doesn’t translate well.
I think it’s it’s it’s an OK movie.
It’s it’s like, it’s like tolerable.
Like I said, it’s not, it’s not horrible.
But I did find myself like just constantly like looking at my watch.
45:19
Like how much longer has this got?
How much longer we got with this?
And I and I watched it on Pluto so I had to deal with ad breaks like.
Every that’s even.
Worse every six minutes.
Like, you know what?
I’d actually rather watch this Doritos ad.
Well, because it’s like, Oh yeah, because it’s like you get the same ad, like 4 ads for like 3 minutes every time and there’s like 12 ad breaks and you’re just like, this is just a reminder.
45:42
It’s like, how much?
How long am I in?
Oh God no.
Oh, it’s only 12.
You know 1.
Other thing I wanted to point out is that Doug Bradley is in this movie who who plays pinhead in the house raiser movies and he shows up because obviously like a lot of in a lot of times, Doug Bradley was doing a lot of cameos at this time of just like showing up and things because he was Doug Bradley.
46:08
And, you know, it was just, you know, somebody went to a convention and they’re like, we’re making a movie.
Doug, would you show up in the movie?
And he’s like, sure, yeah, look, I’ll do it.
So I feel like that’s probably what happened here as well.
They were just like, you know, it’s a Clive Barker ask a movie.
So we’re going to ask Doug Bradley to show up here, which I found very interesting because he gets like third billing or something and like he shows up for literally 2 minutes.
46:31
He probably was on set for like, you know who.
Even was he?
He was Tollington the the the bald guy that shows up in the portrait and then later on in the Mill movie where it’s showing him like doing a seance or something, the guy.
That’s like at the Aleister Crawley Stand.
46:47
Yeah, yeah, the Seance guy, yeah, he’s just, he’s that.
So like he’s literally in the movie for like 2 two minutes maybe tops.
Maybe good for him.
Yeah, he probably didn’t get much of A paycheck, I’m assuming, but you know, he does it for the love of it.
Yeah, dude, for the love of the game, like a Bruce Campbell, you know?
47:04
Yeah, exactly.
He’s just, you know, especially when it has Clyde Barker, because he’s so synonymous with Clyde Barker now because of the Hellraiser series that he just shows up for stuff and just does it.
What else?
What else didn’t I talk about?
What you wanted to cover?
47:24
Yeah, that’s about cover that.
I mean, like, like we said off camera, like it’s it was going to be a rough episode to kind of squeeze anything out.
Yeah, it’s a it’s a pretty.
Hey, listen, if you’re one of the people who saw this film and were in love with it, hey, kudos to you.
47:43
I didn’t say I hate him.
It’s already milked dryer than Simon in this movie after he said and tells a Mary that he he can’t get to sleep unless he masturbates.
That was a pretty funny fucking.
And you know what?
And you know what?
What he Of course he didn’t get to sleep.
47:59
She gave him a handy.
Yeah.
So yeah, he.
Didn’t masturbate, you gave him a handy.
Super funny.
How do you like, how do you like the whole uncircumcised, I mean, yeah, uncircumcised Venus, what’s your thoughts?
On Yeah, like a little little full frontal well, it’s not really full right, it’s like side frontal but yeah, that’s nice and you know, you definitely get a lot of skin in terms of like seeing Simon’s ass a lot and you know because Simon’s just like well sleep nude.
48:30
I’m just going to take my pants off like I don’t know this is.
You would think Jonas Armstrong is some like fucking Brad Pitt or something, but you know, yeah, he, he looks just so much like English Debbie Downer Peter Parker, you know?
48:46
And like all he does is just pout the entire time like.
I saw my dad, my brother dying.
Grow up.
Grow up.
Yeah, You’re 4 years old or whatever.
It’s like the newest Evil Dead or yeah.
49:04
And then, you know, like, again, the film really loves to show Sophie Ward naked as well.
Like this spends many, many moments just like ogling her body for some reason.
It’s like.
Do you think she was like?
Do you think she was like, pump a titty out when they’re like, yeah, no, Sophie, you don’t have to.
49:21
You’re just eating Cheerios.
Apparently, yeah.
I mean, it seems like it because they they they literally make use of it multiple times.
They’re just like the cameras.
Like, luridly, like fouling her body.
Like, you know somebody, somebody should have told her.
Like listen, those pencil thin eyebrows aren’t doing you any favours, grow them in.
49:40
You know what though, I do appreciate the the silver hair that she sports at the end.
I think that looks better than that.
That’s nice.
Little like.
It looks great, you know.
Gives her a little nice little pop to her.
But yeah, all right, so let’s rate Book of Blood.
49:55
So on a scale of zero to 10 highways of the dead, because if I have to hear the fucking intersections, there’s highways of the dead and there’s an intersection like the the film says it like I’m not even joking, like four or five times the same fucking counter.
50:12
That’s right.
It it was actually getting obnoxious after like the last one where they literally said it again, it’s like, we get it, we get it.
There’s a fucking roadway through here and it’s fucking packed.
Fucking ghosts.
We get it, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s really silly.
But on a scale of zero to 10 highways of the dead, what would you give Book of Blood?
50:33
Give it a four, right Ted?
I mean, this film is boring.
It’s bad.
It’s not enjoyable, it’s not fun.
There’s no fun to be had.
There’s no joy to be had.
It’s very dry and just, you know, long winded and annoying.
50:53
Spend your time doing something better.
Like I said, I haven’t read Book of Blood.
I haven’t read the story that this is attached to.
I prayed for Clive Barker’s sake that it’s much more enjoyable and this is just a bastardization of it because it’s just not that.
51:13
Like it’s just not there’s, it’s just not a good movie.
It’s really boring and it’s really hard.
And like, that’s the thing that sucks when you have feeling like that.
We’ve done films that we’ve like done like this for the podcast because there’s not much you can say.
They’re just bad, objectively bad.
And if you watch them, you’ll be like, I understand why heeded the warning.
51:36
It’s just like, you know, it’s cool.
Like I said, it’s a cool idea.
That’s just, you know, not even close to being realized would be cooler just and like, maybe this is because it’s like later in the 2 mid 2, you know, the 2000s.
51:55
Like maybe This is why Clive’s like, you’re not touching that story because he’s like, you know what if you can’t do it right?
No one’s going to do.
It yeah, 4 out of 10, I think our my, our conversation is my review.
52:10
I can’t really sum it up.
It’s like, just listen, it’s bad.
Yeah, I would agree.
I would give it about a four out of time.
It’s it’s just a really boring movie.
It just doesn’t really seem to go anywhere most of the time.
I think the one of the biggest issues is that it doesn’t have feel like as a personality to it.
52:28
The house doesn’t feel like you really get to explore it.
There’s no real suspense generated.
Everything is really telegraphed to the point where it’s like you’re going to you know exactly how the scares are going to go for the next 30 minutes or so because they’ve been exactly the same setup each time.
52:45
So like you, you, you just start to not be even have any sort of dread because you know that it’s just going to be zoom in loud noise.
I think that it it would the the part of the main problem is just the conceit of the whole thing that it’s not AI don’t think it’s a story that you can draw out to a feature length film that well.
53:06
You’re trying to force a longer story into something that’s supposed to be abrupt and very ambiguous.
And I don’t think that it works well to to make it into a full film.
You know, again, I think that the direction is partially a problem here.
53:24
It’s just a drab movie overall, very ugly to look at.
There’s really nothing going on here.
The cinematography is not inventive.
It’s very rote and you know, bottom of the barrel site type of cinematography to like just basically get a image on the screen and it’s just doesn’t really have much going for it or an inventiveness to it.
53:46
So there’s nothing to to engage the viewer with.
So yeah, it’s a boring movie, watchable, questionable.
Like did you could watch it?
You could have it on in the background, but do you really want to sit there for an hour and 40 minutes like wasting your time?
You’re watching this movie when you could be watching something a lot more engaging?
54:05
I don’t think so.
So poor.
I attend from them.
Poor, poor Clyde Barker.
This is the first one that we’ve really gone to, gone to town on and ripped.
Yeah, it’s true.
It’s not his fault.
He had really nothing to do with this.
54:20
I don’t even think he got a producer’s credit on this one, to be honest with you.
He did.
Oh, did he OK?
He did OK.
Yeah.
I.
Anything in the executive producer super?
Probably super limited involvement.
They probably just literally talked to him one time is is my guess but.
Yeah.
54:38
Well, we’re going to be back with more bobbing for Barker next week and probably more one of the the the older films that Clyde Barker’s been involved in for next time.
So they’ll want to stick around for that as we continue bobbing for Barker all Halloween season.
54:55
We’re almost to October now.
So what probably normal people think of as the start of the spooky season, but not for us.
We start early on in September.
So, but if you like what you’re hearing, you should subscribe to us on pretty much any podcast app you can take up.
We’re on Apple podcasts or home base and Spotify, whatever you use, I’m sure we’re on it.
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So subscribe, leave us a nice review.
We’re on Facebook and Blue Sky.
You can search for us on their Blood and Black Rum podcast.
We also have an e-mail address where you can write to [email protected].
Let us know what you like, what you don’t like, what movies you want us to watch.
Take that into consideration and you can donate to us on our Patreon page.
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Anything you donate goes back towards beer.
So we appreciate that in advance.
Thanks a lot for listening to our episode on book of blood.
Don’t fall for it.
You, you, you do not want to watch it.
I’m just telling you right now we’re we were being honest.
So don’t don’t go and do it.
Don’t blame us if you do.
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But thanks for listening.
Hope you enjoyed and we’ll see you back next time for more bobbing for Barker.
Until then.
Take care.
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