Clive Barker has made a whole bunch of comments that Horror Online
has published.. I don't usually do rebuttles.. But Barker has been particularly
HARSH toward the latest Horror films. It's a big tall poppies tribute. (Barker
is in Italic) "Well END OF DAYS is a very quick story. It was just
that my then-agent called me up and said 'You know we have this movie, they
need to do it really quickly.' It was one of those situations where there
was something quite tempting about it. I like making movies and I was sort
of looking at the idea of making a movie in a very short time frame, and
there would have been something quite entertaining about doing a Schwarzenegger
picture. But in the end you sort of have to make your choices. You get one
life and you have to choose really between the things you're going to put
your time into and the things you're not. I don't regret that choice, particularly
having seen the movie." Okay this is a fair statement from Barker,
but their is a really quirky irony in there as well. Barker is kind of admitting
that he would have liked to make a lousy film in a short time frame. I'mf
guessing he thinks that End of Days was bad.
Barker than went on to talk about "The Thief
of Always". "It's in good shape. I have a meeting at
Universal tomorrow (December 15) on that very thing. Though the issues we're
looking at right now are exactly how it's going to be done. There is some
argument as to whether it will be entirely CGI -- Toy Story style -- or
a mixture of live action and CGI. Presumably we will make up our minds tomorrow.
But Universal is very committed to it, and I have high hopes that we will
make that movie work. It's a very expensive movie… there are a lot
of effects, there's a lot of spectacle to it. But I have a good working
relationship with the guys at Universal. I like them immensely and they've
been very supportive to the project. I have high hopes that it will go."
will he direct the film?? "There just isn't enough time. At
some point I'm gonna need to clone myself. At a certain point it just becomes
impossible to do all these things. I've got three books on the blocks right
now and I need to develop them, finish them, polish them and deliver them.
And then probably I'll go make a movie for New Line, which is this horror
movie. I like those guys a lot, so I hope we can make it work over there.
Mike DeLuca is a tremendous creator, I think, and producer. So my hope is
that we will make that picture starting end of next year."
Barker on PUSHING THE ENVELOPE "Those (scripts) are written,
actually. Bill Condon (director of GODS AND MONSTERS) has written one of
them and it's tremendous. That will be, in terms of scale, a much more modestly
sized picture. I'm looking at something which is much more the size of GODS
AND MONSTERS. That way, feeling as though we can really, because the budget
will be very modest, that way feeling as though we can really keep the creative
controls. You know 'The Books Of Blood' were
perhaps noteworthy when they came out because they pushed the envelope a
little bit. And I want to make sure the movie adaptations do the thing.
HELLRAISER did that. It's harder, I think now, to push the envelope where
horror material is concerned than ever before. I don't think we're seeing
a lot of material, horror movies now that really do push the envelope. Cronenberg
is doing it less and less." The annoying thing is that is really
cheesing me off is the way that Barker sees Cronnenberg as an evolving force
in the Horror cinema. A single direct can not change an industry, a director
usually can only tell stories with there own special trademarks. If Barker
is getting tired of the trademarks that make Cronnenberg films his own than
he might have just got tired of Cronneberg films. Cronnenberg advanced horror
once in my opinion with Videodrome, if Barker expects a director to continuosly
do that than he is in the wrong period of time. During the studio system
a director could afford to do it. Now a director can not. Unless that director
is making INDIE hobby films.
Barker comments on the majority of recent Horror Films, "they
tend to be, by and large, rather dumb movies. THE MUMMY is less of a problem
for me frankly than, you know, the inevitable I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER.
URBAN LEGEND I found particularly troubling because I did feel as though
it took more than a slice out of the CANDYMAN mythology for its inspiration.
And that slightly troubled me. I felt like this was a movie that more than
owed a significant part of its existence to CANDYMAN. And I don't like to
see that. Go find your own ideas, guys!" WHAT!!! yeah like Barker
came up with the Urban legend with the bloke with a hook on his hand. That
Urban Legend has been around for years and years.. Barker just dressed it
up and put it into a historical content. I'm fairly sure that urban legend
evolved from the Phantom Killer (Lover Lane) murders in the Town That Dreaded
Sundown. If Barker classes the three films mentioned as benchmarks of recent
Horror films he needs to realise that there are over 90 Horror features
made each year (excluding a lot of the INDIE stuff and SHORTS) these films
are only three of them. If IKWYDLS and UL owe anything to any film, it is
"Campfire Tales" and Lois Duncan. Sorry to have a spat, I'm sick
of ppl talking down HORROR, to try and make there own work look better.
I love Barker films, I love the way they are GOREY and I love his trademarks
of American nostalgia, I love the way they have a very Italian feel to them.
(HFA NEWS) |
, 1998-1999.